I can't suggest any specific stores to go to but definitely avoid GMG. They frequently sell keys locked to the purchasers region whilst making no mention of this and then refusing support (for the whole order, not just the item in question) because it wasn't for personal use.
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Hmm, I've only bought from them once or twice and didn't have any issue. But what I meant is they aren't available on the usual sites (Humble Store, IndieGala, Bundle Stars, GMG, GamersGate)
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If steam is your best/only option then you'd have to trade for gifts from another region that was ROW/region free. Obviously these would typically cost you more. You'd get less entries but theres no reason you can't give away regional gifts outside of group requirements.
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I'm unfamiliar with trading, but seems like that's my best bet.
There's no requirement, I've given away some regional gifts but for unbundled games I'd much rather it not be region restricted. Of course that's probably just me (:
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Your only bet besides using the grey market, which is still like trading but without ever knowing who you are getting the gift from. The only other way besides making somebody else purchase the game is to use VPN, but you are right to avoid it since it can get your account closed on Steam.
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It's GMG's official stance, and they've recently updated the ToS to finally actually reflect this.
Be careful about that risk. :X
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That sucks, time to cancel another source to buy keys to giveaway from ):
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It only depends if the publisher itself is separating regions. Just because, say, buying Ori and the Blind Forest in CIS will make a Steam gift locked, if it had keys sold elsewhere, it would almost certainly be region-free.
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The main issue is not knowing if GMG is giving region-locked/restricted keys or not, and their strict no refund policy, though. :X
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Ever since region-locked keys are available, it seems publishers that chose to use them shipped these keys to all authorised resellers.
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So what you're saying is, if you can confirm elsewhere that they're NOT region-locked, you should be safe using GMG for them?
That still sounds rather risky, imo. :X
But at the least, if you're risking using GMG, that's a good thing to keep in mind- if you can confirm region-locking/restriction elsewhere, you know for sure it's a bad idea to use GMG for it.
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Yes, because region locking can have two sources.
One is Steam itself that puts region information on stored inventory items to prevent cross-region trading (or, in other words, prevent the old Russian – and a few Chinese – trading groups from literally making a living from exploiting regional prices).
The other is the publisher who may issue region policies on their products regardless of platform. Codemasters, Capcom (to a degree), Deep Silver, Bethesda are for example such companies. So if you buy a key for their products (again, not all, since for example Capcom has a ton of single-region games), you can almost be sure that the key will be region-locked.
Bethesda was a strange beast because of its deal with 1C where almost no stores carried region-specific keys, but for half a year or so this changed as well, and now most global stores pack CIS/CE keys for Bethesda products.
But if your game is not among those that have region separation outside Steam, then the keys will belong to a single region, or more precisely, be region-free. The vast majority of indies are like this.
(For global stores. There are CIS specific vendors and they somehow carry CIS-only keys even for one-dollar games, at least this is what I ran into a few times. But these keys are normally completely unavailable for people outside those territories, like how Nuuvem locked down its store a while back to be SA only.)
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Official resellers contracts usually demand giving locked keys to certain regions.
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I'm aware of that however they should also make you fully aware of what it is you're being sold.
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Right. GMG's issue is that they're deceptive, sloppy, and disingenuous and rude to their customers.
If they were clear about things it'd be a different story, but they've a reputation for screwing people over, and being dismissive and hostile about it. :X
Compare that to Humble, who yeah, has made a ton of mistakes recently, but will bend over backward to resolve the matter as best they can, even if that's only through a refund.
Certainly, I haven't heard of them rudely bitching anyone out for 'daring to break the GMG ToS by giving games to other people, rather than activating on your own account', back when the ToS did NOT reflect this limitation. -.-
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I've not had an issue with them as yet, but now I'm a bit worried about the keys.
Bought a few keys there before used as GAs here...at least 10 keys in the last 2-3 months.
When was the T&Cs changed to reflect their new stance?
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I have no idea. I reviewed the ToS [because this matter keeps popping up] again a few days ago, and they'd been changed to actually reflect at least some of GMG's official viewpoints, which previously you didn't learn about until you contacted support and got bitched out over them.
Doesn't much matter- they refuse all support for keys past the first week of purchase [that's another hidden rule they have, not sure if that got added to the new ToS or not] [even if the keys end up no longer functioning] so you wouldn't qualify for assistance on any older keys anyway.
Besides, whether it was in the ToS or not, they've always enforced it (though according to some people, rather capriciously) so it's not like anything has changed.
In my case, I'd bought something like 25 keys, let them sit in my inbox for about 3 months, then found about 75% of them no longer worked [after I tried to put some up for giveaway].
Contacted GMG, that's when I found out about all their hidden rules- with support telling me everything was my fault and it's not their fault that I didn't activate the keys promptly [and that they wouldn't provide support due to being past one week and that they'd deny support for any order- the ENTIRE ORDER- if any key in that order was indicated to have been used for another account (even a family member's), anyway] [Better go set your 12 year olds up with their own credit cards if they want to buy from GMG.. :P].
Needless to say, I have an extremely low opinion of GMG and haven't used them since :X
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Damn that does suck big time.
I can't now imagine having to cancel all my GAs as a result of this, but I can't afford to pay for those keys again on Steam [which is region-blocked for me in any case].
Thanks for the insights.
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I think most people'd understand, if that ends up happening to you. :/
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Firstly, I hope the keys work.
Secondly, I hope they'd understand.
Thirdly, I'll attempt my damnist to make up for it. :)
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First off, you can't sue an online company in America unless they have a home office in your state, due to a legal restriction that prohibits a suit of that nature which would require the defendant to travel.
Second, you can't sue an international online company unless you sue them in their home nation, with that nation's permission.
Trust me, I looked into it when IndieGala (forget now if they're French or Italian-based, think the latter) screwed me out of my $35 of purchases.
Besides, they didn't strike me the sort to feel shame, and according to them, it was all clear and obvious and I was the idiot for not psychically being aware of their protocols.
Now that they've changed their ToS to actually reflect their conditions, it'll be all the harder to make a case that I was wronged.
Besides, it was all cheap keys I bought, I didn't actually lose that much money. By comparison, IG was a far more extreme loss.
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GMG is based in the UK. :X
And I wouldn't know, I've never used Reddit, nor do I ever plan to [which isn't a dedicated outlook, just a complete lack of interest] :P
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It seems the keys are working after all.
Glad it is, now I can breathe a little.
But thanks for the heads up, I'll be more careful in future about my GAs.
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Maybe they like you more. :P
On the plus side, if it's within a week and the key simply doesn't work, it's not like they can tell if you were trying to activate it on your own account or someone else's. So as long as you don't let something slip to that effect, just making sure your giveaways end within that week of purchase is your safest bet to avoiding most problems.
I wonder if their strict no-replacements-past-a-week/etc policy has to do with how many publishers have called them out for obtaining keys through (illegal) back channels. That'd make having to replace a key an actual burden on them, since they can't exactly ask the publisher for a new one. :X
Well, that's supposition~
Glad your keys worked :)
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If I work on precision, I bought the keys 7 days one hour after the GA ended.
Then obviously people still have to activate them.
But I've had good experience with GMG, especially with the PlayFire side of things.
They've even mailed me back with a few issues I had that they solved asking me if it was still working some months later.
Perhaps they're just more pedantic when it comes to keys being shared.
They should offer a gift purchase in that case.
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Hard to say, given how rude and hostile the person I personally spoke to was.
Their overall approach is certainly dubious, though.
especially with the PlayFire side of things
Whew, you're likely in a minority there. Seems most everyone had issues with Playfire not crediting and support not responding for months [well past the end of any promotion being discussed] only to say the promotion was expired.
Seems a number of people didn't get the Golden Joysticks refund, for example. :/
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The rewards thing is where I was most lucky then. It didn't register in time, but I had evidence to prove I completed the reward before the end time. So the support told me they cater for such anomalies and rewarded me with the X-Com key as stated in the previous Golden Joysticks.
Guess it must be rare then.
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Personally, I got my Bioshock Infinite refund fine, but several other play-unlocked rewards never credited, and despite them being easily provable, Playfire gave me the 'expired offer' line as well, when they finally replied months after the fact :X
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Maybe it's whomever you got at customer service that day who wasn't in the mood. But can't believe their business can depend on just one person not giving a crap.
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you could look at good old games, at least for older games. They selling games without DRM, so you can download it and copy them for private backup..
But i guess at present, there are none of these mentioned games in store.
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I think you might have misread my question... I'm not buying these myself for myself, otherwise there won't be any issue.
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GOG is no use as OP is looking for games to giveaway, presumably here. Additionally they aren't Good Old Games anymore, they rebranded to just GOG just under four years ago.
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Short.. It's more than four times the length (assuming monospace).
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LF likely means, GOG still stands for 'Good Old Games', and as far as I'm aware, it still does [Edit for clarification: even if it's no longer the official branding.] :)
Certainly easier to refer to it with GOG nowadays, though.
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yeah, i don't know the exactly english term. german is still my narative language :)
edit: native language
Thanks =)
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native language :)
Shortname was fairly understandable- for example, in computing, a shortname is a shortened version of a word to save space. So, "AppManage" instead of "Application Manager".
Abbreviations, acronyms, initialisms, contractions, and shortnames are all different ways to refer to shortened versions of words.
(Abbreviation: Mr. for Mister.)
Contraction: Don't for do not)
Typically, however, Abbreviation is used as the generalized term for all of them.
Properly, however: In the case of GOG, if you pronounce it as a word, it's an acronym, if you pronounce it letter-by-letter, it's an initialism. Acronym is often casually used to refer to both circumstances, however.
The reverse of an abbreviation is 'the expanded form of'.
Thus:
"GOG is an acronym of Good Old Games, and Good Old Games is the expanded form of GOG."
:)
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Do you study linguistics (or whatever it's called) by any chance? I always see your detailed explanation regarding language usage in the forums (:
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I did, quite a long time ago. I'm not an entirely reliable source anymore on any topic, so don't necessarily assume my comments are going to consistently be error-free. But, y'know, hopefully if I do make a mistake, someone else'll point it out much like my comments do, and I'll benefit from similar clarification. :)
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It used to stand for Good Old Games, but they dropped that usage when they rebranded. People might still use it but officially they are just GOG.com now.
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They do seem to have finally cleared up all lingering traces of the original branding, but my point was, it still stands for Good Old Games, that's the original basis of it.
It's obviously better to use GOG, now that it's rebranded- or even just in general- but that doesn't make "Good Old Games" wrong- just outdated and more cumbersome.
Let 'em be all Hipster about it, doesn't hurt anything. :)
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Well, with brands it is different. It was a short name, but now it is just "GOG". Like how WD was just an informal short for Western Digital, but now the company itself is called WD, which used to mean Western Digital.
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Seems like the only option for now...
Ventures into the unknown
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Well if we're talking about games that only exist as Steam Gifts so far I think the only option would be to buy from a trusted trader from a ROW region. As far as I know there are no legit onlineshops that sell gifts, only keys. In some cases it might be slightly cheaper to pick a trader from a particular country like New Zealand or Norway but I'm no expert on that.
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Wait, you can buy from traders? I never knew O: But then again I never knew much about trading anyway.
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Noone said you couldn't trade money. :)
Actually, noone said you couldn't trade kidneys, either..:X
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There are some that offer to trade paypal money for games, but that is harder to handle cause without PROPER trading using the trade system it's much easier to scam, just saying you are going to deliver but they have to go first...
If this is a regular thing I'd probably try to find a friend in a fitting region to just do all your transactions through...
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Yeah PayPal does seem riskier... It's probably only for rare circumstances, but that'll be the optimal case, assuming I have friends in those regions.
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Yes you can. I use the term buying loosely here even when I use a different currency than Paypal or Steam Wallet.
I was a little suspicious to use PayPal to buy from private sellers but you can always use items that are used as currency like TF2 keys & Tour of Duty Tickets, CS GO keys or Steam gems. You might have to pay a little more this way because of market fees but on the plus side it's saver to trade inside the trade system.
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What kind of keys do traders accept? I see CS:GO capsule key being significantly cheaper than the other keys (both CS:Go and TF2).
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TF and CS case keys. The ones you usually see at the market front page since they are exchanged in great quantities.
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As talgaby already said the most common "currencies" are:
- CS:GO Case Key
- Mann Co. Supply Crate Key
- Tour of Duty Ticket = 1/2 TF2 key
I'm not sure if it's the same with TF2 (since it's Free2Play) but in case you own CS GO it's apparently normally cheaper to buy CS GO keys ingame then from the Steam market.
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Yes, you can. Make sure to pick a trusted one, check their SteamRep (and SteamGifts, if they have) profile. You will need a verified PayPal account or marketable CS:GO/TF keys for them to even enter a discussion with you (some may accept gems as a currency too; it is better in the sense that it can be more precise, but worse in the sense that its price is still fluctuating).
Make sure to set up the deals here in the trade section (or barter.vg if it is for keys/gems) to make sure both parties are more committed (and lessen the chances of running into a scammer). And make screenshots of everything in chat and save them. DOn't post them anywhere unless there is a dispute, but as long as you are new to trade, you need to log everything you do, especially if you are not dealing with few-cent bundle keys.
The cheapest ROW regions are NZ, Japan, Norway. Try to find traders from there; NZ to my knowledge has a somewhat decent trading community formed around ROW Steam-only games, so they could be the best option.
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Thanks for the detailed answer! It's extremely helpful. I'll see what I can find and decide from there. (:
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would that really work?
I'm in ROW, and i cant use the other regions, because it's still a region lock...
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Being in ROW means stuff you buy should work more or less everywhere... not that stuff from everywhere works for you...
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Well those countries I mentioned are ROW countries as well they just happen to be sometimes cheaper.
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thats wrong. if you are in ROW, you could be more jealous to the prices in CIS.
While I actually pay many € at steam, i could buy the same games in CIS for just few cents.
Just the region lock bothers me to buy my games there ;-)
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ROW cannot use gifts from region-locked countries. ROW gifts can be used in any region any time, except if the game itself is locked out of the country (for example, you cannot activate a copy of Fallout 3 in any form in India or Hotline Miami in Australia).
Germany is a special case, because activating a key/gift there automatically adds the low-violence version for most games, but this conversion is done at activation. Like how some Square games are converted into Japanese-only for SEA people.
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Hum could it be possible to just use a VPN with a secondary account and buy steam gifts with that one? As long as it's not affiliated with your main account you'd probably be safe?!
I mean if that one really gets closed you just lose games that were stored on that account?!
But jeah I have no idea how Valve is actually treating this whole VPN stuff. If you're worried about this, it's probably not worth the hustle for making some giveaways for random people :)
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valve doesn't allow to use VPN. You'll risk a ban.
Its written in the terms of use
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Jeah my statement implied that I'm aware of that. Still, the information about actual bans is rather vague, if you or anybody else havehas further information I'd like to hear about it.
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why you donty try to buy them in others sytes, where is posible to get them as steam gifts and region free?
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Did you read OP? I can't buy them from other trusted sites.
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much of games is posible to buy outside steam - as STeam gift!
Ori and the Blind Forest - $12.70 (steam gift)
The Purring Quest - $4.95 (its as key)
3rd one hasnt in that syte trought :(
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There are some games which are sold on Steam and Steam only. No keys, no resellers (sometimes not even other platforms), just Steam.
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Your only option is going for trades. Use steamdb to check prices for all regions and see which one is row and cheaper. Get a trustable trader and do the transaction. Beware that this is very risky, because the possible revoked gift from your inventory without notice (it gives a warning if was activated)
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welcome to the world of region-locking.
your only option is to trade them and pay the overprice people ask, plus 15% from keys you have to buy from the market, unless you want to buy them with paypal from another trader or if that person accepts paypal for his gifts.
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Yeah it's really overpriced D: Guess I'm back to waiting for them to go on other stores...
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I know what you want to say, maybe the best way is find a friend who live in region-free area (of course you can trust - I see you're quite famous here, I bet you can easily find some high level users here who can help you, right?) or a trusted trader, then trade csgo keys or whatever with them.
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This is probably a stupid question... I want to giveaway games that are only available in the Steam store (at least to my knowledge O:) - games like Ori and the Blind Forest, The Purring Quest, and The Walking Dead: Michonne (on preorder now), but I'm not in a region free country. i.e. They are not sold on the usual sites (Humble Store, IndieGala, Bundle Stars, GMG, GamersGate) Is there a reliable way (no VPN) to obtain region free keys/gifts for these games?
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