They’re not even the same currency at all, yet Steam or any other digital storefront decides to price a 80€ ($91) game the same as a $80 (69€) one when the conversions in reality are different to what the algorithm suggests. It’s reflected on Steam DB that Euro has a higher markup in comparison to US Dollar because of this, since I hear EU players nagging about paying 80€ at launch the same as US players don’t like paying $80.
Since digital copies cost nearly zero to make, prices of digital goods such as video games are completely arbitrary anyway; they are set to whatever people are willing to pay.
The conversion rate between EUR and USD is so ridiculously close to 1 that it makes sense to treat them as essentially equivalent. If you don’t, you’ll just spend unnecessary effort converting to and from numbers that aren’t round.
1 dollar equals 87 euro cents. How is that ridiculously close?
Compared to many other currency conversions in the world, it is very close. When I read prices in USD, I think of them as euro prices in my head.
Having the choice to pay 100eu or 87eu for something, i doubt a lot of people would say it is the same thing.
Yep. 87 is fine at being almost 100, but 100 is entirely way too much
All prices are set to what people are willing to pay
But for physical goods, the minimum price is what the store paid for acquiring or producing it in the first place. That isn’t a consideration for digital goods.
Its less of a consideration, I would say the cost of selling a disc based game is not a hugely different cost to selling a digital game for major players in the industry
A disc as well as its packaging still cost money; also, a physical store needs to pay rent and salaries.