Steam Error: Game not available in your territory...

steve258 · 21 Oct 2007 at 17:29

So I just fired up steam and my recently purchased orange box bundle has been deactivated!! It came up with the above error and won't let me install at all

They didn't say anything about not being able to play games which are registered with keys that originated from other regions, I mean I can just as easily buy a boxed game elsewhere and take it back to the UK. I can't even rebuy the games from steam without setting a new account as it just says "You already have all these games. You can access them in the Steam "My Game" list."... urrrr obviously not!! :rolleyes:

I'm just glad that I've completed both EP2 & Portal yesterday!! :eek:

But it also means no more TF2 for me

darn I just started to really get into it...

If they want to enforce region protection that's fine but they should've informed me that when I tried to register game key, and not disabling the games a week after I've registered it to my account!! FAQ on steam told me to ask the vendor for a refund but how am I supposed to do that if the games are already registered!?

Just a warning for others who are thinking about getting steam games from outside the UK. They obviously have just started enforcing this as all articles and forum rants I've googled are all from this couple of days.

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=613953

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=613924

Armadillo · 21 Oct 2007 at 17:33

Maybe contact support?. Big thread on steam forums about this crap and I've read on some places that this is being reported that some got refunds , but not actually seen anyone confirm it.

This is what happens when everyone bends over and gives a company control over what you can and can't play , even offline games.

paradigm · 21 Oct 2007 at 18:19

That's pathetic. What (for example) if I moved to the US next month? Would I lose all my games?

Valve, that really is retarded, shame on you

DaveyD · 21 Oct 2007 at 20:14

That is rather bad, Valve certainly have screwed up a little it seems!

Out of interest, where did you buy your copy from?

NeoReloaded · 21 Oct 2007 at 20:36

Bloody Valve, im trying to install my Orange Box now and im getting an error after i put in the activation key :s

the shadow · 21 Oct 2007 at 20:38

love to have hl2 and or ep1 if u have spare mister:tipsynow

steve258 · 21 Oct 2007 at 20:44

DaveyD said:
Out of interest, where did you buy your copy from?

I got mine from the well known auction site. It's brand new unregistered from a reputable seller. Fortunately the seller is aware of the problem and has contacted me with regards to refund.

But still it means I will have to create a new account just to buy the orange box again! I'm going to see what the officials have to say about this next week.

iviv · 21 Oct 2007 at 21:46

We are not locking down all keys to the area in which they were sold. There was however a situation recently with a distributor violating our agreement with them and selling keys outside of their area. Some of the keys alloted to them have been locked down to their specific region as a result of this.

If you are experiencing this error message then you should do two things:

1) Open a support ticket so you're specific key restriction can be investigated and we can respond

2) PM me your accountname (just the accountname) and I'll take a quick look at the first 10-20 I receive to ensure that it doesn't look like we have a bug causing this to affect accounts that it should not. Please realize that I may not be able to respond to everyone personally, so you should make sure you do #1 above and open an actual support ticket.

Sorry for the confusion. We are most definitely not locking down accounts in general and if you have purchased through a legitimate retailer or through Steam directly you should have no reason to fear any sort of new region locking.

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showpost.php?p=6880013&postcount=83

DaveyD · 21 Oct 2007 at 21:52

I guess it's just one of those things that if you do risk buying a game from ebay, you'll never know exactly where it has come from, especially Steam based ones. Valve probably didn't like people getting it so cheap so figured out who was selling them and stopped it.

steve258 · 21 Oct 2007 at 23:24

Thanks for the information

I have done the suggested, hopefully will receive response soon. But I think the chances for me to get these games back are very slim.

iviv · 22 Oct 2007 at 01:58

Unfortunately, this seems to be the sellers fault, but the end users are getting punished as a result. Not sure what else Valve could do though. Unless they unban everyone who's been affected by this, but put the ban on people in the future.