God Bless The EU For Ruining Publishers' Ability To Gaslight Us On Steam

News
Written By NLM Team

I admit that I usually spend my time complaining about government overreach or how regulations ruin the fun, but today I am pouring one out for the bureaucrats in Brussels.

If you are browsing the Steam Winter Sale from Europe right now, you might have noticed something weird. You scroll past Hades II or Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun and the price button is green. It looks like a sale. It smells like a sale. But there is no percentage tag. No "-50%" or "-20%" sticker screaming for your attention. It is just a flat, green price.

You aren't glitching. This is the EU's "Omnibus Directive" in action, and it is quietly the single greatest weapon we have against corporate pricing shenanigans.

The 30-Day Truth Bomb

Here is the deal. In the bad old days (and currently in the US), a publisher could jack up the price of a game a week before a sale, then drop it back down to "normal" and slap a "50% OFF!" sticker on it. It is a classic retail scam. It makes you feel like you are getting a bargain when you are actually just paying the standard price.

The EU decided they were sick of this specific brand of nonsense. Under the Omnibus Directive, retailers, including digital ones like Steam, must use the lowest price of the last 30 days as the reference point for any discount claims.

So, if a publisher had their game on sale for €10 two weeks ago, and now they put it on "sale" for €15? Steam legally cannot show you a discount percentage based on the €30 base price. They have to compare it to that €10 low. Since the current price is higher than the lowest recent price, the percentage tag vanishes.

The RoboCop Reality Check

Let's look at a concrete example someone spotted. Take RoboCop: Rogue City. The standard price is €39.99. The current "sale" price is €15.99. In America, that would likely show a juicy "-60%" tag.

But thanks to the EU, we can see the "30-Day Low" right there in the cart. The 30-day low was €3.99.

Because the game was practically given away recently, this current €15.99 price isn't a deal. It is a markup compared to recent history. The green button stays blank because showing a discount percentage would be misleading. It is the UI equivalent of Steam whispering, "Hey buddy, this isn't actually a good price, keep walking."

Why This Matters

This forces transparency in a market that thrives on FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out). We have been conditioned to see a green box and click "Buy" without thinking. We see "-75%" and our lizard brains light up.

This regulation kills that reflex. It forces us to actually look at the price rather than the discount. It exposes the games that are perpetually "on sale" to manipulate their placement in the store algorithms. If a game is constantly discounted, is it ever really full price? The EU says no.

It is not fully rolled out in every single country yet, and implementation varies, but seeing it ripple across the storefront is satisfying. It turns the Steam store from a minefield of psychological tricks into something resembling an honest marketplace.

So if you see a green button with no number on it, don't be confused. Be grateful. It means the system is working, and it just saved you from overpaying for a game that was dirt cheap three weeks ago.

YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE

NLM Team
Previous

Alchemy Factory Review - I Haven’t Slept in Three Days and I Blame the Conveyor Belts
Next

Marathon’s Art Director Just Quit Bungie, And The Timing Is… Interesting