If our beloved Moacyr Alves really is behind this the explanation is pretty simple.
A couple of years ago he was the knight in shinning armor for many gamers in Brazil after founding the project Jogo Justo(Fair Game). It was a group of people whose intentions would be to pressure the government to reduce the taxes on games. As others have already mentioned, the taxes on games here are absurd, the only thing that got higher taxes than games are cigarettes, even alcoholic beverages got lower taxes than games here. The reason is because a long time ago Video-Games were considered and taxed as TOYS, not Slot Machines as some suggested. Back then we had some big toy manufacturers here in our country, so the government kept import taxes high to protect our companies. But alas that didn`t help and pretty much all of them went bankrupt. And since then the taxes on toys never changed, so neither on games.
So everything looks quite noble of Mr. Moacyr, right? Not really. Turns out he's the president of the largest chain of VG stores in Brazil, pretty much the Brazillian Gamestop. But the thing is, they are and always have been a joke. Their prices are always ridiculously high, their staff know absolutely nothing about games, except for the latest FIFA, GTA ou COD and they show absolutely NO support for PC games. But still, if his motives were genuine all of this could be forgotten. And so Mr. Moacyr got more of the spotlight, actually got in contact with several politicians and things were looking bright. But time passed and nothing changed. Until one fateful day when Mr. Moacyr gave an interview complaining that the reason stores don't sell more games in Brazil is because of services like Steam. That Steam should be taxed or blocked so brazillian stores would stand a chance. And then Moacyr Alves went from the knight in shinning armor one day to the most hated figure by the brazillian gaming community the next.
You see, first of all his stores don't deal much with PC games, if at all. Second of all PC games have ALWAYS been cheaper than Console Games, because PC Games are considered SOFTWARE in our country instead of Toys, so they get a much smaller bite from the government. PC Games, even physical copies, were always sold for 99 BRL for DECADES. Yes, DECADES, I'm 31 right now and bought the first Diablo at Launch for that price. Keep in mind that we usually pay 2 times that for Console releases, in fact the average price of the last Mortal Kombat for Consoles was even higher, around 220 BRL. And when Steam started selling games here that was their starting price and everyone was fine with it. Sure, they started increasing the prices a couple of months ago, but what can they do? Thanks our government the USD/BRL rate is crazy high right now, pretty much all gamers understand that and even though we would rather keep paying those 99 BRL we UNDERSTAND that Steam had to raise their launch prices to around 120~130 BRL.
So, what's the link between Moacyr Alves and the ridiculous price for Fallout 4 in Brazil? Quite simple. If he really is now the representative of Bethesda in Brazil, his interest is that people buy Fallout 4 for Consoles, in his store. So what does he do? Contact Steam and tell them to sell a PC GAME for a prohibitive price. He knows pretty much everyone will just pirate the game now, but if he let the prices down he wouldn't be getting any sales either. With that price at least those who BUY the game will prefer to buy the physical copy from him, wich will probably be a bit cheaper around 220 BRL like Mortal Kombat, instead of the digital one just like most people do when they have this option.
Bethesda, here in Brazil we love your games. Even back then when the only way we'd play a PC game were by pirating it, my first RPG ever was Elder Scrolls: Arena, wich I just called Arena cause I was too young and had absolutely no grasp of the english language. You have huge amount of fans and a huge following here. And this man will flush all down the drain. Most serious gamers in Brazil, despite our past, got together to never pirate a game again, thanks to Steam. Because now we could buy the games legally for a fair price. But now, thanks to Moacyr, all I hear is people saying that this just won't cut, that they really wanted to buy the game but can't afford it, so they'll just pirate it. And it makes me really sad, because we are a community who don't want to do that anymore, but unless you're swimming in money we just can't afford prices like that.
Bethesda, If this really is the man behind the helm here in Brazil, just stop. Find someone else. Or at least let him in charge of your console games only, with no say on Steam prices. Because he'll flush everything you built here through many, many years, down the drain.