Newb question: I'm in Germany. When I buy a game key from Fanatical, the screen says it will active in Germany. When I do a give-away here, must I restrict it to Germany? Is there a way to tell if a key is region-restricted?

I'd rather not have the value diminished for being region restricted if I don't have to.

Does anyone have experience with this?

2 years ago

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It depends on game publishers.

2 years ago
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Fanatical uses region restricted keys but as a German resident you're a AAA customer paying the highest prices and your keys will be valid globally. I've given away a lot of keys from Fanatical and never ran into any issues.

2 years ago
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first off - thanks for doing giveaways on here and not be one of the many , many people that take and never give back - and secondly if by value you mean for CV or levelling up then as long as you hit 5 entries all the CV you get is what you should get - if you mean value in the sense that everyone can enter than stick to games with out region restrictions being known or don't have any (their must be a list somewhere with this info - others would know this more than me)

2 years ago
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Underneath where it says it will activate in Germany there's a check region restrictions. I'm not sure if its like Humble Bundle where it shows row keys as region locked but it can give you a little hint if there is a possible problem. I like to just click down the bottom at Zimbabwe then press up to speed through the list

2 years ago
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Fanatical has global keys unless stated otherwise (99% it's global keys).

The few restrictions they have is to exclude a country from being able to buy it (but if someone buys it for you, many times it will activate - not always.. it's tricky)

2 years ago
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A few days ago it happened to me that one of the keys was region locked. Check Deals section here, usually all bundles have separate topics and the creators will notify about region locks, but be prepared that sometimes they may not have enough information.
But you in good region, btw, I think mostly it will be good keys, (not like me in RU-CIS), maybe only some issues with WWII themed games.

2 years ago
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Welcome to SG! So nice to see new people who understand the joy of giving right from the beginning of using this site :) Please be sure to read FAQ and Guidelines thoroughly, you'll find answers to the majority of your questions there.

And yes, I'm also pretty sure that you being from Germany pretty much guarantees that a key won't be regionally restricted. As for CV value, it's a bit more complicated than that: an unbundled game will always give you full CV (unless it's a private or whitelist GA; than you have to get at least 5 entrants to get CV), bundled - reduced CV, a game that was free at some point - no CV at all (you can see a category of the game when you create a GA). CV value doesn't depend on regional restrictions; still, a winner should be able to activate a game on their account, so if you are aware of some restrictions, you should limit your GA to the said region(s).

2 years ago
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2 years ago*
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There are plenty of key sellers that also have regional pricing and region restrictions, just like Steam.

2 years ago
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2 years ago*
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for direkt gifting you should look at veebles comment ,but as far i always had some countrys below in Red if its not availble there.
for Anime games its alot of times Japan.
but except that i rarely encounterd region restricted as a german citizien from fanatical.(actually the time it showed it still worked there)
Because we have some EU laws that the keys is supposed to work everywhere(EU) except the publisher wants to sell there a different version of the game.
Because of the Eu law we got alot of times Row keys ,but we pay usually a higher price for that on sites like Fanatical.
So overall you should be fine but checking just in case is fine.

2 years ago
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Thanks, everyone. I was confusing the 5-entries requirement with the reduced CV factor.

It's nice to know that making a Germany-only GA is optional, not required.

Happy gaming!

2 years ago
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