When I saw that Witcher 1 and Witcher 2 are discounted in Steam store I thought it would be nice to not be full leecher and give away those games to someone here. But, I couldn't send Witcher 1 because of The gift you are trying to purchase is not available in the recipient's region. Winner was from Brazil, can't send as gift, another one was from Russian Federation, can't send as gift.
Then I have to ask support to delete giveaway and I created new one restricted to Europe countries which uses Euro or their Steam Store uses Euro as currency. Winner was from France and happy me rushed to send Witcher 1 as gift and then I was punched in the face with The gift you are trying to purchase is not available in the recipient's region.

Our Store pages uses € and it is same region on Steam.
https://imgur.com/a/YZpaeRm
https://store.steampowered.com/app/20900/The_Witcher_Enhanced_Edition_Directors_Cut/

I thought price was problem because in France Witcher cost 8€ and in my country it cost 10€ but Witcher 2 giveaway went without problems where winner was from China and price difference between my region (Euro) and China is about 50% according to SteamDB.

After that I tried to see will I be able to send it my other Steam friends and I found out that I can send it only to those who are also from Bosnia and Herzegowina. SteamDB doesn't show anything about region restrictions. Then I asked Steam friend from Serbia to check price of Witcher 1 in Store and he said that price was 8€, not 10€.

I wrote support ticket to Steam to see what kind of restrictions is this. I can understand that I can't gift to Brazil, Russia or even EU but I can't understand I can't gift Witcher to users from other ex-Yugoslavia countries like Serbia. Not been able to try send gift to someone from Slovenia, Croatia, Montenegro and Macedonia.

If anyone knows what is going here and why Witcher 1 price in Bosnia is higher than in EU and other Europe countries please tell.

5 years ago

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I can't tell you why the price in Bosnia is higher than in the EU, but that kind of uncertainty is the reason I only do key giveaways since the changes to gifting on Steam. Maybe doing giveaways with keys from 3rd party shops is an option for you too.

5 years ago
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+1.

5 years ago
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https://steamdb.info/sub/994/info/

This package is only purchasable in specified countries

United States, Canada, Mexico, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania,
Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Slovenia, Albania, Macedonia, Turkey

But I don't see price in Euros in https://steamdb.info/sub/994/.

Strange.

5 years ago
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Since that's a well established region of nearby countries with similar prices, makes perfect sense.

5 years ago
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Just got the answer from Steam Support.

Hey there,

It looks like they are not all the same across the Euro Zones. This is why you are seeing this message.

I know it can be a little frustrating now that Gifting is no longer available between regions with significant differences in pricing.

If you'd like to send a gift to this user, I recommend using Steam's Digital Gift Cards to send money to their Steam Wallet so that they can >purchase the game themselves.

Please see this community announcement for more information.

Too bad that I find out about gifting steam gift card after giveaway deletion. Don't make mistake I made.

5 years ago
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Not very helpful since at least here it works with multiples of 5 euro. So to gift a game that costs 1.19 here I would need to send 5 to someone who buys the game for even cheaper most likely. You can do the same by sending the money with PayPal or any other service and the winner can just buy beer with it leaving you with not received and no proof here.

More helpful tip for the situation would be buying/trading the game from some trader in the right region and gifting that.

5 years ago
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Still don't quite understand why they can't simply allow people to buy a game in another region, with currency conversion in consideration.

Example:
User lives in Region1 and wants to gift to Region2.
Region1 has a currency $a and Region2 has currency $b worth 2x $a.
User in Region1 buys game in $a, but with pricing adjusted after conversion (so $a60 = $b30).

In other words, user in Region1 would buy the game for $a60 (original price being $a30 in their Region1) which amounts to $b30 in Region2. The user pays more to gift across different regions, and there's no way to abuse the system since you can't buy gifts to store in your inventory anymore.

To clarify further; The user in Region1 buys (and gifts) the game in Region2's currency, and after conversion, pays the amount due in Region1's currency. A bit like how PayPal deals with transactions across different currencies - You'll pay what is owed after conversion in your own currency.

Am I overlooking a detail why this wouldn't work?

5 years ago
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When there is a choice between doing something meaningful or not doing something meaningful, Valve has a well-established preference.

5 years ago
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