Let’s Build a Zoo publisher No More Robots states that the exchange rates on the Nintendo eShop have affected the game’s pre-order phase on the Nintendo Switch. After placing the game on Nintendo eShop on pre-order, the company’s Founder, Mike Rose, saw that 85% of pre-orders came from Argentina.
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The experienced publisher shared the story in a chain post on Twitter. He quickly realized that these orders weren’t from Argentina, but people were “region-swapping” to find the best price possible for the game. Argentina took the cake with a $1.50 price tag.
Rose stated that users could simply search for the lowest-price country and shift their store accordingly. He then noticed that the game was going up the charts in the US, although quickly discovered that the US store is not only for the US, it’s for the “Americas” region. This meant that sales in Argentina almost put the game in the top 100 on the US charts.
This surge caused the game to be seen in the US, which led to the game being featured in shops in Europe and Australia. The game selling copies for $1.5 eventually turned out to be an unintentional publicity stunt, finding itself topping the Deals tab on various eShops.
Rose finished his post by saying, “Platforms really need to work out asap what to do about how easy it is to region-swap and buy games for dirt cheap. This isn’t just on Switch – we’ve seen big “Argentina” across all platforms, including Steam and Xbox.”
