Steam to add 12 new currencies including AUD, NZD

Potentially bad news for antipodean Steam fans today, as Valve has announced plans to introduce localised currency support.

According to a slide tweeted out of the Develop Days event by Armin Ibrisagic of Sanctum developer Coffee Stain Studios, Steam will introduce support for 12 new currencies in 2014.

The shot is a little blurry, but definite additions appear to include the Australian dollar, Canadian dollar, Indonesian rupiah, Japanese yen, New Zealand dollar, Malaysian Ringgut, Mexican peso, Phillipines Peso, Singaporean dollar, South Korean Won, Thai baht and Urkainian Hryvna.

These new currencies would join Brazilian Reais, British pounds, Euros, Russian rubles.

Although introducing local currency support means users aren't at the whims of varying exchange rates, and will be better supported by local payment methods, it does mean publishers will be manually fixing regional prices more widely. For countries where price-jacking - territorial increases well beyond the usual mark up - is common, this practice will be less obvious.

Thanks, Ausgamers.