Steam support for Philippine peso
Valve's Steam support for the Philippine peso was a major change in the digital store when it started to support the Philippine peso currency. Steam implemented Philippine regional pricing which significantly lowered the default pricing in the country, and the support for the local currency prevented additional currency exchange charges.
Background
On January 15 and 16, 2014, the first Steam Dev Days event was held in Seattle's Washington State Convention Center. During the event, Valve announced that it would be introducing 12 new currencies to its Steam platform in 2014. The new currencies include support for Australia, Canada, Thailand, Norway, Mexico, New Zealand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Ukraine, Japan, and the Philippines.
In September 2014, an e-mail was sent out to Philippine Steam accounts indicating that Steam would be priced in the Philippine peso on September 16, and the Steam Wallet balances of players in the Philippines would be converted to the peso at a conversion rate dictated by market value at the time of conversion. The currency support for the Thai Baht, Malaysian Ringgit, Singapore Dollar, and Indonesian Rupiah were also implemented on the same day.
Implementation
Regional pricing
Games initially listed on Steam have default regional pricing, which, for the Philippine region, is significantly lower than the US dollar equivalent. The games' publishers can manually override these default values.
Many indie game publishers often make use of the default regional pricing. Large publishers, such as Capcom, SEGA, and Paradox Interactive, override the default pricing to reflect Philippine prices nearly equivalent to the games' US dollar prices.
Microtransactions
Microtransactions in Valve games such as Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Dota 2 also became available for purchase in Philippine pesos, although the prices are not discounted and are closer to the US dollar equivalent.
Steam marketplace
The global Steam marketplace, where people can buy or sell items using their Steam Wallet balances, dynamically converts the player-defined prices of items to the Philippine peso.
