few games have onlyallowrunincountries feature enabled, so most of the games can be played anywhere after activation
Still, a note like "The winner of the giveaway will recieve a gift for his local region" could be added in the description, so that people can choose themselves to enter or not.
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good question. i guess what you can always do, of course, is to ask the winner if that's ok for him. if you ask me, maybe it should not automatically be ok to do this, because there might be certain arguments against the local version (maybe the game is censored in his country or something like that).
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since you're from Germany, and quite a few games are censored there i understand your concern, however, last time i checked steamgifts was a community where you gift out of your own good will without expecting anything in return except that useless CV. So i can't imagine how ungrateful should a person be to win a free public giveaway and complain that he got a cut game which is sold for his region. Still, a note like "The winner of the giveaway will recieve a gift for his region" could be added in the description, so that people can choose themselves to enter or not.
There is also another side of the coin, take for example Wolfenstein The New Order. The Row copy can't be activated in Germany, and since you can't select Germany under region restrictions on steamgifts - results that is impossible for somebody to giveaway or win a German copy. However using my method - even germans could have a chance to participate and win a game of this type for their region.
Also, if i would want to i could create from the start a giveaway for a RU/CIS gift, which are usually the cheapest, and get the same CV, just in case any smartass would try to blame me for trying to farm CV or some other bullshit like this...
Why i thought about giving the giveaway winner a copy for his region is because i noticed several times when people from cheaper regions like RU / SEA / etc won some new AAA games, they were buying the game from their local store, activate it on their account, and the ROW copy they won - sell for profit. I never bothered to report any of them since i didn't have any exact proof, and considering that i still have support tickets for reported users from 5 months ago which were never checked. However it looks strange when a Russian, who won recently Batman Arkham Knight for example, has the game activated on his account, and is also selling a ROW copy of the same game.... doesn't it ?
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Why i thought about giving the giveaway winner a copy for his region is because ... (deleted the middle for later said reason)* doesn't it ?
This made me feel sick. Some people just need a bitch-slap...
Also, you might want to remove this (middle of my copy/paste of your comment) part where you describe what you've noticed so you wouldn't give others who might want to do it and haven't thought of it any ideas...
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since you're from Germany, and quite a few games are censored there i understand your concern, however, last time i checked steamgifts was a community where you gift out of your own good will without expecting anything in return except that useless CV. So i can't imagine how ungrateful should a person be to win a free public giveaway and complain that he got a cut game which is sold for his region. Still, a note like "The winner of the giveaway will recieve a gift for his region" could be added in the description, so that people can choose themselves to enter or not.
With the note it would be ok, i guess. without it - i actually would understand it, if someone complained in this kind of scenario. imagine you are a german. you want to have a game, uncensored. there is a giveaway for it. as usual on SG, it should be the ROW version. which means you get the uncut version. so, now you win the giveaway and get the cut german version you never wanted. if you accept it, that means you can never ever activate the uncut version on your account. that would suck. a lot. ;) so the note is absolutely necessary in order to prevent situations like this.
There is also another side of the coin, take for example Wolfenstein The New Order. The Row copy can't be activated in Germany, and since you can't select Germany under region restrictions on steamgifts - results that is impossible for somebody to giveaway or win a German copy. However using my method - even germans could have a chance to participate and win a game of this type for their region.
true. i was not able to enter those giveaways. assuming i am interested in the cut versions (which i personally am not ^^), i then could enter. point taken.
Why i thought about giving the giveaway winner a copy for his region is because i noticed several times when people from cheaper regions like RU / SEA / etc won some new AAA games, they were buying the game from their local store, activate it on their account, and the ROW copy they won - sell for profit. I never bothered to report any of them since i didn't have any exact proof, and considering that i still have support tickets for reported users from 5 months ago which were never checked. However it looks strange when a Russian, who won recently Batman Arkham Knight for example, has the game activated on his account, and is also selling a ROW copy of the same game.... doesn't it ?
wow, never thought about that. that is actually a pretty dickish move.
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I realize you're not buying the game for yourself, but I wouldn't feel comfortable doing this if you're planning on buying through Steam--it breaches the terms of service you agreed to.
You agree that you will not use IP proxying or other methods to disguise the place of your residence, whether to circumvent geographical restrictions on game content, to purchase at pricing not applicable to your geography, or for any other purpose. If you do this, we may terminate your access to your Account.
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saving money is not exactly the reason why i created this post. i'm aware that i could just buy cheap russian gifts and create giveaways to farm my CV, however i have no interest in CV whatsoever. If i giveaway anything here on steamgifts - i do it out of my own good will.
you can find below a part of the real reason, and anyways i find it ridiculous to waste money on buying a ROW gift for the winner of the giveaway which is in a region where it costs twice or even three times cheaper...
"Why i thought about giving the giveaway winner a copy for his region is because i noticed several times when people from cheaper regions like RU / SEA / etc won some new AAA games, they were buying the game from their local store, activate it on their account, and the ROW copy they won - sell for profit. I never bothered to report any of them since i didn't have any exact proof, and considering that i still have support tickets for reported users from 5 months ago which were never checked. However it looks strange when a Russian, who won recently Batman Arkham Knight for example, has the game activated on his account, and is also selling a ROW copy of the same game.... doesn't it ?"
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I didn't say that you came up with this whole thing to farm CV and if did unintentionally, sorry.I now can understand what exactly you try to achieve.If you can give a region locked game or not, it's something only support can answer to
Let's wish for a support to jump into the topic and give us a proper answer. However, I don't think even they can answer to that. If the answer is that you can, it kinda creates a whole new rule (with a huge impact on the giveaways) and that can only be done by the Admin
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no problem.
but i don't see such a big problem in it, since row giveaways are for people to be sure they will be able to activate the won game in their country of residence, and once you give them a copy for their region there shouldn't be any problems, especially if to add in the giveaway description a note like "The winner of the giveaway will recieve a gift for his local region"
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If you wish to give away a game for a specific region, there is an option in giveaway creation for such. By hosting a region-free giveaway, you are guaranteeing the game to be region-free. Anything else could be construed as false advertising and/or shady.
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By hosting a region-free giveaway i should only guarantee that the winner will be able to activate the game he won regardless of the country of residence, and since i would buy it for his region that can't be a problem.
Other then that - people are just too spoiled and demanding for something they get the chance to win for free, either have interest in making profit using methods similar to the one i described in the op.
I'm not saying this should become a universal rule on steamgifts, even if if think it would be a great idea, however it should be allowed at least by adding a note like "The winner of the giveaway will recieve a gift for his local region" so that people can choose themselves to enter or not.
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Wouldn't be surprised if people do it the other way around. Not with gifts of course, but giving ROW keys to people in their region from the likes of Humble Bundle etc. just 'cause they want to favour people in their part of the world.
I knoiw that's not really adding much to the discussion and it isn't really comparable as the keys will work wherever they go. Just a thought that popped into my head :p
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What's the point? You think $50 is much just because brazilians pay $30? $30 for brazilians is like $100 for you.
I wonder why people still think our prices are fair for us...maybe when they opened brazilian store but now prices inflated. Give me your min wage, I'll buy games paying your price and you will pay my price.
This fucking government making people think our economy is ok ¬¬, bastards.
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It was not personally to you but to everyone that thinks regional pricing is always fair just because they pay "more", I'm just tired of seeing such people talking about this. Never meant to say we are the poorest but we aren't the richest...not even close.
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You guys need to consider poor countries who don't even have regional stores and no type of regional pricing, like us. We pay exactly the same as other EU members, yet we earn several times less than them. Minimum salary here is 190 euro since this month (there actually was 10 euro increase). That said, no one who gets minimum salary ever bought games, customers for these are people with more proper jobs.
Point was, you at least have some sort of regional pricing to make it easier for you, while we, most neighboring countries and other generally poor regions in the world don't. ;)
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you guys entirely missed the point of the thread, it was not created to discuss if regional prices are fair or not, there are several other threads for that matter.
This thread was created only to emphasize how ridiculous is to buy a ROW gift for a person who is in a region where the price of that game is three times lower, when you could instead gift him a gift for his region and from the difference - buy other gifts and make more people happy.
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My bad, I do not agree with this. If you want to give locked games, just make the giveaway with region requirement, you'll still get your CV or level (I hate levels) and won't lie to anyone.
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Didn't want to draw the attention away from that, just jumped in the conversation here. :) As for the thread itself, I think it makes sense and it would be ok imo if the receiver is ok with it. If you alarm entrants that they will get a gift for the region they are in, I think all will be good. Support must confirm this, but that's my view on the topic.
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We do have regional pricing and we pay 70 euros for Fallout 4 :) , we also have to work for 5 months just to pay taxes and the other 7 months are to survive with almost 190 euros aswell.
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Still, if for some odd reason a game is actually more expensive in your region, you can always buy it from a ROW region where the price is lower. Luckily, I am sure such games are in the minority for you. The bad thing is that with the current Steam policy, the cheapest games are for me is from the US, some EU2 titles from my own region, and some titles in Japan, Norway or Canada with a minor difference, but all of these markets have way higher standards than the local ones, which makes the whole thing quite unfair. Life also isn't exactly cheap here, so I get your pain. Rule of thumb is to fight for a better job and complain less as time goes by. :)
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if only all people would think the same...
unfortunately there are many people who take advantage of their regions, for making profit even on steamgifts, like this part of my reply above to KillingArts
"Why i thought about giving the giveaway winner a copy for his region is because i noticed several times when people from cheaper regions like RU / SEA / etc won some new AAA games, they were buying the game from their local store, activate it on their account, and the ROW copy they won - sell for profit. I never bothered to report any of them since i didn't have any exact proof, and considering that i still have support tickets for reported users from 5 months ago which were never checked. However it looks strange when a Russian, who won recently Batman Arkham Knight for example, has the game activated on his account, and is also selling a ROW copy of the same game.... doesn't it ?"
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Not sure if I understand that 100%
You mean they won a "global" one and buy his region's game, then sold the "global" one with higher price... Something like that?
Hmm if that's right
Then what they're doing maybe like.. Advance regifting? xD
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yeah, you got it right.
on a new AAA title, they can make up to $30+ profit, and there are verry few chances to detect people who abuse it like this...
i would rather not make giveaways at all or buy region restricted gifts from the start and create region restricted giveaways only, then to allow somebody to make profit out of my good will of gifting a ROW game.
i'm not rich by far, i work hard for my money, and i need to know that there is a good purpose behind my spendings, allowing smartass kids to make profit on my back is not one of them.
Gifting games for free is becoming too complicated... Contact the winner, sometimes you can try up to 1 week, then try to ignore all the rude ones who don't even say thanks, or even some who rage at you because you didn't sent the game by e-mail, and instead you added him and disturbed his highness to gift him a free game. Then check his account and make sure he activated the gift. Now i also need to check all trading forums and check if he's not selling my ROW copy while activating on his account a cheaper regional gift....
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One way to stop them from doing that is friend the winner after GA ends, give gift and make sure they add it straight away.
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i'm afraid that is not much of a help. i have a real life, i can't track my giveways and add the winners right away. Also there is no guarantee that we'll have the same timezone. it could take several days before the ga creator and the winner would be online at the same time. i'm afraid there are more important things in this life to do then stalking the winners of my giveaways.
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That just got me thinking. How are you going to know the region of the winner for sure without at least a little stalking?
I might be forgetting about something that will give you a more accurate answer, but I can only think of the country listed on someone's Steam profile as an indicator. This might not always be the country where someone actually is located for numerous reasons and you could end up wating your money if you were to just go by that.
Edit:
A few examples:
A person thinks they're being random or quirky by picking a country that seems exotic or obscure to them to display on their profile.
A person is very interested in the culture of a particular country so they pick it as their country on their profile.
I personally know a Romanian living in the UK who supported Brazil at the World Cup because Romania weren't there - he could have wanted to pick Brazil as his country on his Steam profile if he was on Steam to show his support.
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Well, there are several ways. First - check his created giveaways, most people in region restricted locations will usualy create giveaways for gifts region locked for the same location, since all their stores are region locked. The most certain way is to check their won giveaways, if they won at least one region locked game - then you can have no doubt about their region. Additionally you can check the language used in his team profile, steam groups, etc. Finally, if nothing of the above worked - just ask him and hope he'll give an honest answer, and oh, well, if he says he's from a ROW region then just give him a ROW gift and that's it. It may not work in every case but it's still a start.
However, in an ideal steamgifts, since the region of all steamgifts accounts is already tracked, and everybody can see his region in his account, just make it public in every profile : Country - xxxxxx and that's it. Problem solved. Or just make a new checkbox under region restrictions "Restricted to the region of the winner", and when the winner is selected you can also see his region next to the e-mail address. As long as there will be the desire to improve something - there will always be solutions.
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Well if you're going to properly doing your research like that then hopefully you won't be at risk of wasting your money.
This whole thing doesn't affect me on the receiving end as I live in a ROW country. If it did then I'd just be happy to win the game. The stuff you mentioned about being able to indicate that the giveaway was for a copy that the winner could activate would at least give people the option not to enter if it was only ROW gifts they wanted.
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yep. those from region restricted locations could just skip them if they're only after ROW games, however i don't see the difference in the most cases except some games which still use allowrunonlyincountries setting and few games which are cut for Germany. But yeah, they will be able to make their own choice. as for those in ROW regions who would participate and win such giveaways they will recieve ROW copies anyways, so there is no need for them to skip it.
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Lets not even get started about which country is who from and price differences. Think i enjoy paying for any content 100x over my currency. doesn't matter what it costs you. Gift is a gift. Ask yourself this. you pay for something that's $50 which is chump change to most people. now lets swap positions. and pay for that same thing which is now $500. would you still pay for it? Point Made.
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i would love to give you a reply, unfortunately i didn't understand the idea behind you post, it didnt make any sense to me...
and unfortunately 50$ is not a chump change for me by far, actually this is half of the min wage in my country, which is ~100$ a month.
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You can only buy a game from Brazilian Steam store if you live in Brazil. The same applies to all the other regions.
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Well, the thread has turned into a wall-o-text-not-gonna-read-all-that-lol by the time I arrived, so apologies if this was mentioned before:
If I receive a locked gift for MY region BUT the gifter is NOT from my region, I must conclude that the gifter did not obtain the gift directly from the store - it must have changed hands at least once before s/he sent it to me. This puts me in a position where even if I have faith that the gifter has the best intentions, one of the upstream traders could have gotten their copies via fraudulent means. Enough reason to be anxious about a potential chargeback-related-revocation, methinks.
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well, that's the risk of the gifter, since if your game gets revoked you contact him for another copy or mark it as not recieved. even now a lot of the non bundle games which are gifted are usually obtained from trading. this risk always existed, nothing new.
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Sure thing. It can also happen with "direct" gifts. I just felt it was extra flag-worthy because of the clear indication of involvement with other unknown parties and the signs of region-evasion which may or may not have a scammy element in it.
Also, if the revocation happens without my knowledge and I fail to mark un-received in time, I run the risk of suspension for not activating.
But of course, as you say, if you get a key, all bets are off :)
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i actually once bought a stolen game (didn't know, of course). it was planetary annihilation. i had it in my lib for a few weeks, and then it was silently removed. didn't get a message or anything.
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Don't quote me on that, but I think you get the warn only for steam-gifts.
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Not only perfectly fine according to the rules, but also a smart move - the way you described it.
The only measure it requires is, confirming with the winner (if its not very obvious), in which region they are - best by asking.
^ If the winner can't be bothered/reached with the question for whatever reason - in order for you to save 0 - 40$ then they'd
best get what they deserve, namely nothing.
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That's actually an intersting thought... If you plan to give a game several times it might be handy to have a ROW copy as backup if there are any problems with the regional restricted one but since you have 1 week to deliver the gift that should be more than enough time to aquire one later if necessary.
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There is really no reason at all a winner with good intentions could have anything against it, provided it is a key/game they can activate on their account. Only problem is if the giver gets the country/region wrong somehow, then it should be his problem. I think it is a good way of doing it, it reduces risc of regifting as mentioned futher up and the giver saves money, which might be spend on another GA :)
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we're "brain brothers" ^_^
regarding detection of the region from a reply i wrote above
"However, in an ideal steamgifts, since the region of all steamgifts accounts is already tracked, and everybody can see his region in his account, just make it public in every profile : Country - xxxxxx and that's it. Problem solved. Or just make a new checkbox under region restrictions "Restricted to the region of the winner", and when the winner is selected you can also see his region next to the e-mail address. As long as there will be the desire to improve something - there will always be solutions."
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I agree, it could relatively easy be solved, fx. with one of your suggestions. But for the time being, I would much prefer to have contact with the winner and get his own words about his region before purchasing anything, just in case.
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As a "representative" of one of those cheaper regions I must say that I never activate games on my account that have been locked for running, but I wouldn't mind if the gift is only locked for activation. There are certain exceptions to every rule, however, as there are some regional subs that have a different set of DLCs, or lacking certain languages (even English could be missing).
So, bascially, you should get the winner whatever the gift you've marked your giveaway as (either region-free or region-restricted), and consider exceptions to this rule on a case by case basis by asking the winner about it. And don't be upset if the winner of a giveaway that wasn't marked as region-restricted tells you they want a ROW copy, because this is what you initially promised to deliver. Also asking a winner about it is not really a nice thing to do, in my opinion, but it's up to you.
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I dont see any reason why that would be a problem. The winner gets his game so he is happy and you don't waste extra money so you are happy. Everybody wins,
What might be a problem is buying a gift from another region though. I don't think steam likes that very much.
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never knew there were this kind of "advanced" regifting
but in my opinion, as long you make a ROW gibs, you should give him a ROW one. unless there's a note ( i.e ill give you game for your region or something)
but that's actually bad thing, just make region locked if you want to make a "cheaper" gibs in the first place
in short, deliver what you promise!
btw how are you even buy one from other region?
trade?
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This is a really interesting question. I have lived on three different continents and may move again, so in my case I would prefer an ROW copy. I haven't even switched my Steam store after my most recent move because I don't want locked games. But that's unique to my circumstances.
I bet that in 95% of cases, a local, region-locked copy will suffice. I mean, if these members are buying from their own local Steam store, they're getting locked copies anyway.
Short version: Interesting question, worthy of debate, but right answer ultimately depends on the winner's circumstances.
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well, as i suggested above this could be easily done by adding a new checkbox under region restrictions "Restricted to the region of the winner", and when the winner is selected you can also see his region next to the e-mail address before buying the gift for him. this way people will also be able to choose for themselves to enter or not.
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Most region locked gifts will be locked only to activate/add to library.
So if there are no restrictions to run the game or no cut content, essentially it's a "ROW gift with an activation lock".
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This is a really interesting topic, and I've skimmed through all the comments so far.
In my opinion, I don't mind getting a gift for my region if I win a ROW GA, but you have to be careful with the exceptions, when the contents of the game are not the same, as people have mentioned. And I understand that selling the ROW copy youw in here is one thing, and it's a really ass move... But I don't necessarily see it as a problem if they buy themselves the game and gift the ROW copy here. It means more people can have the chance to win a free game. If anything, they "transformed" the region locked copy they bought to give away in a ROW copy. The CV gained is the same.
That being said, I also think it's a lot of work and trouble to do all that checking of the exceptions, and on the winner's region as well, just to save some money and avoid getting the person to "regift" it.
As you have mentioned, there are already many things you have to check when delivering a GA, and if you worry too much beyond the point that you bought a game to give it away here and have it delivered, it will probably be not worth it.
As for if it's allowed by the rules, technically, if you mark it as "no restriction", you shouldn't give a restricted gift, but that's used to avoid people entering the GA without being able to activate it, so I guess it's no problem. But maybe it's not something the staff thought about and they have to create a specific guideline to clarify that.
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Hi everybody.
Let's say for example i wanna make a giveway for Just Cause 3, without having the gift yet. The giveaway ends and the winner is from one of the regions who have cheaper prices : Indonesia, Russia, Brazil, Turkey, etc... Am i allowed to buy the gift for the specific region of the winner ? What if the winner claims to recieve a ROW gift even if he's able to activate the one for his specific region ? Obviously if the winner is from a country that requires a ROW gift - he'll get a ROW one, but if the winner is for example from Brazil - why would i have to pay about 50$ for a region free gift when i can buy a Brazil gift for only 30$ ? This would be a complete waste of money...
I wrote this on the forum just in case anybody from the community previously asked support about it, or hoping that somebody from support would clarify it. Overwise i'll just write a support ticket later.
Why i thought about giving the giveaway winner a copy for his region is because i noticed several times when people from cheaper regions like RU / SEA / etc won some new AAA games, they were buying the game from their local store, activate it on their account, and the ROW copy they won - sell for profit. I never bothered to report any of them since i didn't have any exact proof, and considering that i still have support tickets for reported users from 5 months ago which were never checked. However it looks strange when a Russian, who won recently Batman Arkham Knight for example, has the game activated on his account, and is also selling a ROW copy of the same game.... doesn't it ?
Anyways i find it ridiculous to waste money on buying a ROW gift with US or EU price for the winner of the giveaway which is in a region where it costs twice or even three times cheaper, even if he won't be one of those many people trying to use the above method for profit...
Many thanks for any info. Cheers :)
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