Not my words, not my opinions. Keep in mind, publishers pressure Valve, so if Valve doesn't comply with their wishes, they can remove all their titles from Steam, so I'm siding with Valve on this.

Via Reddit:


Apparantly some of the big players in the gifting-scene (from russia / the US) have received emails from Valve, urging them to stop gifting to players from Europe. On some accounts, buying games has been completely disabled.

I think this is completely unacceptable. For me, buying games via a US-gifter has never been about getting the game cheaper. It has always been about getting the uncut version of a game.

I see Valves problem from a monetary point-of-view (games are cheaper in Russia / the US than in Europe), but I think it's hypocritical of Valve to use the advantages of globalization, while prohibiting its 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.

Edit: Most reputable gifters never used the system to get rich. All they asked for was a small tip and paypal-fees. Seriously Valve, I am disappoint.

Edit2: There seems to be a lot of misinformation concerning the German system. Therefore I'll add some infos on how it actually works.

Basically you have two big players:
The USK (German self-monitoring of entertainment software) and the BPJM (Federal Department for Media Harmful to Young Persons). If a publisher wants to publish a game in Germany, the game needs to have an age restriction sticker from the USK. Classifications include "no restriction", "6+", "12+", "16+" and "18+". There restrictions are legally binding for the retail sector. If the USK thinks a game is too violent (rascist, etc.) it can refuse classification. In this case the BPJM can index the game which basically means an automatic 18+ rating AND prohibition to advertise the game (which includes displaying the game in retails stores). Buying the game as an adult is still allowed, but getting it can be a problem. Some retailers still have such games below the counter, but if you don't want to buy on the Internet you're probably screwed. Again this is not a situation (directly) forced by law, but a decision made by the retailers due to, probably, low sales.
Important to note is that not the German government censors games. The publishers do, as they want to prevent that their game is being indexed.
Now online it's a really difficult case. Basically Steam already does illegal things by selling USK 16+ rated games to teens. But nobody seems to care. German players just want an age verification system that lets people buy games they could also buy in a German retail / online store.

Edit3: Games actually can get banned in Germany. This is the third, but very rare case. It mostly happens to games like "KZ-Simulator" (Nazi bullshit) or other games depicting swastikas (Wolfenstein), sometimes really violent games like Manhunt. Here selling the game is actually prohibited (afaik not buying, but IANAL). Whatever, this case is not that importat, because it happens very rarely.

12 years ago*

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The Mayan predictions are becoming true <:(

12 years ago
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Well then. Can't say I didn't think it wasn't inevitable.

12 years ago
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So.... you though it was evitable ?

12 years ago
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heh, you're probably the only one who figured that out while the rest thought I said the contrary.

12 years ago
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You make it sound like everyone isnt literate. Granted, as someone that works in any capacity as support, Im sure you have your reasons to. I would to if all I saw all day was "Fix now!" "You fix broke now!"

12 years ago
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Bare my babies

12 years ago
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If you take "games" seriously and have a lot of money go to your lawyer and say steam is blackmailing you.

12 years ago
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12 years ago
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that is lame.

12 years ago
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12 years ago
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region locks are lame.

12 years ago
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I REMEMBER THIS BEING A DICUSSION on reddit a few weeks ago. THIS IS MAINLY TO STOP the paypal trades which valve hates

12 years ago
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Yeah they hated,cause they don't make money from them... but hey wtf,it's my opinion what to do with a game that I've payed for

12 years ago
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Its called free will and they dont like, its rude man. You just have to BUY,BUY,BUY,BUY more games without questions! :D

12 years ago
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Could this be solved by creating a regional restriction on sg, If so, I think valve would limit their trading regulation for regions thus solving the problem :(

NOTE: I'm not suggesting anything. I'd rather let anyone get a game if they're old/ mature enough to play.

12 years ago
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If they do the limitations to not buy games i´m gonna use pirate games, just... if you can´t play the game buying it or get it for gifting , is the only way maybe...
so valve ... if you want to do that and lost money...

12 years ago
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Now must wait for OriginGifts.com
Of course if EA create gifts on that platform :3

12 years ago
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Funny thing is they even have guide on how to make gift purchase ( http://store.origin.com/store/eaemea/en_IE/DisplayGiftingInformationPage ), they just didnt actually added that option to store. :D

12 years ago
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quick! enter all giveaways possible before it's too late!

/me hopes that this doesn't happen :P

12 years ago
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:O That is horrendous news, but it isn't really in Valve's hands all that much and I think we should not blame them.

12 years ago
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Who cares? RU-Stuff will soon be RU only, just like Diablo. Problem solved.

12 years ago
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this^

12 years ago
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12 years ago
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If Steam decides to be stupid, fine. Just buy it retail from zavvi.com or other stores like that.

12 years ago
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this is ridiculous

12 years ago
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I would really like to see one of these emails. People getting disabled for mass gifting is nothing new, but those were the people Valve suspected being re-sellers. And a really big ones, who worked for profits.
And I would also say that you should yell "End times! End times!" just because a few people got affected by the issue. Unless one of the top dog contributors here gets banned just for gifting it's not the end of Steamgifts.

12 years ago
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Yeah I'm sure developers will remove their games from steam. They can all create their own distribution methods and still sell a ton, I mean, look at Origin, great success.

12 years ago
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The Origin part was sarcasm... right ?

12 years ago
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Its pretty easy to see its a sarcastic post

12 years ago
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I have 8 games in origin. I never had a single problem while using origin. I got some DLC's fo free. I got a game for free. What's your problem with origin? Why you do making negative PR for origin? Is there something specific, not just "because it's shit"? Please. I really can't realize what is the source of this hating.

12 years ago
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It's not terrible, but it's certainly not great. I'm indifferent about using it, but I don't like EA's "Sales devalue IP" policy. There's no way I will ever, ever pay 80 dollars for an all digital item.

12 years ago
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A thousand times this.

12 years ago
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It's about service. Originally it had bad PR around the terms. Then you have the client, service, and the list of games. Why release a service that's far lesser quality then the next thing? It just boggles my mind how anyone could even consider using it. Oh that's right they pulled a Valve and released BF3 exclusively.

I'll go into detail just for you. The terms originally was worded that they can scan and sell information pulled from your computer. That's just a big nono.

The client is a piece of shit. It uses so much RAM for no reason. It'll constantly be using 150mb of RAM whereas Steam will reduce it's usage to 15mb during idle. Top it off the features built into the client. Again lesser quality.

The list of games is just awful when I can buy 99% of them elsewhere for cheaper and what's funnier is that you don't need to register it to Origin or even use it(This includes if you buy most games off Origin which imo is one of the greater things of Origin. Though it's more or less due to the fact it was EA Store before and they didn't care.)

I can go on if I wish, but I don't feel like to do so. It makes me sound like I'm a valvedrone or something. As of now personally Amazon > Origin. In terms of service, quality, games, and even sales.

12 years ago
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Totally not. Everyone loves origin and I'm pretty sure it'll beat steam any time now. On a non sarcastic note, I trully doubt that developers will remove games from steam because I am pretty sure that it's where most of their sales come from. They will eventually realize that trading doesn't affect their revenue as much as removing their games from steam would.

12 years ago
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I have 19 games on origin, some activated keys and others bought from origin store and I never had more problems with it than with steam, actually offline mod is far better (no "That action cannot be completed in Offline Mode" crap - serioulsy when internet goes down you cant start offline mod cause you have to be online, than whats the point of it in the first place?), far less disconnecting from friends (that kicks from some games that uses steam friends for stats, etc - like Dungeon Defenders or Warhammer Retribution - that really sucks) and I never had problems with downloading games - no "steam servers are too bussy at the momment" - if there servers cant handle it than they should get MORE servers, its not like they dont have money for it). Steam is just more advanced because its out for quite a while now. Point is that they both have issues and they alway will have, so there is no point saying one is perfect and other is crap. On origin you can even use VPN legally to activate games, it was confirmed when Battlefield 3 was being released - some people asked if you could use VPN to activate Battlefield via Singapour IP to play it on 24.10. due to time zones.

12 years ago
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Never said that steam was perfect. I just can't be arsed to download a different program for each company that decides to remove their games from steam. Add that to everything UltraJesus said. And on a side note: it's not steam's fault that a game kicks you when community is down. That's the game's fault. You can still play tf2 when community is down, for example.

12 years ago
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Yeah I also agree with UltraJesus, didnt said you think steam is perfect. ;) Just sayin even Origin have its upsides (and I am protected by law about personal info in my country so EA can do what he want with them - law is still more than some stupid EULA) and Ubisoft is doing the same thing with there ubi game laucher and they have some Uplay on top of that( I dont really know how exactly it works because I dont buy Ubisoft games for some time now due to their stupid DRM). You can correct me if I am wrong, this is civilized discussion and no flame war after all. :)

12 years ago
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Ya, just because something is illegal in a country, doesnt mean a company wont do it. Just saying... I mean, the fact that its illegal and they added it to the EuLa anyway doesnt bode well at all.

12 years ago
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If they lowered eu prices or upped eastern prices and made uncut versions for Germany etc, then there would be no problem for them.

I actually don't think a region lock is such a bad thing.

12 years ago
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Developers can't make more good games per a year than a number of fingers on my hand (i didn't lost any in an accident ^_^). And now they make a pressure on Valve to make more restrictions to satisfy their greed. whatdafuq. If they will do that i will only buy retail games and/or download repacks from the web to fuck them all. And it's something that easy and achiveable that everyone can do.

12 years ago
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Couldnt care less about paying 20% more in europe than I would in the US, the only thing I care about is uncut. A lot of games are cut here (germany) and I have friends in the US or other parts of europe that gift me uncut games so I dont have to deal with the goddamn cut ones.

12 years ago
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20% right? Alice: Madness Returns, Darkspore, Shift 2 Unleashed - all 49.99€ / 19.99$
Grand Theft Auto IV, L.A. Noire, Medal of Honor, Dead Space 2 and more - all 29.99€ / 19.99$
If it was only 20% :/

12 years ago
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I just made that figure up. Looking at COD BO2 which costs $59.99/59.99€ it is close to 20%

12 years ago
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For once i can say im happy im living in Finland.
No banned or cencored games at all atleast that i know of one, but yea Valve should go back to $ in Europe.

12 years ago
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I'm pretty sure they'll end up doing price localization, like GOG

12 years ago
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I'm just going to say that I would rather buy games in a currency less than the U.S. but the problem with that is I can't find one. I'm in the US and I don't have the money to buy a game and then be like, okay now pay me the equivalent with taxes and fees. I've had friends that have done that and one of my friends actually lost $400 USD because he was stupid, (he lost his paypal info). For steam to take action against people who do that and say okay no more for anyone then well...I'd probably start asking for refunds and take my business elsewhere.

My good friend just recently moved to germany and he has told me of his situation where he had to go over to UK to get a copy of Modern Warfare that didnt have the censors. Sometime, censorship is just done for the wrong reasons.

12 years ago
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Different countries, different customs. Mustn't be prejudiced.

12 years ago
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I'm not gonna be all noble about it. If I see a game costs less in the US I'll trade for it. I'm sick of paying 50% more for a game just because we live at the arse end of the world. F'em. Level the playing field or people will always try and get around your roadblocks.

Here's the kind of crap we put up with

12 years ago
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You are actually way more screwed than Poland. I don't feel so alone now :P

12 years ago
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sth wrong with poland ?
:)

12 years ago
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Eastern salaries and western prices. AAA title on steam costs around 200% of the retail box price in store.

12 years ago
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so nothing wrong with poland, just steam

12 years ago
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well, if THAT happens, and the massive region block start... i go back to the pirate bay, yhaaaar mates!

12 years ago
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Yarrrrrrr...

12 years ago
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Yar har fittltee dee!

Being a pirate is alright with me!

12 years ago
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thats a tricky latey doo ppls

12 years ago
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12 years ago
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Yeah this stuff is seriously fucked up. Another example is Latvia - we have all the games for euros and we can buy them although they cust more than in US. But the problem is - we are in Russia/Eastern Europe region (or something like that) but we can't buy some games that people in Russia and Europe can buy. O.o One example is Skyrim. We are unable to get it because of region restrictions but people in the Russia (few hundred kilometres away) can. Why the fuck Steam? Why?

12 years ago
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You can't buy Skyrim because of company called 1C, which has exclusive distribution rights of Skyrim (and some other big titles) in Latvia, Russia and other Eastern Europe countries. It's really awkward situation - we can't buy Skyrim from russian steam because we belong to European region, and we can't buy it from European Steam because one shitty company has rights to distribute the game in our region. The only 2 ways out are to buy Skyrim (1C) in retail store or buy its key (1C) from some 3-rd party online seller. In both cases you can activate it on steam without problem...

12 years ago
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No problem with censorship here, but the biggest issue is with the exchange, being that 1USD = 4.50Pesos (that's a lot when a game costs around 40USD)

12 years ago
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Feel like an argentinian

12 years ago
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For me 1$= 41.89 Philippine pesos, well atleast its in the proper pricing range as US, that being PH and US have certain IDK country bromance,(can't think of a word). Oh thats right relation...

12 years ago
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Closed 12 years ago by Cult.