why u dont want my money ?
the biggest player can do whatever he wants
we can vote with ours wallets - yeah, good luck
http://store.steampowered.com/sub/15358/ nice promo btw
21,20€
21,23€
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Too bad Red Alert 3 and Tiberian Twilight sucks so its better to buy just Tiberium Wars and Kane's Wrath and save even more - btw Price of individual games: 21,20€ / Bundle cost: 21,23€ - the point of bundle is to save more money right? :D And in some cases the bundle is even more expensive than individual games.
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"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."
Good point. Touché, adult German; touché.
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Thing is we will always lose. Valve doesn't have to make you shut down SG or whichever gifting community that's out there. If gifting becomes a big enough issue with Valve, they can just eliminate trading games from Steam. I see a lot of people going "but valve has made so much money from us". I'm pretty sure valve doesn't really care about us. It's all legal bullshit. Games aren't more expensive in europe because valve wants it to be so. They are more expensive because of taxes, import, tariffs, etc, etc, Which are a lot different (higher) in europe/AU than Russia/US. Problem is that some organizations might see trading and gifting as a way to evade taxes and tariffs and just as the IRS what happens when someone owes them money.
People need to realize that Valve going against gifting is not valve and money. It's legal; they're hands are basically tied
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I just hope this doesn't get bigger and Valve is tkaing real steps against gifting in general. I as German could care less about the Price differences (they are a shame, but tolerable). What really bothers me is that we can't get the full Steam Catalog of Games. Less Games and even cut.
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I think this has more to do with the fact that Europe just passed a law stating digital retailers cant forbid users from "returning" or getting a refund for a game/"subscription" as in steam's service. If it was strictly about the money, steam would just disallow users to trade from russia to other countries I think.
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I don't understand what gifting has to do with regional pricings. If a game was bought to be gifted, it would always be free for the receiver, no matter where you bought it from. What has steamgifts got to do with this? Steam can try and restrict trading from different regions, but I don't see why steamgifts.com has to be shut down for this.
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Because, users that buy games and then trade them to other users that happen to be in another country comprise most of the site. Kinda rare when a user gifts to someone in their own region. Steam has no way to know if its a genuine gift, or if the users are actually have a financial transaction used to get even cheaper games or to bypass other restrictions. Thus, real users, like the ones on steamgifts, end up in the cross fire as it were.
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First off, steamgifts isnt "getting involved" its not like cult advised people to start a petition and such. Second, steamgifts is CONCERNED because it effects the whole point of the site which is for people to gifts games. So if steam implemented a trade restriction then a lot of people wont gift anymore/at all/as much or at the very least, people will be limited to only entering for gifts made by people in their own country which might/would limit the chances for someone to win a game theyd really want.
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Yeah, kinda suspicious at this point. But really, how am supposed to know where the person is. Many profiles do not include a country id/flag, so there is really no way to know where my trading partners are located.
My bet, even if this email is true, Steam is just doing it to drag their feet. Steam is the biggest distributor, only a company like EA can go it alone with their own client. Ubisoft could try it, maybe Rockstar, but them seeing the EA growing pains would be a cautionary tale.
Heck, the publishers agree to the lower prices in RU to get access to that pirate-filled region. Just wait until they try to crack China lol
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IFFFFFFFFFFFFF some kind of new rule is implemented, we can always steamgifts make it so only certain regions can enter for games bought from that region? Not sure how hard that would be to code.
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this gave me reason to pirate games that doesnt available on my region, which is decent amount, and most of em is AAA games = save money, yay!
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Well, this is just speculation from someone who doesn't know the in's and out's of the business happenings, but I'd be surprised if companies pulled games from Steam if Valve didn't comply. Steam is way too successful that it would hurt the company that pulls titles from Steam as much as it hurts Steam. That would be a real pointless pissing match. But again, I don't know the actual numbers, just going on my general knowledge and some reasonable assumptions.
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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.
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