Local gamers who rely on Steam heavily may want to brace themselves for what’s to come. According to an email that has been sent to Steam developers recently, it appears that Valve will be implementing Goods and Services Tax on the games in the Steam Store for selected countries starting from the month of March.
According to the email in question, this GST system will first be implemented in a list of ten countries. These are Switzerland, South Korea, Japan, New Zealand, Iceland, South Africa, India, Serbia, Taiwan and Australia. The first batch of countries will have the GST system in place in March, while Australia will be the last country out of the first 10 to have a GST system in place by July.
One very important thing to note about the GST system is that it doesn’t necessarily mean that games on Steam will get more expensive. Valve is looking to implement the GST system in the same way the VAT system is applied in Europe. In some cases, GST has already been factored in when the game goes on the Steam marketplace. When Valve brings the GST system online, the only change gamers can expect is that Steam will now seperate the tax out from the actual retail price of the game. Needless to say, some games will also get a tad bit more expensive as the developers decided to implement GST to their titles.
Before you breath a sigh of relief in that Valve won’t be implementing a GST system in Malaysia, do note that the company has mentioned that it intends to add other individual countries over the course of 2017 and 2018, depending on applicable law.