Steam Is Region-Locking PC Games

[bwohl]

I bought Borderlands 2 from Russia release day - for $35. When I entered the key on Steam, it gave me two versions; one had RU after it. I never played that version, just the regular. It the only game that does not show up for anyone on my family share list.

 

[Zhyr]

While Steam region locking may be new, the idea of screwing over people from different countries has been going on for an extended period (Australian dollar being worth $1.10 USD while games on the Australian Steam being $80US compared to $50US - not so bad now that the AUD has fallen down to $0,80somethingUS)

 

[chesterman]

I don't think this is all bad. The gift system is for what the name states: giving gifts! But there is now a whole grey market speculating and trying to make profit over this. What was supposed to be simple system to tranding gifts turned into a treasure hunt to find a site that sells that game with for $3 bucks less.

 

[alidan]

You make the equivalent of $5 profit, your friend pays $5 less for the game, and Steam loses $10. Multiply over thousands of users, and it could be a problem.

It's absurd to frame it as Steam losing $10. If Steam sets ten different prices for the same item and everyone buys the item at the cheapest price, there's no reasonable way to interpret the phenomenon as Steam losing money.

The next step will be enacting ways to prevent third parties from buying up games on sale at deep discount with the intent of resale for profit. I'm sure there will be sycophants that insist my buying a $50 game on sale for $5 and reselling it for $10 has cost Steam $45, but removing arbitrage is a sure sign of a monopoly and it isn't good for anyone but Steam.

So, what are the regions? I will be travelling between NA and England at least a couple times a year, will all my games be region locked? :-/

It took Sony nearly 12 years to move away from region locking with the release of the PS3. PC games has always been region free. Whatever Valves intentions behind this a game on PC must NEVER be region locked. We cannot fall into that trap. The only thing I would agree on would be the legal aspect of a country denying a game but even there I have been denied buying a game on PC that was available on PS3.

I think it's BS to sell digital content at different prices according to different regions. Real goods have things like shipping, cost of storage, etc. But digital content? It's not like it costs more to upload a file to america than europe.

If they charged them the same price they charge us, they wouldn't sell as much. So they sell it to them for less. Which is a big f-you to us.

I don't like Steam anyway. There prices change too much, if you aren't buying a game with a heavy discount you feel ripped off when you see it on sale the next week. Only games I get on steam are those I get with Humble-Bundle.

Instead of being stupid, they should just use the same pricing regardles of region. There's no reason not to, and several of their competitors already have a unified experience regardles of your ip address' origin.
In a way it's immoral to treat people different from others just because they live in a different place.

ok, ill be talking about this in WIDE brush strokes,

first, you cant have games cost the same everywhere... go to a third world country and tell them that they have to pay a years worth of money for a product. games have a base value, on consoles back in n64 and earlier, it was a fairly large cost with saw some games costing 70-80$ new in the us because of the chips they had to use. but once we went digital and optical, the cost of the medium to distribute was more or less stripped away, while this hasn't lead to games getting cheaper in places with a good economy, it allowed places with a crappy one to charge less for games to combat piracy.

see the idea is that most people wont do something illegal (even if its grey area stuff) if they have a legitimate option... if 1 game cost more free money than i would make in a month, i wouldn't think twice about pirating it. but you take that same game and lower the cost to half a weeks free money... now we are looking at something reasonable and i would definitely consider buying it.

see its more or less a way to milk some sales out of countries that otherwise would never buy it...
also in countries with a vast history of pirating crap and not caring, you see entertainment cost substantially less.

the reason for region locking is partially so you can control the launch and hype doesn't get killed,
partial so you can say import a poor chinese version that only has subtitles and never bothered re dubbing,
as far as consoles go, japan lags behind when it comes to tech uptake (see japans internet speeds, and the websites they make) so they stuck with a hold over for no real reason...
GRANTED take a look at ff13, 1 week after launch it cost 100$ to buy new, but used it was 5, and even if you imported it to america, it would still be cheaper than a new or used copy at the time... i have a feeling this happens allot with games because of it being illegal to rent games in japan (thanks nintendo)

NOW, as for a pure digital distribution service like steam... i have a feeling within 20 years we are going to have a world wide social security like number, and you will use that to get products at discounted prices based on country you live in because digital distribution is not going to die, and a vpn could make you look like you are from anywhere in the world...

now, if you want to know what region you are in, take a look at movie regions, i believe that is the same for everything.
as for uk to us... yea, some things are region locked, if you really need to play a region locked game... vpn... its against valves tos so you are risking ban... if they are single player games... you have options that i won't go into here... if they are multiplayer, vpn or buy it on a second account for america use.

 

[M4347]

Just to clarify does this mean that global keys on sites like g2a will no longer exist? Or is this just meaning that people can't buy the cheap Russia / Asia locked keys to activate on a UK Steam account? I don't really care if they stop people buying other region keys at insanely low prices, but if the global ones will no longer be around then that will be a bit of a pain! Or have I got this all wrong and it only effects games brought through Steam?

 

[ccampy]

Am I only person who gets sick of seeing stupid half life 3 confirmed bs they not making the game people should finally accept that

 

[coolronz]

well I always thought the PC was founded on freedom and non-regional ethics, but STEAM has decided to make us all pay(more) not that it matters, most of us who wont pay $60 for a game usually can get it on sale on STEAM a year later for $5 anyways....

 

[chaotixblade]

Stupid.

 

[Romanticapped]

Never liked Steam anyway, its just another way for Big Business to control and manipulate your data. They are trying to control pricing/profit. What they should do is get a better currency converter system instead of punishing users by blocking games they paid for.

 

[Romanticapped]

Never liked Steam anyway, its just another way for Big Business to control and manipulate your data. They are trying to control pricing/profit. What they should do is get a better currency converter system instead of punishing users by blocking games they paid for.

 

[chenw]

Am I only person who gets sick of seeing stupid half life 3 confirmed bs they not making the game people should finally accept that

I'd say I am far more sick of people saying "HL3 confirmed" whenever the word 'Steam' comes up on any technology related news, even totally irrelevant ones...

 

[alidan]

Never liked Steam anyway, its just another way for Big Business to control and manipulate your data. They are trying to control pricing/profit. What they should do is get a better currency converter system instead of punishing users by blocking games they paid for.

from my understanding ,steam doesn't set the prices, they just act as a store and take a 30% cut of whatever you pay.

 

[knightmike]

I can confirm this. I'm an American that resides in the Philippines. I recently started getting this notice from Steam:

"Notice: Purchases made in this country will only be playable in Brunei, Cambodia, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Laos, Macau, Malaysia, Mongolia, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam."

Which sucks because I have 2 brother-in-laws that are OFW. Playing games together is our way to bond when they're away. But now we won't be able to. At least not through Steam. So now we're buying our games locally. Which is actually cheaper than buying on Steam but I preferred Steam because I don't want the hassle of physical media.

This also means that any games I purchase here can't be played when I go back to America. WTF?! $20 is $20. Why does it matter what country I was in when I gave it to you?

 

[ineegma]

I'm from Russia and yes the games are generally waay cheaper in the local Steam. BUT. They strip them off from all other languages except Russian. Meaning all voice over and text are in Russian. The so-called localization. The quality of which sucks like you wouldn't believe.

And there's no way to purchase full language versions digitally whatsoever. You'd have to opt for a boxed version off of eBay or Amazon. And that would cost 100-120 bucks with shipping and in average you'd have to wait 6-8 weeks for it to arrive.

I wouldn't mind paying $60 for a full language game. I just don't have the means.