Wow, that's pretty crazy. I hope they'll realize soon enough that they're shooting of their own feet with that kind of action. Once they'll realize this maybe they'll slown down on greed...
It's not because someone buy a game cheaper from cross-region trading that they're loosing money. I have plenty of games i wouldn't ve bought if there was no trader, at least with trading they get money, without it they wouldn't even gotten my money to buy their stupid keys or wouldn't ve bought the game.
I bet many people are like this, they see a game they might like and can trade it for 2 or 3 keys so they go and buy the keys to get it without to much hesitating. If it wasn't possible they wouldn't spent the 10, 15+$ to buy it or wait for winter/summer sale to get it.
I hope that sheep who keep saying "praise gaben" will finally open their eyes and finally realise steam is just an other greedy corporation.
I trully hope your issue gets resolved soon enough buddy.

Hi, I'm Bilsabob. The story you gave with friend, I honestly would have said something similar myself. To have someone imply that you wouldn't potentially have friends, family, relationships or any given reason to gift a wonderful gift :) during such a great sale is absurd, however, the story in this case is irrelevant. What is relevant is no one broke any of the contracted rules. I do believe that Steam means well but in this case, I do not agree with their methods in this matter. Is that really all the power that can be displayed by Steam? Banning an account for a short time because someone in the chain was smart enough to find a glitch in a system, exploit it and become the 5th link in the chain? Myself if I had the power I wouldn't wield it as power, rather doing what the market was placed their to do, support the community. Would a job or better incentives for keeping certain trades a bit lower be a bad trade after all it sounds like (If I were the leader of Steam and this were one of my first views) this person in my community is doing so well trading where we are considering restrictions, to not breach contract, could we offer better deals on better games for this person exclusively and change their market angle while then offering a new contract that limited purchases on so many other titles, while still allowing some purchases, but for the exclusive game purchases person must follow set guidelines, in turn person will be gifted copies during new sales/releases to yield the trader high value items at lower prices to help the sales of newer titles, while keeping the trading system alive and well for everyone(yes I thought this up while typing just an example). Point is he did nothing wrong. As a gamer if I fell through the map and was glitched out, then got banned for cheating, that's wrong because your program that you sold me with the purpose to function properly has malfunctioned and this is not my error. To Steam I love you guys but c'mon I've been with you for 6 years and I do not intend on leaving but if my own friend makes the same mistake well we don't forget that. The mark has been made and from now on you will be looked down upon. As for the only thing I've ever really wanted from Steam was Half Life extended, but as of late it appears that greed does indeed consume all sides in this story. I do not wish to offend anyone but there is a wrong that could be made right and a situation that can be realized. I believe in the community even though I really don't do much but play games. TY for reading ßilsabob.

I will buy from my store when games meet the price im willing to pay, when the difference b/w the price and the cost to trade is marginal. I will not buy something from my store when the difference is something like ~$5+, this policy will not translate into more purchases from me, if anything i will buy less from steam,as is see them as greedy ass's... There are other stores and I can survive on my backlog for a long time, most new games interest me little.

New release AAA titles are upwards of $80 here, they have no hope of me paying that. The most recent new release i got was Borderlands TPS, which was at discount from the UK for $40 (rather than $60 here), i would not have paid full price. Looks like im gonna focus more on heavily discounted and bundle games, heh what next steam is gona crack down on bundles? wouldn't surprise me. Steam got me away from pirating games, this move may only push ppl back that direction.

I think people'd start looking into other places that can activate on steam.

As far as those in EU are concerned, blame your politicans for making the VAT.

Good luck, steam support is by far the worst support I've encountered. I had an issue with NBA 2K9, they never shipped physical copies with CD keys yet its a steamworks game, so steam supposedly fixed it. Yet I guess its broken or didn't work so I contact steam with all the purchase proof and pictures and they tell me to return it and get a new one then tell me no more support will be given on this topic.

If I ever get a chance to ask Gaben a question it will be why is steam support complete shit...and I live in Seattle so maybe I'll get to attend any events they host where he does a Q/A :P

Had same problem 3 times, i contacted support and all they told me to do is... Restart steam (obviously they fixed it on their side).
And yes, they do answer in Russian language, although i write them in english.
Never had this problem before, its started right after "30 days trade lock" update.

I got a solution for Valve - drop the unfair regional pricing. Everybody should have the same prices as their russian store, that way, they'd sell a lot more games too, even for full price :-).

Valve did nothing wrong. They have been looking the other way for years. They started all this when they "locked up" farming Team Fortress 2 (even after releasing the Premium Upgrade item... that was pretty silly).
This was a "gold mine" that eventually would have to end, so again, be glad that you all could do this for years. It's a grey area, who is being affected by this? Developers? Well, maybe, but they might also be benefited from it (think of it as a bundle-like income, it's better to sell some than not sell at all).

Before you ask, of course that I hate this change, but it's their store, so, it's their rules too. Don't put lame excuses as "the ToS says nothing about it" because everyone knows regional pricing is there for a reason. If it weren't that way, ALL the stores in the world would have the russian price.

Now we need to wait until they also lock up CS:GO idling, it will happen sooner or later.

Not sure why you are acting ignorant.. even you know that you were taking an advantage of regional pricing.

It's obvious you can't sell cheaper russian games to other countries - this is exactly why there are pricing regions. To let people FROM this region to buy cheaper games, not whole damn world.

If this is going to be a thing.... then bye bye Steam, welcome gog and Origin.
Seriously, I have almost 200 games on Steam, in a country where either many games are only censored versions or I can't even see them in the Store because they're banned in our stupid country (Germany). So I rely heavily on getting games through gifting and trading.

funny how steam converts 50$ to 40€ on wallet cards but dont convert 50€ to 50$ on store
we all noticed by now valve used to make games, now they make money...

Hopefully OP will update us as with the outcome of this fiasco

I've heard this story from quite a few Russian traders now where the exact same thing has happened. They all waited it out, and things returned to normal. I don't know if it's ~20 gifts per week, but the number certainly isn't very high. Between this and the region locks on every new release rule, it's certainly making things less than desirable for traders.

I'm glad to read that it got sorted in the end but seriously, wtf steam!?

Valve is caring more and more about money and less about customers. Obviously they don't want a separate "store" run by russians, where people could circumvent their region pricing.

Glad to see you can buy again ! Thanks for giveaway also :)

Well they are trying to blow that bubble..

I've been doing some trades for a while and got most of the games I wanted lately thru that channel. I can say they put a big effort in this sale to cover these angles, anything I bought in that early december sale now have a notice in my inventory..

( Not Tradable )

Economy_Inventory_GiftNotTradableNote_Flat

So they didn't region-locked anything but they made those Not Tradable and flagged every one of them, one might think catching the sellers was their priority.. I think they're trying to control that part of the trades to make more money. Those days will be missed. :(

Thats shitty man :(
Didnt know it wasnt allowed to buy and sell games.
I know that there is now a timer so you can trade your gift after a specific time.

Wow! I think your post has made a difference. I got banned the same way 6 days ago and have not been able to buy anything since then, until now. I've received exactly the same responses from the Steam Support. Feel free to look at my conversation with them if we can even call it a conversation.

THIS!. This is what I was talking about with my friends. If you make some noise (respectful, polite inquiries, etc) and enough people reads and comments it, then they can't no longer ignore it. idk, but if ppl it's united against "unfair" matters like this one, then the weight of that is a force to be aknowledged. Remember the other guy from last year, a guy that gifted games to friends and went out with them for a few beers, that guy got his account locked tighter than --- anyway, Valve locked his trading, purchasing and think even playing capabilities and wouldn't even say WHY they did it. Long story short, after lawered up and quite extensive email exchange with Steam Support, he got his account back, he's able to keep playing BUT NOT TRADING at all. They never ever said why, what rule he may or may not have broken.

So there you have it, Valve can set new rules, can lock you out of your own paid account, with so much as a generic copypasted letter without reasons, but you can fight it, you can make noise and draw attention. If it's fair play you have nothing to worry about! :D Congrats!

It's ok for Steam to take advantage of lower prices in different countries. They've based themselves in Luxembourg to save on tax. It's not ok for customers to try to do something similar. Tell me again about your Lord Gaben.

Steam doesn't like it when you take a share of their precious profit.

And thanks for the giveaway!

LOL I love your sense of humor. Good thing is that everything now is back to normal again. So cheers!!!