With steam now launching its localized shop, all europeans now have to pay Euros ( € ) for every purchase made. Sure, this wouldnt be bad if it werent for steams inability to calculate and convert currency. For steam 1 $ is equal to 1 €. For the rest of the world 1 € is 1.28 $, thats a steamy 28% price increase.
Now you might think that this isnt too bad, you will have to think about that currency fluxes are going crazy these days. 3 weeks ago 1 $ was 0.69 € and they keep fluxing.

Since Steam began with its localized shop I havent bought a single game on steam.
Steam now uses Euros here in Europe. But they do not calculate the currency, instead they just convert a 20 $ game to a 20 € game. In Norway we use NOK and 20 $ is 143 NOK against the 184 NOK if I pay in €.
in dollars , a game that used to cost 20 $ now costs 25.7 $ thats more than 25% increase.
Steam's comments on this are many, like that in € the tax is included. WRONG! As a Norwegian citizen I do not pay tax/vat on virtual products bought like computer software, since by Norwegian law such non-material isnt imported and thus isnt a physical product. A real world comparison is Mirrors Edge. It costs 50 € (64$) on steam, but if I buy it retail it sums up to about 43 € (55 $)

If you really like buying digital copies of your favourite games, you can purchase from services likewww.direct2drive.com . Their speed is great as well , not like the 40 kb/sec I sometimes got from Steam (with my 40 mbps connection).

I used to love steam, I got 65 steam games in my steam games collection.
Now I will never buy a single game again using steam. Well, at least I now pay less money for retail versions and actually get the disc.

Conclusion : 1€ ≠ 1$