After the huge difference in regional prices became apparent, news of EA’s first F1 game as the new owner of Codemasters deteriorated.
Overnight, the code manager announced F1 2021, Is this year’s version of its long-running official Formula One racing game. The game will be released on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S on July 16.
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The announcement is quite exciting. On the one hand, this is Codemasters’ first game under EA Sports, and recently completed a $1.2 billion acquisition. Some of the features of F1 2021 revealed so far are also interesting. This year’s game introduced a two-person cooperative career mode.
“F1 2021” will also expand the game’s derailment management meta-game, including some (often more exciting) human dramas.
Unfortunately, what usually causes F1 fans to celebrate quickly becomes sour, because players in many countries have seen how F1 2021 is priced compared to last year’s race. Codemasters often provides fair regional prices for games in poor and developing countries, so these new prices shock many people.
If found Rushman On Twitter, F1 2021 prices in more than a dozen countries/regions have risen sharply. In Argentina, the price of F1 in 2020 is 649,99 Argentine pesos (US$7), while the price of F1 in 2021 is 3599,00 Argentine pesos (US$38.80). Although both prices are still lower than the US standard suggested retail price of $60, the price has more than fivefold.
For Turkey, Russia, Kazakhstan, Indonesia, India, Brazil, Ukraine, Malaysia, Colombia, Vietnam, Costa Rica and several other places, the situation is similar. Inexplicably, although the exchange rate is good for the US dollar, some countries (such as South Africa, the Philippines, and others) end up paying more than US$60, or in the case of South Africa, more than US$70.
The Steam database page for F1 2020 and F1 2021 side by side is instructive. This actually prevents many people in these places from having access to this year’s game. Regional pricing is critical to breaking into these markets. As I said before, sometimes this is the only real way for publishers to combat piracy.
When asked to comment, EA provided a standard statement. A statement from iGamesNews said: “F1 2021 pricing is consistent with the methodology of EA and major industry publishers in each region.”
