New, Harsher Steam Region Locking Discovered

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LoadsaMoney

LoadsaMoney

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The good folks at Valve have apparently implemented new rules in regards to Steam gifting and trading that set to further restrict with whom you can trade and give items to depending on your own locale. These restrictions new restrictions are a bit more harsh, however. They now restrict where in the world you can play games you actually own.

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Steam is restricting not only who you can trade and gift to based on location, but where you can play your already purchased games.

In a form of region-locking, it appears that some Steam community members have noticed that they can’t gift or trade certain items outside of their own country. The reports of this localization seem to be coming mostly from Singapore, Russia, Brazil and Mexico and there have been warning pop-ups to substantiate this.

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Of course there is no official word from Valve themselves on this behavior, but it can likely be seen as a result of economic instability in some regions. This type of region locking isn’t new, either, and has caused another wave of concern over Steam gift practices almost two months ago. But it’s the second paragraph that’s most concerning. That of region-locked playing.

This practice from Valve is indeed new. Steam users on Reddit are discussing the value of region locking titles that are already owned, something that may be happening now. What if someone were to move to a completely different part of the world? What if someone has to work in a different country than they originally purchased content from? Does a VPN service become necessary just to remain activated and to play our games when abroad? It seems a bit of a legal stretch to limit games paid for with other currencies and activated, and even installed, in those other regions. What actual sense does that make?

Not much really. A game already paid for is a game that you should theoretically own. But I suppose the legal definition that Valve uses to define what we “own” on their platform is likely different than what we players believe.
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Source :- http://wccftech.com/steam-gift-restrictions-noticed/
 
Yep everyone loves Gaben and Valve but they arn't realizing that it is clamping us down almost as heavily as a console. They get the final say on everything and if they want that could ban my account with 160+ games on it in an instant. I am not hating on Valve/Steam but it worries me that their is nothing else that rivals it in anyway. More games need to be able to be activated on some other type of platform.
 
I had homeworld remastered which I purchased through G2A as a steam gift, had it a week and got a message yesterday from steam saying it was removed due to a problem with processing the payment or something, don't know if this is the same sort of thing?
I did contact the sellar through g2a and within 10 minutes he issued me a new key and apologised so fair play.
 
This is fair enough imo. We earn a lot more here than folks in Russia, so its not fair to expect to pay the same prices. It's only going to hurt the industry in the long term.
 
Mark A said:
This is fair enough imo. We earn a lot more here than folks in Russia, so its not fair to expect to pay the same prices. It's only going to hurt the industry in the long term.
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No, it's not fair at all. What if you have to spend some extended periods of time abroad, say in Russia or China, due to work? This means you aren't going to be able to play the games that you've paid for.
 
Mark A said:
This is fair enough imo. We earn a lot more here than folks in Russia, so its not fair to expect to pay the same prices. It's only going to hurt the industry in the long term.
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While I agree with the restriction in trading/gifting etc how in hell legally can they stop you playing a game you've bought and paid for simply because of the location you are in when you want to play that game


Malevolence said:
No, it's not fair at all. What if you have to spend some extended periods of time abroad, say in Russia or China, due to work? This means you aren't going to be able to play the games that you've paid for.
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Exactly. Can this even be legally enforceable?
 
TheVoice said:
Yes, it's region locking, the same way TV and movie studios region lock DVDs/BDs.
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huh? Different kind of thing altogether surely. By that rational if I buy a UK DVD/BD in the UK and move to,let's say the U.S. and bring said DVD/BD with me I wont be able to watch it......I don't think so.
 
I'm traveling south east Asia at the moment and this has been in effect since Christmas, if not before. It effects thailand laos, Cambodia Indonesia so far.

He games on steam in those countries is half he uk cost and any discounts effect the Asian pricing as well so the Christmas sales games were stupidly cheap.

They restrict purchasing with steam wallet, cards not registered to country of purchase and PayPal not registered to country of purchase and then as above gifting and what not.

It's rubbish as I would have purchased a lot more games otherwise.
 
Time to phone up the EU and get them onto this, region locking is only required as they so blatantly rip off people in EU/US/Australia etc.

Yes there are higher taxes in those countries, but when you start from a price which is 3 or 4 times that in say Brazil or Mexico it's hardly surprising there's more tax.
 
I don't see the problem, proportional pricing is fair. For the above post our average wage is probably 3 or 4 times higher than Brazil or Mexico. Using a VPN is abuse of that system and claimping down on it is fair. However, I see no issue with using a VPN to activate a game earlier only using one to buy a game cheaper from an area poorer than ourselves.
 
Thekwango said:
huh? Different kind of thing altogether surely. By that rational if I buy a UK DVD/BD in the UK and move to,let's say the U.S. and bring said DVD/BD with me I wont be able to watch it......I don't think so.
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This has always been the case. DVDs/BD are region locked so if you import a region locked copy from the states you cannot play it here. The reason its probably not so much an issue these days is that most players are region free now and so are a lot of the disks.

Thekwango said:
Exactly. Can this even be legally enforceable?
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Probably because you don't actually own any of the games in your steam library, You have just purchased the right to play them iirc. Read the steam EULA, it essentially states they own the games, they own the account and can remove it from you at any point with little to no warning.
 
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Why is proportional pricing fair?
Maybe you should send them a wage slip and they take a proportion of what you earn

why should some Russian oligarch pay less than us when they are richer? why should some uk millionaire pay the same as someone working minimum wage?

I love how proportional pricing only counts for countries.

maybe the north of the uk should pay less than the south since they earn less on average...

if you can afford a gaming pc and internet your not exactly poor in Russia, Price gouging based on what you think someone can afford is BS
 
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arknor said:
Why is proportional pricing fair?
Maybe you should send them a wage slip and they take a proportion of what you earn

why should some Russian oligarch pay less than us when they are richer? why should some uk millionaire pay the same as someone working minimum wage?
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These are countries that have huge piracy statistics, so one way they try to reduce that is by making games more affordable for those markets.

arknor said:
I love how proportional pricing only counts for countries.

maybe the north of the uk should pay less than the south since they earn less on average...

if you can afford a gaming pc and internet your not exactly poor in Russia, Price gouging based on what you think someone can afford is BS
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Of course it only applies to countries/regions, how else would it be enforced?

Game prices in the UK are, for the most part, pretty cheap, yet people still find something to complain about.
 
It's a free market, or at least should be. I don't really see the problem with buying Russian keys. The vast majority of people don't know how to activate them with a VPN anyway.
 
It is likely piracy concerns rather than cheaper games.

Regardless of the reason we will find a reason that is unfair and complain about it. Its what the British do.
 
I don't like this, but only in case I ever move to a different country. I expect to be able to play the games I have paid for.
 
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