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

[TotalerKrieger]

Well, gamers living in these countries should perhaps find alternative means to acquire games for a while. Gotta love the "kick em' while they're down" mentality of capitalists, and for what? I expect Valve will lose revenue as a result of this decision as many people who were previously willing to pay will now resort to piracy. Quite frankly, they completely deserve it.

 

[Maerx]

I consider this to be crap. Why? Well, even though I live in a third world latin american country (Venezuela), I still have to pay good ol' $$$ for my games on Steam. So if the game in USA costs 60$, it costs the same here, no special price or conversion.

I could understand them doing that with Brazil, Mexico or Russia, because everyone knows games there are sold cheaper to "fight" piracy. But just the fact I have to pay the same and being unable to trade, recieve or even gift games to my friends is just BS.

 

[Lightknight]

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?

Are you saying that we are gifting games and sending it to Russia and not the other way around?

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

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.

Yes, my first experience considering buying a game from Steam was "Meh... $80? That's the same as- WHAT THE FUCK? 80 US DOLLARS? FUCK OFF AND DIE, STEAM."

And that's been my attitude to Steam purchases ever since.

 

[Sigmund Av Volsung]

I get the feeling this was done to combat G2A. As much as I despise that site for all the shady bullshit that surrounds it(like the stolen Sniper Elite v3 keys earlier this year), this is a bit aggressive on Valve's part.

I'll still take it as a victory over g2a.

 

[DrOswald]

So I am reading in other places on the internet is that the way this works is that the region locking is one way. That is to say the if you buy in the US you can send to these places, but not the other way around. So, to answer the Australia question, if what I am reading is correct, Australians can still get US game keys. Can anyone confirm this? Is anyone here even Australian?

Edit: Does anyone know the process to send a steam game to an Australian? I got a few old steam game keys I am never going to use and I would like to test this out. Can I just give the person the key? What if I already have the game in my inventory, can I gift it to them? How did it used to work?

 

[OldNewNewOld]

The hypocrisy in some of this posts is astonishing.

Indeed. Especially this bit:

Time to move onto Origin. They even had better sales recently.

"This DRM with sales sucks! Let's go use this other DRM with sales!"

That was supposed to be the joke but I was never good at making them. Oh well...

 

[SecondPrize]

The inability to receive games is a shame. I helped a Peruvian guy out by gifting him Dark Souls in the last sale because he was unable to purchase it in his region. I can see why trading quid pro quo with someone to take advantage of ridiculously low prices is something you might want to stop but taking out the ability to just hook a gamer up with something to be nice doesn't help anybody.

 

[Something Amyss]

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!

This one affects me, though, so censorship! CENSORSHIP!!!!!!!!!

Its the same reason countries like Australia frequently pay more for stuff, because the minimum wage is higher.

No, Australia pays more as an artifact of a time when their dollar was worth significantly less compared to other global currencies.

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

What? Nooooo....that would mean Valve was behaving like a monopoly. And people have been insisting to me for years that they totes are not.

 

[Zato-1]

Time to start buying my games on GreenManGaming or Amazon

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

Proxies....proxies everywhere!

 

[DEAD34345]

Region locking is bullshit, and it always has been. I'm a little pissed off that so many people are defending it here simply because it's Valve, but at the end of the day it doesn't really matter. Digital distributors still don't seem to have fully grasped that they are competing as a service rather than as a seller of products, and making that service more restrictive is only going to drive more people away from them and into piracy.

 

[direkiller]

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

Only where you live, and even that im not to sure about, as there is most likely a way to declare the item & pay the tax.

AUS/NZ it's basically encouraged to import games

US outside of a few states has no taxes on internet cross state goods, and even then you can declare it on your state tax refund at a later date(Feds can't tax internet goods at all).

and RUS/China even if they have a law it's not enforced, or not enforce enough for people to care.

 

[Li Mu]

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.

I assumed as much. Thanks for the clarification.

 

[VincentX3]

0 Steps forward
3 Steps back.

Seriously, this was un-needed, let people decide to purchase from where they want if it benefits them.
Then they complain about piracy and how "All they need to do is give people more options so they wont resort to pirating"

 

[Denamic]

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

Only where you live, and even that im not to sure about, as there is most likely a way to declare the item & pay the tax.

That's the issue. You're not paying any import tax. You pay someone else to buy the game and gift it for you. Importing is a completely separate issue. If there was a fee to receive gifts from other countries, it'd be a completely different issue, but there's not and you effectively dodge taxes doing it.

Note that I'm not actually against doing it. I just like to point out it's not without reason Valve's doing this.

 

[Magmarock]

I really hate Steam. I can't really agree with your first statement because I don't think Steam has good customer service at all. You don't own your Steam games, they do; and they are more then happy to remind you of that when they have to. If you complain on the forums they will move it or push you to the side and not deal with you. I live in Australia so I have to do with unfair region pricing and I was done with Steam long ago. I pretty much buy all my games from GOG now.

 

[Rozalia1]

0 Steps forward
3 Steps back.

Seriously, this was un-needed, let people decide to purchase from where they want if it benefits them.
Then they complain about piracy and how "All they need to do is give people more options so they wont resort to pirating"

Region locking is bullshit, and it always has been. I'm a little pissed off that so many people are defending it here simply because it's Valve, but at the end of the day it doesn't really matter. Digital distributors still don't seem to have fully grasped that they are competing as a service rather than as a seller of products, and making that service more restrictive is only going to drive more people away from them and into piracy.

That reminds me... now would normally be the time for that Gabe quote to be quoted... yet nobody has?
Why would peeps be embarrassed to declare themselves Gabe marks right now... I wonder...

 

[VincentX3]

0 Steps forward
3 Steps back.

Seriously, this was un-needed, let people decide to purchase from where they want if it benefits them.
Then they complain about piracy and how "All they need to do is give people more options so they wont resort to pirating"

Region locking is bullshit, and it always has been. I'm a little pissed off that so many people are defending it here simply because it's Valve, but at the end of the day it doesn't really matter. Digital distributors still don't seem to have fully grasped that they are competing as a service rather than as a seller of products, and making that service more restrictive is only going to drive more people away from them and into piracy.

That reminds me... now would normally be the time for that Gabe quote to be quoted... yet nobody has?
Why would peeps be embarrassed to declare themselves Gabe marks right now... I wonder...

Gabe quote? Gabe marks? I'm not exactly following you here, neither do I know which quote you're referring too.

This is still bullshit though, I already gave my thought on the matter but yea, region locking digital media is utter nonsense.