Steam Store Australian Dollar support has arrived. Unfortunately, the Gaben giveth and the Gaben taketh away, as a number of titles are no longer available for purchase for Australian customers. These missing games include everything ranging from indie titles like Undertale and Deponia, to bigger-budget fare like Warhammer: Vermintide 2 and Planet Coaster.
Gamers down under have wanted Steam Store Australian Dollar support for some time and Valve has finally made it possible to buy games in their native currency. Any Australian Steam accounts with Steam Wallet credit in USD have had it converted to AUD. Furthermore, gamers in the continent-sized country can now only make purchases in AUD and nothing else.
News of the switch to a native currency should generally be a good thing for Aussie gamers, but the addition of Steam Store Australian Dollar support has also had a bit of a downside. The reason for the bad news is buried a bit further down in the F.A.Q. for the switch:
“Most games previously available in USD are now priced in AUD and are available for purchase in Australia, but an occasional product may be missing until it is priced in AUD.”
It appears that the list of “occasional product[s]” is distressingly long at this point in time. Kotaku reports a lengthy list of games that just cannot be purchased at all because the developers have failed to set a price in Australian dollars for their title. One user in the comments said that approximately 75 percent of their Steam Wishlist was unavailable for purchase. One of the more egregious omissions is Warhammer: Vermintide 2, a title that was a featured deal for the day.
What’s worse is that news of a potential switch to AUD was floating around as early as 2017 and Valve had stated that their plans for Steam Store Australian Dollar purchasing as early as 2014. Developers ought to have had plenty of advance warning, but it seems that a number of them just didn’t take the time to input a price. Thankfully, games that were already owned are still available to play even if they’re unavailable for purchase. For now, Australian gamers will have to make do with what they have until developers get their act together.
