don't be tempted. not worth it. those stories are true.
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Are they tho? yet to see someone actually who got banned for using this method tho. Don't think I am trying to justify the use of vpn but I am actually trying to see some proof of someone getting banned by doing it. Have few friends who bought few upcoming games and activated the gift copies using vpn's and yet to see any of them banned.
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Yeah, I know. But "Vamp lost his friend", it sounds like his friends never came back from war. ;)
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XD he never came to hang out in steam again..imagine if joey couldn't stop by @ coffee house
more dramatic it should be :P
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There was a discussion here on SG where a guy from russia were buying region limited gifts and selling them to other members here in exchange for other keys for over a year. There were a bunch of people banned because of that, 1-2 of them did provide screenshots to try to provide some proof. Discussion name was something like "Russian steamstore is the cheapest one" cant find it at the moment. I think you would get thousands of hits by asking google about steam and vpn
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I google'd before posting this and got loads of results but nothing concrete, but if this is the case then how come SG still allows these sort of trades to be posted after such an event ? right now there are some deals in the trade section advertising just this.
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oh for greeds sake try it yourself and tell us what happens.
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No need to get offensive. If you dont like what OP is asking, then just dont read it. Noone is able to force you to do it, its your own decision
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Well, its against the Subscriber Agreement 3A:
"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." source
I have double citizenship (German and Russian) myself and would need to create a separate account to use region resctricted games while spending my time in russia according to steam support. (Did ask them around 8-9 years ago)
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Yup I have seen that as well, another reason for making this thread but thanks for all the information mate :)
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You are welcome :)
Edit: little bit outdated (summer 2012), but still better than my 8-9 years old information provided above :D
http://steamunpowered.eu/valve-taking-action-against-gifts-from-usa-and-russia/
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yes, you would think you find lots of results. but you won't. i did that some time ago. i searched for people who got banned for using vpn. i couldn't find a single one, and i searched for 1-2 hours. only lots of guys who tell others that they get banned for sure bla bla. but no one who said he was banned for using vpn for activating games. instead you find lots of people who say that they do this for years now without consequenses.
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Same here mate, actually the reason that made me making this thread.
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Why is it not safe enough ? what are the repercussions of using this method ?
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community ban i think...so you'll only be able to use what you have on steam
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I don't know what's the probability of being banned currently is, however, you should also consider the steps that valve took recently (region lock on all games, etc). The fact that they might not have cared much for it before, doesn't mean they won't in the future. The situation might remain the same, but it might also radically change and fast, should valve decide to act against it.
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If they wanted to stop people from activating games from a vpn, they could simply release a statement like "Don't activate games from a vpn, or we'll ban you" and almost everyone would stop doing it.
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I used VPN on more than 80 games in my library, never had a single problem with that.
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no no, not you. A FRIEND OF YOURS used VPN on more than 80 games in HIS/HER library, never had a single problem with that. right? :)
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ya i can confirm, ''I'' and ''one of my friend'' look the same so that might be the mistake.
XD
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Friend lost his account because of that:/
He had about 100 games on it and about half were activated with VPN:(
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Damn sorry to hear about that, did he got a permanent ban or a trade ban or store ban ? just curious about the situation. Also were those cd keys or gift copies ?
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Bit both. So can't be sure which was the cause and it was perma :(
He's full pirate now:/
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Damn :/ so I guess even the games he bought earlier are not accessible to him anymore ?
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Nope... And that's the part he lost it and went full pirate :/
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You wrong mate, either you lie, either you dont know what you're talking about.
The game are still accessible , just the store , market, and all stuff related are banned .
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Nope... He just gets a message (when trying to log in) telling that his account is permanently suspended.
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Games that have been purchased can still be accessed, except multiplayer on Valve/Steamworks servers. Everything else is restricted. VALVe stopped terminating accounts a couple years ago, and only suspend them from using services now.
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That would explain it as this happened a couple years back...
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Oh, I see.
VALVe have gotten pretty lax over the years when it comes to VPNs. I've never seen any case of people getting bans for activating games or bypassing a release date via a VPN, though I've never really looked into it. Only suspensions I've ever seen are people using VPNs to access the Russian store from other countries.
Anyway, to OP and anyone considering the same, I don't recommend using a VPN and putting your account at risk. But if you do so, you're fully responsible for anything that happens.
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When did that happen? From what I've read Steam does not suspend accounts for using vpn or stuff like that. They LOCK the account and the consequences are what DarkTanner mentioned.
How do you know the only violation he did was using VPN?
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Unethical but not risky. I'd considered doing it once but returned the game back to the gifter instead.
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Sorry wrong choice of words.. I wanted to say that chances of getting banned are not too high.
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if you search on steam forums you can see some people banned for using vpns
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ask steam support first tbh if they are generous enough to make the gift ROW
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Knowing steam support don't think they would do such a thing sadly :/
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well they do make exceptions. Even though they said it will be ONLY ONCE. I think it's more like Once per steam support member.
They're more likely to convert the gift to ROW if the gifter is in your friend's list for a while.
Gotta just have patience. Also, this happened just recently
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Damn Gabe is so awesome still can't believe such a thing happened, kudos Gaben. Anyway thanks for the idea, while atm I am not looking to buy this way I saw a really interesting price for new MK X($22) in a trade thread here and was curious about the whole thing, considering that the game costs $81 here $22 price is a steal.
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Hmm.. shoulda kept that region-locked Bioshock Triple Pack in my library... though the friend who gifted it to me was a "new" friend.
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"At the end of the day, everyone here at Valve is in support."
Sadly, as cool as it is that Gabe was able to help out personally like this, this philosophy is exactly why Steam support is so bad. Valve's employees are not numerous enough to handle the volume of support requests they get, and most of them probably aren't trained in customer service and support roles. Hiring dedicated support staff, though decidedly less "Valve," would go a long way to rectifying Steam Support's issues.
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useless..u cant use it after activating it ..u must be in that country...
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it varies from game to game, as there are various kinds of locks on steam. it can be trading ock, meaning it's a ROW copy but cannot be traded outside of specific country, it can be activation lock meaning that it can't be activated outside of specific country and it can be full game lock meaning you have to be in specific country to actually access the game at all.
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"Or you could move overseas, update your location with Steam support and activate all the RU/CIS games you want (?)"
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in my country i see a lot of people buy rus and other region lock country but inever heard or saw any of them getting ban or such thing though steam doesnt have a store for us so officially there is no way we can buy from the store maybe its cause of that too.i think the only problem of rus version is that some of it after release or even after a while you will only get rus lang(which the game will be useless) or even if you have activated the game you need rus ip to play like payday for example before you didnt need vpn to even active it now even for playing you need rus ip.
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I have 700+ games worth thousands of dollars (or pounds in my case) I wouldn't dare to risk losing them by trying anything even remotely dodgy such as VPN etc, so my answer is: hell no!.
Edit: I see you have even more games than I do, If I were you I wouldn't risk it even if I'd get a copy of Witcher 3 or GTA V for $0.01.s
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It's a lottery, and not one that's worth buying a ticket for...
Be patient and wait for a good sale. It's not worth jeopardising your account for the sake of saving a few bucks.
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a friend of mine lost his acc because of using VPN ....
also he didnt use vpn that much ithink he used vpn 2or3 times...
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Well, it kinda sucks becasue people in region locked countries have no access to the store with unlocked games. How are they supposed to buy internationally accepted copies if they aren't available to them?
btw, I also live in the CIS region, but our prices are twice as high because we are forced to pay in USD instead of RUB. And after paying 2 times more we still get a region locked game. Why, Steam? Why..
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I believe it's not any dangerous at all. in my country there is no way you can charge your steam wallet or buy from stores. There are some illegal online shops which sell gifts or cd keys and for some games they provide you with a special Russian VPN to activate your key and I haven't heard of any issues about this so far.
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And to tell you the truth Steam website is censored in my country and everyday I want to access the store or community I have to use a US/UK VPN but I haven't countered any problems.
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I have Project CARS through RU VPN and I have no problems whatsoever.
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As the title say is it safe to use vpn's to activate region locked gift copies ? I see few threads in the trading section offering very good prices but with RU locked copies and the those pages say its okay to use a vpn to activate the gift copy.
Remember seeing few stories months ago that people getting banned & game getting revoked for using vpn's to activate their copies, still nothing concrete so I am very curious what is the truth.
Hope someone can shed some light into the situation.
Also if the use of vpn to activate gift copies is not safe(that could get people banned) and generally frowned upon then why does SG allows to post such trades in here ?
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