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[JaseC]

Metal Gear Rising marks the debut of the new AllowCrossRegionTradingAndGifting flag:

Name Steam Sub 36077
Name (Store) METAL GEAR RISING: REVENGEANCE
...
AllowCrossRegionTradingAndGifting No

I can see this becoming popular rather quickly.

Edit: This won't affect retail keys; it's just a measure to combat trading/gifting cheaper games via Steam itself. Also, thus far it applies only to South America and Eastern Europe.

Edit edit: Having looked into the flag it seems it actually debuted about 15 hours ago, with the rather expensive Sonar X3 software, so I'm not surprised it flew under the radar until now.

Update (07/03/2014):

Dark Souls 2 joins the list of shame.

Update (27/02/2014):

Edit edit: The flag was re-added to Injustice's ROW sub:

about 6 hours ago Added AllowCrossRegionTradingAndGifting – false

Update (20/02/2014):

The following games now have the restriction:

<snip>
<snip>
<snip>
<snip>
- South Park
- Thief
<snip>
<snip>
- Hawken
<snip>

And of course there's also Konami's own Lords of Shadow 2.

 

[Justagamer80]

Shameful

 

[kulapik]

What does this mean? It's not region locked but I can't buy it to a russian trader?

 

[cyberheater]

Metal Gear Rising marks the debut of the new AllowCrossRegionTradingAndGifting flag:



I can see this becoming popular rather quickly.

That's not good. That's not good at all.

 

[CheesecakeRecipe]

It was fun while it lasted.

 

[dorn.]

Was fun while it lasted I guess :-/

Edit:
Just realized this probably means I can no longer get uncut versions/games that weren't released in Germany, which really sucks.

 

[ashecitism]

Not cool.

 

[JordanKZ]

I really, really hope this doesn't effect my Amazon.com preorder. I've never had problems and I'm in the UK.

 

[JaseC]

What does this mean? It's not region locked but I can't buy it to a russian trader?

The flag means that in certain territories the game is not giftable or tradeable to users located in other countries. Thus far we know that it applies to Brazil and Eastern Europe.

I really, really hope this doesn't effect my Amazon.com preorder. I've never had problems and I'm in the UK.

It won't.

 

[Soulflarz]

Ugh

 

[Kandrick]

Fuck that shit.

 

[MagicWithEarvin]

That's cheese.

And Valve can't override this, right? Since it's up to the publisher.

 

[Sentenza]

Fuck that shit.

Yep.

As a side note, I guess Konami/Platinum really wanted some negative buzz around their fist Steam release, considering how everything else sounded quite good so far.

 

[Fox318]

And there goes the game trading scene

 

[graywolf323]

well that really sucks

 

[WillyFive]

Typical publishers, ruining a good thing.

 

[duckroll]

Boooo! BOOOO!!!

 

[Tizoc]

This reminds me when Konami made the demo for MG Rising on the PS3 region locked for JPN PS3s only.
I'm guessing this is so that the Japanese ver., whcih I assume will be more expensive than the English ver., would get priority sales in japan?

 

[Wario64]

I'm not surprised Konami is one of the first to do this

 

[Santiako]

It had to be Konami.

 

[toythatkills]

That's cheese.

And Valve can't override this, right? Since it's up to the publisher.

They could have not created this feature in the first place, presumably.

 

[El Sloth]

Fucking Konami.

 

[Fox318]

Typical publishers, ruining a good thing.

I wouldn't be surprised if this had more to do with government censorship and taxation than the publishers worrying about currency conversion..

 

[Durante]

It's interesting, from the name this seems to be specifically about in-client trading. So keysellers reselling retail keys should remain unaffected?

 

[eot]

What the fuck? There are legit use-cases for gifting/trading games

 

[KenOD]

Well that's going to decrease the number of gifts I give. Why do you want to lose money Steam? Publishers? Snake? SNAKE? SNAAAAAAAKE?!

Seriously though, this is a terrible precedent.

 

[scitek]

I take it this is just for trading/gifting specifically, and not region restrictions, so those shady key sites won't be affected.

It's interesting, from the name this seems to be specifically about in-client trading. So keysellers reselling retail keys should remain unaffected?

Yeah, that's what I'm guessing.

 

[Durante]

I wouldn't be surprised if this had more to do with government censorship and taxation than the publishers worrying about currency conversion..

Nah, to me it seems a typical shortsighted publisher thing. Make a few more bucks off the small number of people engaging in cross region trading instead of making things easy for all your customers (and perhaps gain more of them).

 

[JaseC]

It's interesting, from the name this seems to be specifically about in-client trading. So keysellers reselling retail keys should remain unaffected?

Retail key subs won't be affected by this flag, no, but publishers can still opt for the onlyallowrunincountries flag, which is just as effective (though something you can skirt using a VPN).

 

[Intheflorsh]

We'll just have to do these transactions with GMG now.

 

[scitek]

Retail key subs won't be affected by this flag, no, but publishers can still opt for the onlyallowrunincountries flag, which is just as effective (though something you can skirt using a VPN).

But if you're caught using a VPN, they'll ban your account.

 

[Glass Rebel]

shame on Valve for allowing this

 

[Sentenza]

It's interesting, from the name this seems to be specifically about in-client trading. So keysellers reselling retail keys should remain unaffected?

That would be even worse.
Not that I have anything against key resellers (quite the opposite), but leaving them untouched and then punishing users who are doing some honest trading/gifting in good faith would be even more vile.

 

[RionaaM]

This is bullshit. I hate myself because I'm going to buy the game anyway, but I don't like this at all.

 

[Freezard]

How many games have this tag right now? How do I see it? And would it deny someone to e-mail me the gift as well?

 

[TheSeks]

Metal Gear Rising marks the debut of the new AllowCrossRegionTradingAndGifting flag:

I can see this becoming popular rather quickly.

Edit: This won't affect retail keys; it's just a measure to combat trading/gifting cheaper games via Steam itself. Also, thus far it applies only to South America and Eastern Europe.

JaseC on suicide wa--Wait, you're the OP!?

 

[MutonCommander]

It was bound to happen eventually.

 

[Terra_Ex]

Disgraceful and very disappointing.

 

[FACE]

 

[Cheddahz]

rip me getting launch games for cheap

 

[Nabs]

I expected them to lock it down when I saw the Russian price ($10).

 

[Dr Dogg]

Considering Konami games and their lack of availability in Asia this is pretty poor.

 

[zkylon]

it had to be konami

 

[Gbraga]

Can I at least log throught /?cc=us to buy region free gifts to give away? If so that's alright, I guess.

 

[Dario ff]

Reposting from the other thread as an example.

I don't get it, the price is the same as the US version and this warning does not appear in that version of the store. It's not like I'm getting a discount on it to justify this, unlike the Russians. What do they win from restricting me to gift this game to people in the US if the price is the same?

 

[scitek]

This is bullshit. I hate myself because I'm going to buy the game anyway, but I don't like this at all.

Well, it's up to the publishers to use it, and I can tell you they don't use the region restriction flag in most cases. Or there are usually just two regions: Russia, and then the rest of the world.

 

[Mononoke]

So can someone give me an explanation why they would want to do this? Don't they get money? Or are they losing out by allowing people to gift different regions at the region's price?

 

[FACE]

Can I at least log throught /?cc=us to buy region free gifts to give away? If so that's alright, I guess.

Nope.

 

[JaseC]

But if you're caught using a VPN, they'll ban your account.

There are no verified or even reputable reports of Valve restricting accounts due to VPN usage for reasons other than circumventing region-specific pricing (myself and indeed many GAFers occasionally use a VPN to unlock a game early or redeem a region-locked key). Additionally, Valve stopped outright banning accounts almost two years ago now and instead imposes restrictions, so even if you transgress in the most egregious manner, you'll still have access to your library.

JaseC on suicide wa--Wait, you're the OP!?

Haha, if this does take off then it simply means I'll be waiting until a 50% discount in most cases.

 

[ScreenSplitter]

What the fuck is the point of the internet then