FrozenCell
Member
you can make russian keys only activate games in that language
what i meant by greed was using this new feature to further enforce this http://www.steamprices.com/eu/topripoffs
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(Steam) Publishers to crack down on cross-region gifting/trading
- Thread starter JaseC
- Start date
what i meant by greed was using this new feature to further enforce this http://www.steamprices.com/eu/topripoffs
ashecitism
Member
lifeexpectancy
Member
Boo, Boo. Rubbish, Filth, Slime, Muck. booo, Boooo, BOOOOO!
I hope I got the reference right. Otherwise I'm just pulling shit out of my arse.
As a primarily console gamer myself, I can say this type of thing sits poorly with me. The inexorable push by devs and pubs to prevent trading and selling content that (in my opinion) we've purchased and own is the Queen of Putrescence.
Nice, good to know!
Removed those from the "never buy" list...
It's strange though, why would they opt-in and then opt-out so quickly? Test the waters?
Theoretically, yes, but we don't know how Valve plans to handle it.
Considering just how many games had the restriction removed in the space of a day, I suspect that the decision was made for them.
That seems likely, especially since HAWKEN doesn't have it but the Nemesis DLC does.
Don't really get that link? The euro prices are equal to the USD prices after the conversion rate is applied.
I think you're reading the page wrong.
€ 29.99 € 19.49
$ 9.99 $ 6.49 » € 4.73 (-75.73%)
The top price is the EU price, the bottom price is the US price, and then a direct conversion to what it should be in euro's. €4.73 is NOT the same as €19.49.
It's worth noting, the UK price for Silent Hunter 5 is even worse, £19.99. Equivalent to 33 dollars or 24 euros.
That said, Silent Hunter 5 is a poor comparison, as it's that price due to being forced to buy the pack to get it, where as it can be bought separately in the US, hence the difference.
Thanks - I was totally reading it wrong.
The flag wasn't added to the Hawken sub because it's not being used. The two subs that are in use -- the Nemsis sub, as you noted, and the Prosk Starter sub -- both have it, and the latter of which has been updated twice in the past ~30 minutes, so it seems the devs are quite happy to have the restriction in place.
Forcing publishers to opt out is going about things the wrong way, I think, considering the change was reversed for nine out of the dozen games (in addition to Hawken there's also South Park and Thief). My guess? Valve made a small list of the games that were being traded the most and slapped the restriction on them, thinking it was doing a good thing and testing the waters for a registry-wide rollout.
ambientmystic
Member
But South Park is censored here. Fuck sake.
Hmm? Where are you at? Are there actually different regional SKUs with different levels of censorship for the South Park game? Damn it.
That'd be a decent guess if Deadfall Adventures wasn't part of it. :v
That is a load off my mind. Hopefully it stays that way as South Park for 20ish bucks was too good to pass up.
Australia. Apparently our version has a scene blacked out, it written in text form and has a crying koala on the screen. Cleaver but I want the actual scene damn it.
Aha, that makes sense, I didn't realise that the base sub wasn't used.
I agree on forcing opt-out being the bad way to do this (they shouldn't do it at all...), and you are also very likely right on your guess.
Are you in Brazil? Are you aware it's the ONLY country in the region with cheaper prices yet they are locking out the entirety of South America?
Bboy AJ
My dog was murdered by a 3.5mm audio port and I will not rest until the standard is dead
Zero if not already activated.
Lord Panda
The Sea is Always Right
Glad to see the flag was removed from those Kickstarter games - the whole idea of getting behind those games was to support games I wanted to play and give the publishers are big up yours.
Luckily I activated my South Park the moment I received my key - usually I leave gifts in my inventory.
Stumpokapow
listen to the mad man
Publishers view their options as the following: Either a global price which effectively makes it impossible for them to sell products in emerging markets while still maintaining margins in the global North OR have regional pricing, thus taking advantage of the characteristics of each market, but making people in developed countries feel like they're overpaying.
They chose the second. As a result, consumers found out ways to circumvent the regional pricing to get best-of-world pricing anywhere in the world. This is true for textbooks (where Indian English textbooks cost 1/5th the price, for example). It's true for software too. That's what you're seeing here.
As a result, publishers try to use legal means (through lobbying for grey market importation laws and anti-circumvention laws) and technical means (like flags in digital services and DRM or region locks for physical software) to prevent this action and preserve their balance as above.
So what we're basically seeing is publishers attempting to take advantage of globalization and global markets, while insisting it's impossible for consumers to do the same. The unfortunate thing is that if publishers lose this battle long term, the likely outcome will be developing countries being left out of the market rather than developed countries being able to take advantage of the lower pricing--because it's highly likely that despite lots of opportunity for growth in BRIC and other emerging markets, publishers will prefer the reliable revenue they already have in global north. This is much bigger than games on Steam, much much bigger.
But Valve allowing the flag suggests either that publishers have noticed a significant effect of cross-region gifting OR Valve has noticed that effect on their own products and publishers are enabling it even if they haven't just because why not.
They chose the second. As a result, consumers found out ways to circumvent the regional pricing to get best-of-world pricing anywhere in the world. This is true for textbooks (where Indian English textbooks cost 1/5th the price, for example). It's true for software too. That's what you're seeing here.
As a result, publishers try to use legal means (through lobbying for grey market importation laws and anti-circumvention laws) and technical means (like flags in digital services and DRM or region locks for physical software) to prevent this action and preserve their balance as above.
So what we're basically seeing is publishers attempting to take advantage of globalization and global markets, while insisting it's impossible for consumers to do the same. The unfortunate thing is that if publishers lose this battle long term, the likely outcome will be developing countries being left out of the market rather than developed countries being able to take advantage of the lower pricing--because it's highly likely that despite lots of opportunity for growth in BRIC and other emerging markets, publishers will prefer the reliable revenue they already have in global north. This is much bigger than games on Steam, much much bigger.
But Valve allowing the flag suggests either that publishers have noticed a significant effect of cross-region gifting OR Valve has noticed that effect on their own products and publishers are enabling it even if they haven't just because why not.
dr_rus
Member
Again, no problem with publishers trying to expand their market while protecting their current ones.
The problem is that they don't give users from new markets a choice, selling only restricted versions for a lower price here. While technically providing such choice is easy and means only more income for the publishers.
The problem is that they don't give users from new markets a choice, selling only restricted versions for a lower price here. While technically providing such choice is easy and means only more income for the publishers.
The issue I have with the flag is that it also affects copies sitting in inventories that had been acquired via trading/gift redemption prior to the flag being employed. I imagine it'd require a fair bit of effort on Valve's part to change this behaviour, which is why I don't expect it to.
Edit: The functionality isn't there just yet, but the recently-introduced automatic refund feature is supposed to also apply to gifts that one has bought but not traded/gifted away, so evidently at some level Valve can/will be able to distinguish between a gift copy a user has bought for him/herself and a gift copy that was passed on.
Edit edit: The flag was re-added to Injustice's ROW sub:
Edit: The functionality isn't there just yet, but the recently-introduced automatic refund feature is supposed to also apply to gifts that one has bought but not traded/gifted away, so evidently at some level Valve can/will be able to distinguish between a gift copy a user has bought for him/herself and a gift copy that was passed on.
Edit edit: The flag was re-added to Injustice's ROW sub:
34336 Injustice: Gods Among Us Ultimate Edition said:
The problem, of course, with the either scheme is that it always leaves the door open for a smaller company that is willing to actually make their stuff region-free and more often than not, those smaller companies end up making the particular products that end up being global phenomenons. The developing markets will choose games to buy that they can afford and the developed markets will choose to buy the cheapest priced games.
It took 10 days, but I finally got a response from Steam support. They gave me the standard "we can't change region restrictions" answer, which I find hard to believe since that's exactly what they did when they changed my worldwide copy to a Russian one.
I don't really have a problem with region locks, but I am annoyed that the game I traded for was retroactively changed into a different one. Even worse is that it wouldn't have been a problem had I added it to my library in time.
Ah well, lesson learned. Will be the first and last time I use Steam trading for games.
I don't really have a problem with region locks, but I am annoyed that the game I traded for was retroactively changed into a different one. Even worse is that it wouldn't have been a problem had I added it to my library in time.
Ah well, lesson learned. Will be the first and last time I use Steam trading for games.