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Valve taking action against using VPNs to buy games out-of-region (read thread plz)

D

Drencrom

Member
http://steamunpowered.eu/valve-taking-action-against-gifts-from-usa-and-russia/

People in the Steam gifting-scene from Russia and USA claim that they have received emails from Valve, urging them to stop gifting to players from Europe. On some accounts, buying games has been completely disabled.

This is completely unacceptable. For most of people, buying games via a USA-gifter has never been about getting the game cheaper (at least not for Germans). It has always been about getting the uncut version of a game.


Here’s the rest of the text from the reddit user lighthaze.

“I see Valve’s problem from a monetary point-of-view (games are cheaper in Russia / the USA than in Europe), but I think it’s hypocritical of Valve to use the advantages of globalization, while prohibiting it’s users from doing the same.

As an adult German I am allowed to buy uncut games. Why won’t Valve let me? The German community has been asking for an age verification system for years now and we have gotten basically no answers at all.
Click to expand...
 
E

EatChildren

Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
See now this? This really rustles my jimmies.
 
G

glaurung

Member
Oh this is such shit from Valve!

Fellow GAF members have even gifted stuff to me from the US, why the fuck should those kind souls be punished?
 
O

Omikaru

Member
I see Valve’s problem from a monetary point-of-view (games are cheaper in Russia / the USA than in Europe), but I think it’s hypocritical of Valve to use the advantages of globalization, while prohibiting it’s users from doing the same.
Click to expand...

Bingo. End of discussion.

Dick move by Valve.
 
H

HoosTrax

Member
USA people can still get gifted cheaper stuff from the UK I hope...


games are cheaper in Russia / the USA than in Europe
Click to expand...
They're not. Can someone explain to me why the UK is apparently considered a third world country and deserving of lower comparative prices?
 
LiquidMetal14

LiquidMetal14

hide your water-based mammals
Before we really over react, how many cases has this been so far? 1 user on Redit? It's crap but I'd like to know individual circumstances instead of just reading bits or others walking in and not having enough context to the story.
 
R

RedSwirl

Junior Member
I'm really starting to believe that globalization and the digital age are coming into conflict with the fact that varying markets and currencies still exist in this world.
 
K

Krabboss

Member
Seriously Valve, I am disappoint.
Click to expand...
Groan.

Anyway, yeah, this is pretty shitty of Valve. Hopefully enough of a ruckus is stirred up by the community that they back down on this. More than anything I just want publishers to quit price gouging in Europe and Australia, though.
 
S

SparkTR

Member
This is kind of old and I believe is was only in action during the Steam sales (if at all). Outside of the original Reddit post I haven't heard anything else regarding this issue.
 
R

RedSwirl

Junior Member
Not trying to shift blame or anything, but you think it might also be publishers getting pissed at seeing this happen? Look at what happened to Persona 4 to stop reverse importing?
 
Sentenza

Sentenza

Member
“I see Valve’s problem from a monetary point-of-view (games are cheaper in Russia / the USA than in Europe), but I think it’s hypocritical of Valve to use the advantages of globalization, while prohibiting it’s users from doing the same.
Click to expand...
I'm saying this about any form of region locking or region pricing since years.
 
R

Rapstah

Member
Has anyone on GAF gotten this message? US-to-EU gifting isn't unusual here.

EDIT: Do we actually have any basis that this is happening more than ever now, by the way? Steamunpowered isn't feeling like the least biased source here.
 
C

Cave Johnson

Member
Man, coming from a non-US area. There are games that I WISH I could take advantage of this feature of since they don't exist in my territory. Games like Sonic Generations and Binary Domian are some of the examples.
 
M

MRORANGE

Member
Nabs said:
Isn't this the same story for 2-3 weeks ago? We still trust Reddit users?
Click to expand...

Story is from July 21st, when the Steam sale was going on, some users got their account blocked for a while as did some gaffers who gifted a lot.

Still a shitty thing, but I can understand why they would be opposed to Russian / SE-Asian gifters.
 
Nabs

Nabs

Member
MRORANGE said:
Story is from July 21st, when the Steam sale was going on, some users got their account blocked for a while as did some gaffers who gifted a lot.
Click to expand...

And it looks like the Steam Support screencap is about using a VPN to buy shit.
 
V

Valnen

Member
This is the kind of stuff that happens when one store has an iron grip on an entire market. People brought this upon themselves.
 
O

Omikaru

Member
ElTopo said:
It's not impossible that legal issues play a role in this.
Click to expand...

As the end user, I don't give a flying monkey crap about that. I said the same in the Persona 4 Arena region locking thread, and I'll say the same here:

If you're region locking/blocking/restricting in an age where I can send zeroes and ones to the other side of the world in an insignificant amount of time, then you're doing it wrong.

For Steam, this point is especially salient.
 
S

Shao Kahn Brewing a Stew

Banned
I haven't received anything and I have gifted a lot. Quite a lot of gaffers gifted and received gifts. These gaffers gifted with pride during this year's Steam sale:

  • Cloudius12
  • wilflare
  • xenoflux2113
  • Firehead
  • Krappadizzle
  • elkayes
  • ASilva
  • Des0lar
  • Sutton Dagger
  • milesdm
  • PrematureQuiche
  • BlazeGaj

Unless they specify they heard from Valve, I'm disregarding the post made in OP.
 
iNvid02

iNvid02

Member
this is the reddit story

anyway, i've been gifting a bit, but its from EU -> USA. my purchasing ability did get restricted but support lifted the limit, and apparently flagged my account so it wont happen in the future.

we need to hear from frequent US/RU -> EU gifters though
 
D

Derrick01

Banned
Nabs said:
Isn't this the same story for 2-3 weeks ago? We still trust Reddit users?
Click to expand...

We do now that we've jumped the bandwagon and jumped on to the Steam hate bandwagon.

Whatever happened after the summer sale made half of this site crazy. Post-sale depression may be a serious thing after all.
 
T

Tobor

Member
RedSwirl said:
I'm really starting to believe that globalization and the digital age are coming into conflict with the fact that varying markets and currencies still exist in this world.
Click to expand...

You're absolutely right. It's a conversation no one wants to have, for obvious reasons.
 
D

Detox

Member
This is an old story and is false for gifting, just think about it Valve could quite as easily disable cross regional gifting if they didn't want it. The support ticket mentions using a VPN and they warned the user according to the steam agreement subscriber they could have banned him for it.
 
2

2MF

Member
Sneds said:
Valve's image seems to have been tarnished quite a bit on GAF over the last week or so.
Click to expand...

It seems so. Personally I will spend less money on Steam than I have the past, some recent events really made me think over and correct my undeservedly positive opinion of Steam.
 
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