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(Steam) Publishers to crack down on cross-region gifting/trading

J

JaseC

gave away the keys to the kingdom.
Wynnebeck said:
Aww man. No more buying games from JaseC and DunderHassa. :(
Click to expand...

I'm trying to buy a copy from my guy but he's being stubborn about it (though he means well <3). :p I'd like to experiment with redeeming it as an e-mailed gift. If he's still not keen on the idea when I wake up I'll just hit up someone else.
 
B

Big_Al

Unconfirmed Member
Doesn't really surprise me, it was far too good to last long. What makes me chuckle is Valve essentially created a big part of the trading for games economy (within the steam client) with their TF2 and DOTA 2 keys being a huuuuuuuuge part of that. I don't really see anything wrong with it and certainly don't blame customers trying to get the best deal. You'd think free economy and all that but obviously not.

Joy, I look forward to £39.99 Deep Silver games in the future, the robbing bastards.
 
J

JaseC

gave away the keys to the kingdom.
Giran said:
They are, but not as drastically as those two regions. A 20%-30% increase in price compared to the US one for those in the UK/EU1/EU2 regions is very common thanks to the 1:1 currency conversion that many releases use.
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I was speaking from a USD perspective: games in the UK (GBP) and the rest of Europe (Euro) are virtually always more expensive, if only slightly. Brazil and Eastern Europe have been hit because games are often much cheaper there for those in USD regions (and of course the UK/ROE, too).
 
F

FyreWulff

Member
Cert.in.Death said:
Doubtful Steam is doing this voluntarily - it's a liability they can't afford to shirk further.

I'm unaffected but I sympathize with the disapproval.
Click to expand...

They're doing it voluntary. People with enough money to buy games at market prices "finding" 5$ keys where the game is sold at a lower price to even make it affordable to the people of that country not only meant the publisher was taking a wash, Valve was losing their cut as well.
 
X

xJavonta

Banned
A lot of people in this thread lack reading comprehension

THIS WON'T AFFECT KEYS. JUST TRADING/GIFTING INSIDE STEAM ITSELF.
 
Z

zephervack

Member
You guys saying its not Valve's fault are delusional.

Valve is big enough that they could just reject games from pubs that want this shit on.

Good luck selling your PC game somewhere else.
 
D

Deleted member 17706

Unconfirmed Member
Fuck any company who does this.

Kind of mad at myself for blindly purchasing MG:R now. I hate region locking with a passion and would have passed on it just to take a stand.

I can understand not allowing the registration of retail keys that are sold for dirt cheap in emerging markets, but for games that are sold on Steam itself? This is awful.

Just totally lame that you want to gift something to someone on your friends list, but suddenly discover that you can't because of his or her IP address.
 
P

Polk

Member
Dario ff said:
Reposting from the other thread as an example.

CbGsdhY.png


I don't get it, the price is the same as the US version and this warning does not appear in that version of the store. It's not like I'm getting a discount on it to justify this, unlike the Russians. What do they win from restricting me to gift this game to people in the US if the price is the same?
Click to expand...

To be honest it was a case for some time. In Poland you cannot gift some (new Bethesda) games outside our country: it starded with Fallout New Vegas.
It was patched out from Fallout New Vegas and Skyrim and only Dishonored is affected right now.
 
J

JaseC

gave away the keys to the kingdom.
Polk said:
To be honest it was a case for some time. In Poland you cannot gift some (new Bethesda) games outside our country: it starded with Fallout New Vegas.
It was patched out from Fallout New Vegas and Skyrim and only Dishonored is affected right now.
Click to expand...

To quote an earlier post:

JaseC said:
It's always been possible to circumvent the disabling of the gift function, which is part of the reason why this flag has come into play.
Click to expand...

Here's the trick I allude to.
 
K

Ketch

Member
cpp_is_king said:
Which part of this is shameful? It's already illegal to do it, now they're just enforcing that. It's not their fault you're upset about no longer being able to break the law and/or agree to the terms that you already agreed to.

If anything, the "shameful" part of it is how many people exploited this obvious flaw in the system.
Click to expand...

Ok, I understand your position. And regardless of what the point of region locking is, I can agree that you are technically correct, except for maybe the shaming people part.

But can somebody tell me (because I honestly don't get it), what is the point of region locking digital goods? I have some vague idea that it's to deal with things like distribution of the physical disc and combating piracy in certain regions where it's way out of control, but I think those reasons loose a lot of their meaning when you're talking about a digital game on steam.
 
B

Burekma

Member
I don't see how this is a bad thing TBH.

Back when I did trading you had to basically do your own research about which gift comes from where, and you were easily scammed (especially inexperienced users) with a russian gift that couldn't be activated without a VPN. If all this does is make those gifts untradable, than that's a + in my book. I don't have to worry about getting a region locked copy when trading anymore.

With that said, the fact that people from those countries can't buy region free games (even at a premium) is still beyond shitty, and something Valve should look into.

EDIT: Or they can just tag them appropriately, like the image above ^^. That works too.
 
I

iHEO

Banned
Burekma said:
I don't see how this is a bad thing TBH.

Back when I did trading you had to basically do your own research about which gift comes from where, and you were easily scammed (especially inexperienced users) with a russian gift that couldn't be activated without a VPN. If all this does is make those gifts untradable, than that's a + in my book. I don't have to worry about getting a region locked copy when trading anymore.

With that said, the fact that people from those countries can't buy region free games (even at a premium) is still beyond shitty, and something Valve should look into.
Click to expand...

If the gift is region locked it will have the big bad red text, like the images below, there is no way you can get scammed like that.

5SmJ3Sl.png

D1JoZzH.png
 
T

toddhunter

Member
Burekma said:
I don't see how this is a bad thing TBH.
Click to expand...

You can't?

Burekma said:
With that said, the fact that people from those countries can't buy region free games (even at a premium) is still beyond shitty, and something Valve should look into.
Click to expand...

Oh you can.

Yeah this sucks but this move and other similar moves are only to be expected. This is why I would always cringe at the "key trading" and other shenanigans that were getting bigger and bigger and more organised in the community. It is all good to get a cheap game or two, but in the end it was always going to mean more restrictions for everybody.
 
M

Mohasus

Member
Yesterday when I read about MGR:R, I was ready to spend R$50 on it.

What a nice surprise was the R$33 (~$14) price tag. So yeah, I can understand why they are doing this.
 
B

Burekma

Member
toddhunter said:
Oh you can.
Click to expand...

That second part has been true for years, though, and is nothing new.

The only new thing is they apparently started tagging gifts as region locked and/or disabling gifting for region locked games.

But region locked games themselves have existed on steam for many years now, and the problem has been discussed before on multiple occasions.
 
S

Salsa

Member
toddhunter said:
Yeah this sucks but this move and other similar moves are only to be expected. This is why I would always cringe at the "key trading" and other shenanigans that were getting bigger and bigger and more organised in the community. It is all good to get a cheap game or two, but in the end it was always going to mean more restrictions for everybody.
Click to expand...

not really

you could lock russia with the older flags. I assumed that's what was gonna happen since that's THE country (CIS in general) where stuff is crazy cheap

I wasnt expecting them to lock me out for being in south america. Everything is the same price as the US except for 2K games, yet I wont be able to gift shit.
 
T

toddhunter

Member
Ketch said:
But can somebody tell me (because I honestly don't get it), what is the point of region locking digital goods? I have some vague idea that it's to deal with things like distribution of the physical disc and combating piracy in certain regions where it's way out of control, but I think those reasons loose a lot of their meaning when you're talking about a digital game on steam.
Click to expand...

It is to control pricing. If things are region locked properly you can set different prices and get the maximum revenue from each region.

Case in point, Australia. I can buy a PS3 game from anywhere in the world (and often do). Because it isn't region locked, I can pickup GTA5 from Amazon right now, digitally, for $44. Alternatively I can pickup the exact same game on the Australian PSN store for $110.

Region locking tries to force me to spend that extra $66.

Of course in reality it doesn't quite work like that. A region locked console like the Wii U simple doesn't get purchased so at least in my case it is completely counter productive. Similarly if steam games are properly locked to the Australian region and price gouged? I'll simply never buy them.
 
L

lupinko

Member
Is this going to be IP blocked or something?

Because when I move to Japan, I will obviously continue to use my North American account to purchase from Steam (GMG/GOG/etc.).
 
D

dhonk

Member
As an american who enjoys cheap ass games, I'm sorry rest of the world.

This is lame, shame on the publishers.
 
dgrdsv

dgrdsv

Member
CXmwbtR.png


Yeah, this means no buy in Steam from me.
I almost stopped buying anything in Steam because of this shit.
This really needs an Xbox One DRM debacle levels of attention right now.
 
C

cpp_is_king

Member
RionaaM said:
In a free market I'm doing nothing wrong. As Durante said before: if devs can buy stuff and hire people from wherever they want, why can't I buy the game from wherever I want?
Click to expand...

Probably because it's written in the contract that you won't do that. That contract that you apparently you think shouldn't matter, even though it actually does.
 
T

TheThunder

Member
JaseC said:
Retail key subs won't be affected by this flag, no, but publishers can still opt for the onlyallowrunincountries flag, which is just as effective (though something you can skirt using a VPN).
Click to expand...

This is interesting, what does this flag do, and how many games use it ?
 
H

Hamster Plugin

Member
cajunator said:
Im not quite sure what the issue here is.
Click to expand...

The issue is that Europe (except UK) and Australia, regions that have to pay stupidly high prices for games, may not be able to get USD priced goodness anymore and are forced to pay the high prices on their region instead. While MGRising is only limiting Russian and South American trading, this can go further like Deep Silver has shown with Saints Row 4.
 
C

Card Boy

Banned
cajunator said:
Im not quite sure what the issue here is.
Click to expand...

Not surprising since your American and as long as everything is good for you, you don't care.

Australians are subject to;

Censorship despite our R18+ rating
Higher prices despite our dollar being fairly close to US one
Region locking as some games are not available to us on Steam

Even if its only for Russian or South American games, it sets a precedent for other pubs to fuck us over.
 
P

Platy

Member
Dario ff said:
Reposting from the other thread as an example.

CbGsdhY.png


I don't get it, the price is the same as the US version and this warning does not appear in that version of the store. It's not like I'm getting a discount on it to justify this, unlike the Russians. What do they win from restricting me to gift this game to people in the US if the price is the same?
Click to expand...

eoOMrsb.png


No it is not
 
T

TheThunder

Member
TheD said:
The shits at deep sliver like to use it (Saints Row 4).
Click to expand...

So you can buy the code off Amazon.com and when you try redeem it at your non US steam it will bring up an error ?

That's crazy if true, outside of russia and their special case, I've never heard of a steam serial code that won't redeem due to actual old school console/DVD players style region locking.
 
H

Hamster Plugin

Member
TheThunder said:
So you can buy the code off Amazon.com and when you try redeem it at your non US steam it will bring up an error ?

That's crazy if true, outside of russia and their special case, I've never heard of a steam serial code that won't redeem due to actual old school console/DVD players style region locking.
Click to expand...

Yes, that's how it is. The Deep Silver catalogue's Steam keys are region locked like this. If you buy Saints Row 4 or Dead Island from Amazon.com, you cannot redeem the key anywhere outside US.
 
F

Freezard

Member
Hamster Plugin said:
Yes, that's how it is. The Deep Silver catalogue's Steam keys are region locked like this. If you buy Saints Row 4 or Dead Island from Amazon.com, you cannot redeem the key anywhere outside US.
Click to expand...

Wait what. That sucks! So it's the same if someone from the US tries to gift a copy from the Steam store to EU?
 
R

RionaaM

Unconfirmed Member
SalsaShark said:
not really

you could lock russia with the older flags. I assumed that's what was gonna happen since that's THE country (CIS in general) where stuff is crazy cheap

I wasnt expecting them to lock me out for being in south america. Everything is the same price as the US except for 2K games, yet I wont be able to gift shit.
Click to expand...
How does this work, Salsa? We can't gift games at all, even if they are the same price as in the US?

cpp_is_king said:
Probably because it's written in the contract that you won't do that. That contract that you apparently you think shouldn't matter, even though it actually does.
Click to expand...
If it is an anti-consumer practice, you can be damn sure I think it shouldn't matter. Or exist, to say it more accurately.
 
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