I have been a loyal and devoted player of Gems of War for a long time. Over the months and years, I have bought almost every campaign, season pass, and PvP ticket. I have always been happy to financially support this game because it brought me joy.
However, the current regional pricing for the Ukrainian shop has become completely unrealistic and unfair.
As you can see in the attached screenshot, an offer meant to cost $10 USD is priced at 529.99 UAH in our shop. Meanwhile, the actual, official bank exchange rate is around 44.37 UAH per $1 USD. This means Ukrainian players are being overcharged by nearly 20% compared to the global standard.
For those of us living in Ukraine under constant shelling and the terrifying realities of war, this game is not just simple entertainment. It is a vital escape, a brief window of peace where we can take a break from the daily horrors around us. Seeing the prices artificially inflated under these circumstances feels deeply discouraging, almost like an insult to a community going through an incredibly difficult time.
Due to this broken currency conversion, I categorically refuse to spend even a single cent on the game anymore. I will not make any further purchases until the exchange rate for Ukraine is adjusted to match reality.
Please, look into this pricing issue and make the exchange rate fair for Ukrainian players. We want to support you, but it must be mutual.
We had announced that there would be price changes coming for XBOX and Android a little while ago and then sharing updates as I got word that those changes ended up being delayed
I can chase up with the team if those are the intended new prices, or if there was an issue with updating them.
But checking the USD value of that new (530 UAH is around $11.90 USD) it does not seem to be well beyond what was expected. At the moment, I do not think this new price is a bug, but I will confirm.
Some regions saw less than a 5% increase, and then some regions saw above a 15% increase.
Same price on Steam - $10.I want to emphasize that the price on Android changed very recently, not in 2024. Your explanation does not satisfy players from Ukraine at all.
As Nerdie already mentioned, I was referencing the last time we had a price increase in 2024 and not that that was when I made the post.. Those posts were made within the past 8 weeks
I don’t have much more information other than what was shared in my original post, which does cover the reasons we updated them.
Pricing adjustment calculations aren’t just based on exchange rates alone as they can be extremely fluid, not just day to day but hour by hour.
Again, like I already mentioned I will follow up.
But while we understand the situation those in the Ukraine are experiencing and are affected by, along with any other country that saw a price increases where players are possibly not in a position to be able to justify spending money on a game because of factors impacting there life.
These political/social/economical etc factors are not quantifiable into a calculation that can be used in a way to make these sort of adjustments, or at least in a way that can be fairly applied to every country.
In the ideal world, there would never be cost of living increases, inflation, purchase tax, the cost to have a game on a platform etc etc, but it is not possible for the life of the game, and the studio that is behind it to never have price increases.
Again (again) I will follow up in case there is a mistake here in how much it has increased.
Ukraine is one of the countries under review. Not for the reasons given in this original post, just because there appears to have been some discrepancies across the UK and some other countries. I will be updating the Balances and Changes thread whenever there is more information.
