Fans have confirmed that the price of Persona 4 Golden has come up on Steam for several regions.
SteamDB has logged the price increase highest in Fertile Crescent countries, including Qatar, Saudi Arabia, U.A.E., Kuwait, and Israel. Next to them are European countries including Switzerland, Great Britain, Poland and Norway. Other countries affected include South Africa, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and India. Notably, these are considerably higher prices than what Valve itself was recommending as well.
You can see a screenshot of the SteamDB page below.
Sega has not commented on the price increases, but it is worth noting that not all countries received this price increase, and US itself has experienced no change. Other countries also received steep price cuts, including Latin American countries like Peru, Uruguay, and Colombia, and Asian countries, like Japan, Thailand, and South Korea.
Persona 4 dates all the way back to 2008 on the PlayStation 2. In this game, the protagonist moves to the country for a year. They make new friends in that time and start investigating a series of mysterious murders that happen in town.
The Persona franchise itself is a spin-off of the Megami Tensei video game series, that’s gone one to become successful in its own right. While the Shin Megami Tensei games lean harder on core creature collecting gameplay and a post-apocalyptic setting, the Persona games have a stronger focus on story. These games are set in a high school, and have so much story segments that they’re essentially half visual novel.
Persona 4 is among the most successful games in the franchise, having received four spinoff games, an anime, manga, light novel, and even a stage production. Between Persona 3 and Persona 4, these games elevated Atlus to one of the most popular video game companies in Japan.
Persona 4 Golden is a modern day upgrade to the game, first published on the PlayStation Vita in 2012. This version of the game would be the basis for the Windows port released on June 13, 2020.
Now, the timing of this price change is interesting, because there will be a new version coming to Steam this January 19, 2023. This version of the game will also be published on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and the Nintendo Switch.
While it may not be important to all gamers, there are significant changes coming to the Steam version with this update. It will have a 64-bit version of the game, and there will also be QOL changes that will make it the ideal version to play.
Source: SteamDB