Factorio studio angers Russian gamers by increasing regional price from $9 to $174
Factorio(opens in new tab) developer Wube Software is facing a fierce backlash from Russian gamers after suddenly and sharply increasing the price of the game on Steam in Russia. The price hike resulted in a flood of hundreds of negative user reviews(opens in new tab), and while the overall rating remains «overwhelmingly positive,» the current rating is «mixed,» with just over half of the user reviews posted over the past 30 days being positive.
As shown by SteamDB(opens in new tab), the price of Factorio in Russia had held steady at ₽520 ($9) since Factorio's launch in 2020. On July 14, however, it shot up to ₽10,000—more than $174. That's a hell of a price for an indie game on Steam in any country, and it came without any word from the developer about a reason for the increase, or even an acknowledgement that it had happened.
Predictably, that led to confusion. Some followers assumed it was a mistake—that someone at Wube had mashed the «0» button one too many times while attempting to increase the price to a far more reasonable ₽1,000. Others, however, took it as a sign that the studio was making a statement about Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
The customer review graph tells the tale:
«Yesterday they changed price from 500 rub ~9 usd to 10000 rub ~ 170 usd. And didn't give any reason (okay we all understand this is because of Ukraine-Russian conflict),» one Steam reviewer wrote. «I don't understand why regular players have to overpay because of the political stance of the developers. they literally say: Hey, are you Russian? then you will pay 20 times more for our product. I think it's called racism.»
«Bringing politics into the game world is the worst thing developers can do and should be ashamed of themselves,»
Read more on pcgamer.com
