Steam, banning players for being generous?

[Jaeriko]

I noticed a lot of people early on in this thread and on pages 2/3 were ignoring that fact that he is SELLING the games.

Actually, he isn't. He's purchasing the game on their behalf. There's a subtle difference here.

He is trading them and receiving money for it, that alone would make it selling.

I don't see how it could be seen as not so, but could you please explain your point further?

Perhaps I am missing something.

 

[whaleswiththumbs]

the only reason i am reading any of this is because i need something to do while i wait for people to reply on facebook.

OT:
I've had a problem with Steam before. wasnt about this kind of thing. but i can see where both sides are coming from. I think they guy could have done this smarter, he knew that he was circumventing the system and should have prepared for it

 

[Zaik]

I'm not going to make any judgment here positive or otherwise, however whether you did it or not, someone could clearly buy games here and gift them to non-american steam users for american price + some extra, basically making a profit off of steam's silly price differences that don't really make sense in a digital distribution setting.

I'm not saying they're right or you're wrong here, however given that you clearly have the opportunity to be making a profit at their expense, and they have no way to track whether you are or not, so even if they were somehow okay with gifting the games at cost, they wouldn't allow someone to do it.

 

[Chibz]

He is trading them and receiving money for it, that alone would make it selling.

I don't see how it could be seen as not so, but could you please explain your point further?

Perhaps I am missing something.

Strictly speaking he's purchasing the game with their money. The exchange goes...

They hand him the money (via paypal). He goes to the store (Steam) and buys the game with their money (Paypal). He then hands them the product (Gift). He's buying it on their behalf.

 

[Karma168]

a good analogy is amazon/ebay. you look for item X in your local stores, local websites etc. and find that the cheapest price is $Y, you then look further afield and find that the object is $Z (Z<Y) in another country. why would you pay the extra money that it would cost to buy it at home?

people all over the world make money by buying stuff cheap in one place, shipping it to another location and selling it at a value that undercuts the higher local price. why should this case be different? even if he broke tax laws, that's an issue for the courts, not steam to rule on.

 

[Trolldor]

He is trading them and receiving money for it, that alone would make it selling.

I don't see how it could be seen as not so, but could you please explain your point further?

Perhaps I am missing something.

Strictly speaking he's purchasing the game with their money. The exchange goes...

They hand him the money (via paypal). He goes to the store (Steam) and buys the game with their money (Paypal). He then hands them the product (Gift). He's buying it on their behalf.

In order to avoid tax.

 

[Trolldor]

a good analogy is amazon/ebay. you look for item X in your local stores, local websites etc. and find that the cheapest price is $Y, you then look further afield and find that the object is $Z (Z<Y) in another country. why would you pay the extra money that it would cost to buy it at home?

people all over the world make money by buying stuff cheap in one place, shipping it to another location and selling it at a value that undercuts the higher local price. why should this case be different? even if he broke tax laws, that's an issue for the courts, not steam to rule on.

Yes, it is an issue for steam because if they refuse to take action they are complicit in the act.

 

[Grathius22]

They're loosing money.

Therefore, they're angry.

 

[Asuka Soryu]

Not so much "being generous" as deliberately trying to cheat the system. Valve and the publisher may still be making money off of it, but that's like jacking someone's car, but leaving them $10.

Wait, what?

So them losing like maybe 10-20$ is equivalent to justifying Grand Theft Auto of what could be well over 2000$ by leaving a ten spot, and the person stranded who isn't a company and couldn't neglect such a thing.

The more I look at your analogy, the more I can't help but feel it's a horrible analogy.


Also, the person may not have been willing to buy the game due to it's American price, so they would've lost his sale anyways.

But a person wouldn't steal a car if they didn't have 10$ to leave behind?

 

[blankedboy]

If your steam account gets banned do you lose access to all the games you bought for yourself?

No. You just lose access to Steam secured servers.

If your steam account gets banned do you lose access to all the games you bought for yourself?

Yes.

Ok, one of you heartless fiends is lying to me.

You do lose them all. I'd know, I hacked awhile ago and got my account banned.
By the way, don't hack.

 

[gl1koz3]

Least you can do is notice that Steam prices for games is not the same across all of EU. So, you can file a complaint to EU pointing that out...

 

[Chibz]

In order to avoid tax.

Actually, there's no tax in the equation yet. It's more to avoid the rather ridiculous price difference.

 

[Zer_]

In order to avoid tax.

Actually, there's no tax in the equation yet. It's more to avoid the rather ridiculous price difference.

Isn't VAT included in the price? Any local taxes are obviously applied after the fact.

 

[Chibz]

Isn't VAT included in the price? Any local taxes are obviously applied after the fact.

Nope, this is just the price before anything is applied. Regardless, the person did pay tax. To the applicable country (where it was bought), even if VAT did apply to such a product.

 

[Adzma]

Not so much "being generous" as deliberately trying to cheat the system. Valve and the publisher may still be making money off of it, but that's like jacking someone's car, but leaving them $10.

You have obviously never had to pay the mark ups that we in Europe and Australia have to put up with. They constantly feed us bullshit like it's "Manufacturing costs" but Steam has none, so why do we pay $90+ while North America pays only $60 or so?

I've done this myself, paid someone in the US to gift me a game. I pay less, and it's the same game as the one that's nearly twice the price.

 

[LawlessSquirrel]

Yes, that's against the rules. It's considered selling the game instead of just gifting it. I think that rule's there to prevent the case of buying 6 packs and such of games to sell to others for a profit.

The ban is justified, but the price increases are ridiculous. 80% mark-up purely because of my location? Yeah, I'll pass. I'll just buy two different games instead...still over steam though because an 80% mark up is still better than 120%.

It's not Valve's fault though. It's the publishers that pick the prices for each region, Steam just enforces them. Activision, for example, loves to overcharge people. What annoys me is that they can get away with it because our retail is worse.

(Hate this country...)

 

[Jennacide]

Technically they ARE losing something. They can't rip off non-american gamers quite as easily if people do this. Part of why I won't have anything to do with Steam.

Because there totally isn't an exchange rate of currencies or anything.

Either way, he wouldn't of been banned for this unless he was advertising that he was doing it, flaunting it in Valve's face. One of my Euro friends gifts me games all the time, and I do the same to him. Valve doesn't care that I'm paying US prices for his games. Now if I outright said on forums "hey, I'm cheating the system to get him stuff cheaper than exchange rates would cost him" then they'd be pissed.

 

[Zer_]

Isn't VAT included in the price? Any local taxes are obviously applied after the fact.

Nope, this is just the price before anything is applied. Regardless, the person did pay tax. To the applicable country (where it was bought), even if VAT did apply to such a product.

VAT is included in the listed price, I just checked. Any regional taxes are not.

 

[Chibz]

VAT is included in the listed price, I just checked. Any regional taxes are not.

Very good, then VAT was being paid to the correct country anyways.

Because there totally isn't an exchange rate of currencies or anything.

Was this directed to me? Exchange rates are what make it such a rip off...

 

[Karma168]

a good analogy is amazon/ebay. you look for item X in your local stores, local websites etc. and find that the cheapest price is $Y, you then look further afield and find that the object is $Z (Z<Y) in another country. why would you pay the extra money that it would cost to buy it at home?

people all over the world make money by buying stuff cheap in one place, shipping it to another location and selling it at a value that undercuts the higher local price. why should this case be different? even if he broke tax laws, that's an issue for the courts, not steam to rule on.

Yes, it is an issue for steam because if they refuse to take action they are complicit in the act.

wouldn't their involvement in the act end upon completion of the sale? never bought anything off steam so not sure how it works but i'm guessing they sell the product key for the game as well as allowing the customer to download the game. once they have sold that code the customer can do whatever he likes with it and steam would not be responsible for his actions.

say you buy a car and then use it to commit a crime, is the dealership that sold you the car complicit? once you drove the car out of the lot the dealership has effectively wiped their hands of it and cannot be held responsible for how you use it.