steam games/gift are now region lock due to Russian ruble crumble

[ahhming]

Response from dev forum:

"As most of you know, our developer tools suggest pricing based on market research and purchasing power parity. In the case of territories such as Russia, Brazil, and SE Asia, we suggested pricing that is lower than the direct USD conversion. This is based on our assessment of actual pricing of comparable products in that market. Recently Rubles have hit an all-time low which has been a concern of many game developers. We are still assessing the market to see if suggesting new prices in Russia is right for customers who live in that market. We do not think that pricing based on currency conversion only is the right way to approach the Russian market necessarily.
What we are doing immediately in response to the Ruble drop is limiting trading and gifting from Russia to prevent people from taking advantage of the situation. We have been applying a gifting and trading lock of this type on all newly created packages on Steam since mid-2014. Today we have propped a change that will affect all packages on Steam which will not allow them to be unpacked to an account, if gifted or traded from a lower priced region to a higher priced region. This change is not retroactive and only affects new purchases. It also will not affect customers in that region from gifting a copy to other people in that same region. All customers will have proper warning when they are purchasing a gift prior to checkout in those regions as well. We will continue to assess the situation and make changes if necessary in the future. If you have any questions please feel free to write us via the contact form via the Steamworks Development site - Documentation & Help -> Contact Steam Publishing."

Steam may have finally made all games region locked on the platform. While due to it being a digital marketplace, this move likely would only affect (and would almost certainly be done because of) those who sell and purchase games from international sources. Games in regions like Russia and Brazil are substantially cheaper than in the United States and Europe due to rampant piracy, so it’s common for people in these regions to purchase numerous Steam Gifts and sell them to gamers out west at a discount.
Affected countries: Russia/CIS, Southeast Asia, South America, Turkey.


Source:
http://www.hardcoregamer.com/2014/12/16/all-steam-games-now-region-locked/123992/
http://www.reddit.com/r/SteamGameSwap/comments/2pj8zj/psa_all_gifts_are_now_regionlocked_if_bought_in/
https://twitter.com/tomasduda/status/545032432693825539
http://www.engadget.com/2014/12/17/steam-region-locking/
http://www.steamlocks.tk/

[XTankSlayerX]

*Sigh*

 

As far as I know... EA Dosnt do this...

 

Kind of a low blow Steam, but I guess its necessary

[ShadowCaptain]

This has been a long time coming

 

it will probably hurt organisations like G2A and other key selllers

 

Part of me thinks its a good thing, the games are only being made cheaper because people there earn less money and have a weaker currency, people in wealthier countries should not be taking advantage of that because they are too cheap to buy a video game at a realistic price

[Master Disaster]

What we are doing immediately in response to the Ruble drop is limiting trading and gifting from Russia to prevent people from taking advantage of the situation

 

Im sorry but in what world is restricting game purchased in rubles from being gifted equal to "All steam games/gift are now region lock"?

 

Sensationalist headline, way over exaggerated and not true.

[ShadowCaptain]

Im sorry but in what world is restricting game purchased in rubles from being gifted equal to "All steam games/gift are now region lock"?

 

Sensationalist headline, way over exaggerated and not true.

 

This too!

[Master Disaster]

This has been a long time coming

 

it will probably hurt organisations like G2A and other key selllers

 

Part of me thinks its a good thing, the games are only being made cheaper because people there earn less money and have a weaker currency, people in wealthier countries should not be taking advantage of that because they are too cheap to buy a video game at a realistic price

 

No mention of keys being restricted in the article at all, only gifts and only from countries using Rubles as currency.

[ericlee30]

I think this is a good idea, the only downfall to this though,is the same reason they did this for "Piracy" if they think that this will help with that, I think they might want to rethink it, as i can bet anything that this will infuse "Piracy" even further.

 

 

People love saving money, and that is what steam is great at doing.

[ShadowCaptain]

No mention of keys being restricted in the article at all, only gifts and only from countries using Rubles as currency.

 

It says it prevents games bought from cheaper regions being registered on an account from more expensive regions

[ahhming]

Im sorry but in what world is restricting game purchased in rubles from being gifted equal to "All steam games/gift are now region lock"?

 

Sensationalist headline, way over exaggerated and not true.

Rubles is Russian currency, which currently is falling. Therefore cheaper games > people buying from that region

[RatedBlam]

It at least was pretty rough for the ruble. It dropped like 13% value in 2 hours at some point.

It even made e.g. Apple raise prices in Russia.

Insert coincidence comment.

[shadowblitz3]

good move by them. seems appropriate

and yay lower price in SE Asia

[Maslofski]

i guess making them locked, but unlockable in your own region by paying the diference seems like a next step to refine this.

 

luckily this doesnt affect me, since i have to buy my games from germany and use them in a USD equal republic, that seems just like a bit of troubleless overpaying

[Master Disaster]

It says it prevents games bought from cheaper regions being registered on an account from more expensive regions

 

Nope, what it says is "If gifted or traded"

 

 

 

What we are doing immediately in response to the Ruble drop is limiting trading and gifting from Russia to prevent people from taking advantage of the situation. We have been applying a gifting and trading lock of this type on all newly created packages on Steam since mid-2014. Today we have propped a change that will affect all packages on Steam which will not allow them to be unpacked to an account, if gifted or traded from a lower priced region to a higher priced region.

[ShadowCaptain]

Nope, what it says is "If gifted or traded"

 

My mistake

 

I still think its a good idea, it should also extend to keys tbh

[Master Disaster]

Rubles is Russian currency, which currently is falling. Therefore cheaper games > people buying from that region

 

And its also not the only currency or region in the world so saying "All steam games/gift are now region lock" simply is not true. You could purchase from USA and gift to UK for example, in fact you can purchase and gift from/to anywhere except countries which use Rubles.

[MoDtEc]

ALL? does this include US->Europe eg. Humblebundle->me?  :blink: that wuld be VEEERY bad

[Master Disaster]

Actually reading it again it appears i may have been wrong..

..

It says "if gifted or traded from a lower priced region to a higher priced region" which actually does seem to infer the restriction applies to all regions where the currency value is different. My apologies to the OP and others in the thread.

 

Still doesn't apply to keys so wont hurt resellers but i will be interested to see how this pans out.

[Snickerzz]

Nooooo i use g2a all the time :c

[StingBull]

It's not a complete region lock of games because if that was the case the games you bought in one country would refuse to work on another. That's not what is happening. They are restricting gifting and trading so that a game purchased in an area cannot be gifted or traded to a second area if the game is more expensive in the second area.

So it's not even country based then. It only checks for the current pricing in two areas.

[pulosis]

Kind of a rare situation but if you're from a lower price-bracket region and are planning on moving to a different country with a higher price-bracket (eg. SEA to NA) you're screwed.

 

I tried contacting Steam about this and it seems you'll have to rebuy your entire library with the exception of F2P games.

That and you have to go through a pretty lengthy process when moving your account from one region to another.

 

Wish they could implement a RoW pricing for their games along with the reduced, region-locked pricing. I'll be more than happy to pay for full price with the assurance that I can play my games wherever I go.

 

ON TOPIC: I think region-locking trades and gifts makes sense. I dislike region-locking just for the sake of it. Valve should have options in place instead of restrictions and blocks.

[pulosis]

It's not a complete region lock of games because if that was the case the games you bought in one country would refuse to work on another. That's not what is happening. They are restricting gifting and trading so that a game purchased in an area cannot be gifted or traded to a second area if the game is more expensive in the second area.

So it's not even country based then. It only checks for the current pricing in two areas.

 

There are actually warnings on numerous games about play restrictions even before this announcement. My best example would be when I bought Deus Ex: Human Revolutions. Bought the game for the SEA pricing and I can only play it while in SEA.

[deviant88]

Everyone saw it coming but it sucks it means ill buy much less games on steam from now on, in romania they will have prices like Germany/UK top economies  cause EUnion nonesense and euro,while the romania economy is worse than Russian,Brazil etc.

Hopefully we can still buy cheap game keys from other regions.

[That Norwegian Guy]

Well if piracy wasn't a problem before, it's going to become one now.

 

There are poor people in all countries, not just in poor countries with super special snowflake pricing. Those people will pirate now. Watch.

[StingBull]

There are actually warnings on numerous games about play restrictions even before this announcement. My best example would be when I bought Deus Ex: Human Revolutions. Bought the game for the SEA pricing and I can only play it while in SEA.

Well that sucks. What if I move to another country do they expect me to rebuy everything.

[pulosis]

Well that sucks. What if I move to another country do they expect me to rebuy everything.

 

Seems like it. In my case I'll have to finish every single one of my games before I move just to be safe.

 

They don't even show the warning anymore ever since they updated the prices to the local currency.

 

EDIT: This is what the warning looked like.