Steam Region-Locks All Games From Russia, Asia, South America

[major_chaos]

I just love how valve gets away with things that other companies would be crucified for.
I will never approve of region locking. I don't like when Nintendo does it, and I don't start liking it because Valve does it. Its the same as DRM, a cynical and obstructive system put in place solely to prevent a largely theoretical loss of profit.

 

[Doom972]

hmmm. I'm a UK expat living in Russia (yeah...great time to be here). I wonder how much this will affect me. I pay using my UK card and my steam account is still listed as being in the UK. I actually pay higher prices when purchasing games at UK rates. Would I be forced to buy games localized to Russia? My Russian isn't good enough to have to play through everything in Russian.

Once a game is registered in your game library (not your gifts), it's yours. Any game's language will be the one you chose at Steam's settings (Unless that language is unavailable, but English is always available). I don't think that it'll change anything for you.

 

[Enizer]

One thing I'm very concerned about, is if this region locking will be global, such as EU/US region locks.

Some companies like Capcom frequently forget that my country exists(small European country), and just a few months ago, I was forced to trade for copies of Dark Souls, because it was apparently never coming for me.
Similarly I notice that I have dead rising 3 on steam for me, but nothing else in the series, I may NEED to trade for dead rising 2 if I want it.

Does anyone know anything about that?
Or is this region lock JUST for poor countries to the western ones?

 

[Clive Howlitzer]

I guess I picked a good time to buy Dragon Age: Origins for my friend in the UK as I would have been denied from here on. It makes me sad I can't surprise people with games on Steam anymore. I have quite a few friends in other regions that I do gift games to which I guess I won't be able to now. Hopefully there is some clarification in future.

 

[RicoADF]

When people exploit the regional pricing, they are ripping off the developers more than Valve, costing smaller indie companies a lot of money, so I see this as a positive.

Bull fucken shit. If someone is paying for the game via legit channels then they are not ripping the devs off, double so if it's Australian/New Zealands trying to get a fair deal. This is especially true in Steam's case where I'm paying in USD, so their getting the exact same amount of money that someone in the US would pay. It double sucks when paying more in USD so not only am I being ripped off by being charged more but then I have to pay conversion ontop of that, fuck you steam/publishers. They are ripping us off by charging ridicules prices to the point that our government encourages grey importing to force the prices down and it succeeded. The reason JB Hifi was able to get their game prices down to a fair level was that they said to the suppliers "give a decent price or we'll import ourselves". It's the only way to keep the market fair otherwise 1 or 2 suppliers could set whatever price they wanted.
Funny thing is that it's now cheaper to buy at the retailers than steam....

 

[Mister K]

Whatever man, the last thing I bought from steam was BNW expansion for Civilization V.

And considering that prices of blockbusters on Steam cost as much as on consoles, I'd rather buy PS4 in the future (if situation in Ukraine will become better in a few years) and buy good old games for PC from, well, Good Old Games. Oh, and modern PC exclusives that I actually care about? They are also are/will be released on GOG.

Although I wonder if I'll lose all of my Steam collection if this service ever falls?

Captcha: "Way to go!" Thanks, Captcha, you are a doll.

 

[Lil_Rimmy]

In other news - Australia still getting screwed by insane prices on games. Because yay. Australia.

OT: I get why they do it, but is it really that big of a problem that this happens? Why don't they just allow trading of games for free between different steam accounts, or place a timer on how long must pass before you can gift another game out of your own country, or even make it so that for every X games gifted from a country such as Russia you have to buy Y games on the account being gifted to, to stop people from abusing it.

Literally anything except for a total ban, seems a little bit shite to me.

 

[loa]

I live in germany and only have the option of buying the garbage censored version of certain games despite being an adult.
This allowed me to get the actual versions of certain games the was it was intended to be played.
Being exempt from valves blatant "$=?" money grubbery was only a bonus.

But now, if I wanted to buy, say, half life 1 off of steam, I only get to have the version without blood, the robot soldiers and the scientists who sit down and waggle their heads instead of dying and I would be pretty much irreversably stuck with that version on that steam account even though I know someone in south america who could gift it to me?

Steam is a lot less useful to me then as it was the only way besides piracy to get some non-neutered games without paying ridiculous prices for imports.
Or at least the ridiculous prices my local game retailer was asking.
Amazon kinda disagrees there. And so does gog.
Humblebundle keeps growing too so thankfully I am in no way stuck with steam to get games anymore.

 

[tzimize]

Its cool guys. Valve totally is your benevolent dictators and would never ever do something solely to dick over customers in the name of profit margins!

Now that that is out of my system, that is pretty jacked. It'd be one thing if they never allowed it in the first place, but its been allowed for so long that at this point most people assumed that's what you were supposed to do in the first place. Its totally within Valves right to do so, but its never not goin to be a dick move.

Lure the customers in first, then when they are too invested to switch....fuck em over.

Personally I dont buy much games on steam anymore, if any. Either I buy at some other online retailer and register it on steam afterwards, or preferably on gog.com

 

[Veldel]

Hey guys don't forget about GOG and there willingness to give support to consumers.


I know a few ppl who are going to be mad at this.

 

[Lightknight]

Its cool guys. Valve totally is your benevolent dictators and would never ever do something solely to dick over customers in the name of profit margins!

People were buying the same product in a cheaper region and gifting it to themselves. If you've ever used any product like "Hidemyass" then you'd know changing your region is remarkably simple through the wonders of proxy servers.

Valve already provides the best game deals there are. This wasn't dicking over customers. This was closing an exploit. The alternative was to not allow crippled economies to buy the games at a price they can afford. Hmm... which would we want more? Russians to be able to play games themselves or for Americans to be able to plunder the exploit?

 

[rembrandtqeinstein]

This move will only encourage the few people who bothered with out-of-region gifting and trading to turn to piracy. Valve should have just ignored it.

Bunch of bonehead moves from those guys recently.

 

[OldNewNewOld]

Yes, good guy Valve. Don't worry guys, they are doing it for our own good. Oh look, Nintendo! How dare they region lock their products?!?

The hypocrisy in some of this posts is astonishing. Time to move onto Origin. They even had better sales recently.

 

[Lightknight]

Yes, good guy Valve. Don't worry guys, they are doing it for our own good. Oh look, Nintendo! How dare they region lock their products?!?

The hypocrisy in some of this posts is astonishing. Time to move onto Origin. They even had better sales recently.

*sigh* Valve isn't region locking games. They are preventing an underground market in which games can be purchased more cheaply in regions with crippled economies and then gifted to regions that can afford to buy them.

Why are people not understanding this? It's an exploit being closed.

 

[OldNewNewOld]

Yes, good guy Valve. Don't worry guys, they are doing it for our own good. Oh look, Nintendo! How dare they region lock their products?!?

The hypocrisy in some of this posts is astonishing. Time to move onto Origin. They even had better sales recently.

*sigh* Valve isn't region locking games. They are preventing an underground market in which games can be purchased more cheaply in regions with crippled economies and then gifted to regions that can afford to buy them.

Why are people not understanding this? It's an exploit being closed.

You mean the same markets that have been helping tons of people to get games they otherwise wouldn't get because they live in a country with a crippled economy but Valve is selling them games at a price higer than in Germany or the rest of west Europe?
The market that allows people to get games which they otherwise couldn't because Valve decided to not sell those games in their region?

This isn't any different than what Nintendo does. Buy a game in Russia, can't activate it in Europe. Buy a game in Japan, can't play it on a US 3DS.

This is what will happen thanks to Valve. People who managed to buy games and support devs through those "black markets" will stop buying and start pirating. People who supported devs and bought games that Valve refused to sell in their region will stop buying games and start pirating.
Geeee.... thanks Volvo.

 

[Denamic]

Paying other people to buy games for you in other countries is a form of tax evasion. It's pretty illegal.

 

[ryukage_sama]

I am wondering if this has to do with certain countries currencies dropping very low because of the lower cost of crude oil and that led them to just localize the games, but I do wonder how much further Valve might take this.

I think you pin-pointed their rational. The Russian ruble is still reeling after its plummet in value from the combined pressure of falling fuel prices and the economic downturn resulting from international sanctions for their wanton incursions into other countries. This article only lists the countries that use rubles, so I'm not sure of the logic regarding Asian and South American regions.

 

[shirkbot]

*sigh* Valve isn't region locking games. They are preventing an underground market in which games can be purchased more cheaply in regions with crippled economies and then gifted to regions that can afford to buy them.

Why are people not understanding this? It's an exploit being closed.

It's an exploit that they are closing by region locking games. I've heard all kinds of rumors about the gray market that runs on Steam, but at the end of the day this is region locking and it makes people (likely justifiably) nervous.

OT: Not sure how I feel about this. I understand part of the logic, but it's still problematic in its own right. I like all the posts showing love for GOG. Those guys are great.

 

[Rednog]

Ok everyone who is mad at steam take a step back. In a few hours we should be having the Steam Winter sale and you'll forget all about this and any other transgressions Steam has done. Soon the youtube video with all the sales percentages will be posted, the image with steam about to beat the wallet will pop up, and once again everyone will rejoice at their benevolent overlord Steam because they got stuff on sale.