Steam, banning players for being generous?

Blue_vision

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Mar 31, 2009
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AndyFromMonday said:
No, I'm not. You asked me a question and I decided to answer your question with another question. And since you know I use Steam it should be pretty obvious I've only bought 2 games on there, Left 4 Dead 2 and Call of Duty 4. I have not been continuously supplying that company with money but that's besides the point. The point is, this business practice is deplorable and giving your attitude I'm going to assume you're American since you seem to not give a fuck about people who are affected by this.
Because clearly I'm a soulless monster for thinking that people shouldn't let a company fuck with them.

Yeah, if I was European and had to pay more for games than Americans, or even just was pissed off at how Valve treated their customers, I'd find a new way to get my games. In fact, I already have other methods of getting games. Valve is nothing near a monopoly. It's not as though these customers had to buy from Valve to play games at all, far from it.
So if they're simply trying to cheat Valve's system, for whatever reason Valve's doing it, they don't have much of a moral ground to go on. It's like punching out a bouncer outside a club in an entertainment district, because he didn't let you in. But you're not even cheating them out of money, just giving them less money than they otherwise would have gotten. So not only do you have a poor sense of your options, you seem to have a problem with your frontal lobe too.
 

Steppin Razor

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Valve are dicks and their allowing of publishers to set bullshit prices for what is FUCKING DATA is part of the reason they are such dicks. There is absolutely no reason that digital downloads should have such a ridiculous variation in pricing based on what region you live in, and yet there is. Case in point:


With that out of the road, this guy was engaging in something that is a little more than shady. Allowing people to accept money to buy a game from a different location will set up a gigantic mess later on with people adding an extra 10% onto the price so that they make some money from it, too. Which brings it back to the main point - Valve are dicks for having such radically different prices across different regions.
 

Freemon

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Nov 18, 2009
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this all sounds like crap since I've done this before.

And before doing it i actually contacted Steam support to know if there would be an issue in purchasing games to send to US friends and vice versa. Steam support told me there is no problem in that whatsoever. I've done it countless times and so have friends in the US done it for me and more people in the EU.

I got around 80 games on steam. around 20 were gifts from the same guy in the US and he still has his account.

This story doesn't look very real.
 

Blue_vision

Elite Member
Mar 31, 2009
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TU4AR said:
You reeeeally need to work on your analogies. That was is wrong because he has to buy them from the shop he's selling them from first.

A proper analogy is he goes inside, buys the games, then walks out the front to sell them cheaper.

And we don't know what games he has bought. What if he bought TF2, New Vegas and Portal? There's no way of getting around Steam then.
But the guy wouldn't be profiting off of it while losing the store money.

And even if he bought TF2, NV, or Portal, then it's a similar realm to all the people that pirate CoD games because they "disagree with Activision's business practices."
 

Antari

Music Slave
Nov 4, 2009
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Steppin Razor said:
Valve are dicks and their allowing of publishers to set bullshit prices for what is FUCKING DATA is part of the reason they are such dicks. There is absolutely no reason that digital downloads should have such a ridiculous variation in pricing based on what region you live in, and yet there is. Case in point:


With that out of the road, this guy was engaging in something that is a little more than shady. Allowing people to accept money to buy a game from a different location will set up a gigantic mess later on with people adding an extra 10% onto the price so that they make some money from it, too. Which brings it back to the main point - Valve are dicks for having such radically different prices across different regions.
Valve protected itself from loosing import tax revenues it is required by law to collect. In a case of a gift, yes they can overlook that. But when your doing it for 20 people with 20 games, thats starts to add up quickly. At that point Valve is responsible to the government for those taxes as they can no longer be considered gifts in such volume and frequency. And weather that data comes across the border on foot or through a wire, it still crossed a border.
 

Blue_vision

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Mar 31, 2009
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9_6 said:
Blue_vision said:
So if they're simply trying to cheat Valve's system, for whatever reason Valve's doing it, they don't have much of a moral ground to go on.
I imported brutal legend from the UK for ~20EUR instead of buying the 50EUR retail version with the crappy dubbing as a "bonus".
Do I have no "moral ground" too?
Generally, yeah.

Well maybe half the height of a proper bailey, because I'd assume that you're not ripping the money off of one specific company that's imposing higher prices, but some system that would cause the continent to have higher prices than the UK (I'm assuming the continent here.) If there aren't any alternatives to get out of the sink, then it's justifiable to try to dig yourself out. Unless, of course, there's a good reason behind it, i.e. it costs more to distribute to a certain region, then you are being a dick.
 

Steppin Razor

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Antari said:
Valve protected itself from loosing import tax revenues it is required by law to collect. In a case of a gift, yes they can overlook that. But when your doing it for 20 people with 20 games, thats starts to add up quickly. At that point Valve is responsible to the government for those taxes as they can no longer be considered gifts in such volume and frequency. And weather that data comes across the border on foot or through a wire, it still crossed a border.
Yes, I know. I'm saying that what the guy was doing was dodgy and needed to be stopped as it creates a bad situation for Valve, but on the other hand, IT IS VALVE'S FAULT THAT PEOPLE WILL RESORT TO THIS IN THE FIRST PLACE.
 

Antari

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Nov 4, 2009
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Steppin Razor said:
Antari said:
Valve protected itself from loosing import tax revenues it is required by law to collect. In a case of a gift, yes they can overlook that. But when your doing it for 20 people with 20 games, thats starts to add up quickly. At that point Valve is responsible to the government for those taxes as they can no longer be considered gifts in such volume and frequency. And weather that data comes across the border on foot or through a wire, it still crossed a border.
Yes, I know. I'm saying that what the guy was doing was dodgy and needed to be stopped as it creates a bad situation for Valve, but on the other hand, IT IS VALVE'S FAULT THAT PEOPLE WILL RESORT TO THIS IN THE FIRST PLACE.
Well realistically you can laugh at Valve's Lawyers. They should have been smart enough to put a limit and time on gifts to keep them out of this sort of trouble. So yes Valve is somewhat at fault here ...
 

Blue_vision

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Mar 31, 2009
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TU4AR said:
Okay, look. The store isn't losing money. Based on what's been said, the prices are higher in Europe because of tax. If the game isn't sold in Europe, Valve doesn't pay tax, and thus makes exactly the same amount of money regardless. If they're not paying tax, they are artificially increasing prices on digital goods, the product with the highest availability possible.

They are being cheating because they are screwing people based on geographic location. That is, in no uncertain terms, a despicable business practice.

There isn't any piracy, what are you taling about? You're saying they can go and buy them somewhere else and not use Steam, this is incorrect, because Steam is needed to play these games. Why are you even talking about piracy and Activision?
Okay, so if prices are higher because of tax, you're cheating your country out of money. A bit more excusable because I'd assume that it's in affect all retailers, but still kind of stupid (i.e. taxes are what pave roads and make sure criminals aren't running amok.)

And if you're saying that Valve are dicks because the games have higher prices due to taxes, that just doesn't make any sense at all. You're saying that Valve should sell games for less in some regions because taxes are higher, in the process taking a price cut that it may not be able to afford? What happens if taxes go so high that they'd end up losing money each sale if they were to cut prices to be even with tax?

EDIT: I'm saying it's similar to piracy "I don't like the way this company does its business, but I'll still consume their product." In this case, they're still consuming the product but buying it at a lower price (assuming that it's Valve to blame for the higher price at all and not actually taxes.) That just puts you in the exact same despicable moral standing as the company did, robbing them because you feel that they robbed you, or thinking that you feel you have a right to steal something that others worked hard to do, just because you don't like them.
 

FarleShadow

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Oct 31, 2008
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TU4AR said:
Blue_vision said:
But the guy wouldn't be profiting off of it while losing the store money.

And even if he bought TF2, NV, or Portal, then it's a similar realm to all the people that pirate CoD games because they "disagree with Activision's business practices."
Okay, look. The store isn't losing money. Based on what's been said, the prices are higher in Europe because of tax. If the game isn't sold in Europe, Valve doesn't pay tax, and thus makes exactly the same amount of money regardless. If they're not paying tax, they are artificially increasing prices on digital goods, the product with the highest availability possible.

They are being cheating because they are screwing people based on geographic location. That is, in no uncertain terms, a despicable business practice.
You are looking at this backward and stupidly.

Lets pretend you're the tax people in Europe. You want your tax money, the second a company like valve allows people to bypass paying tax but still recieve the product (Or game, whatever), they will go down to Valve and rape them a new bumhole.

Esp. in the Uk, you can commit a murder and be out 5 years later, but screw with the tax people? They'll throw you in for 20 years AND YOU WILL SERVE 20 YEARS and have an XL bumhole.
 

Antari

Music Slave
Nov 4, 2009
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FarleShadow said:
TU4AR said:
Blue_vision said:
But the guy wouldn't be profiting off of it while losing the store money.

And even if he bought TF2, NV, or Portal, then it's a similar realm to all the people that pirate CoD games because they "disagree with Activision's business practices."
Okay, look. The store isn't losing money. Based on what's been said, the prices are higher in Europe because of tax. If the game isn't sold in Europe, Valve doesn't pay tax, and thus makes exactly the same amount of money regardless. If they're not paying tax, they are artificially increasing prices on digital goods, the product with the highest availability possible.

They are being cheating because they are screwing people based on geographic location. That is, in no uncertain terms, a despicable business practice.
You are looking at this backward and stupidly.

Lets pretend you're the tax people in Europe. You want your tax money, the second a company like valve allows people to bypass paying tax but still recieve the product (Or game, whatever), they will go down to Valve and rape them a new bumhole.

Esp. in the Uk, you can commit a murder and be out 5 years later, but screw with the tax people? They'll throw you in for 20 years AND YOU WILL SERVE 20 YEARS and have an XL bumhole.
Yep thats pretty much right on the money! And Valve would rather have a single angry customer, than a single angry government to deal with.
 

Ickorus

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Mar 9, 2009
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I just read what was actually said by the Customer Services rep and it seems like a pretty fair argument they have.

That said I think the punishment was way too harsh and the guy should have been given a warning first instead of being outright banned.
 

Tharwen

Ep. VI: Return of the turret
May 7, 2009
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Heh...

I didn't know they raised the prices for us lot over here. Oh well, the deals are still incredibly good.

The contract they have with the Publisher specifies the price at which games will be sold in certain countries. If they aren't selling those games to those countries at those prices, they're breaking the contract.