EA makes F1 2021 twice as expensive as predecessor in 20 countries

F1 2021, the first Codemasters game to be released under new ownership EA, will be significantly more expensive than F1 2020. That is not true in the US and hardly in Europe, but in other countries the game will be 2 to 5.5 times more expensive .

Argentina is the worst off: where F1 2020 costs 649.99 Argentine pesos, one can lay down 3599 pesos for the new game. That’s an increase of 454 percent. Other countries hit hardest include Turkey, South Africa and the South Asia region, seeing increases of 357, 204 and 200 percent respectively. In twenty countries the increase is more than 100 percent. In Europe, the game will be five euros more expensive, an increase of about 10 percent.

In about half of the markets, after a currency conversion, the game is still cheaper than in the US and Europe, but those exchange rates don’t factor in the average income of a resident in their calculation. The development came to light after Twitter user lashman rang the bell, using data from both games he pulled from SteamDB. So the prices are Steam prices, but the game also comes out on PS4, PS5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X and S. A sample on those platforms shows the same phenomenon.

F1 2021 was announced at the end of this week. The game is getting a new story mode in which players work their way up from Formula 2 to Formula 1. In addition to racing, that mode is also about drama off the track. F1 2021 will also have a career mode with co-op. Codemasters is the developer and has been owned by Electronic Arts since February.

The column on the far right contains the relative price difference between F1 2020 and F1 2021 per country (Euro price difference has been calculated incorrectly)