Over potatofinity..
Edit: Steam servers just crashed, woohoo.
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Actually, those are the scheduled weekly maintenances. Still annoying though. Especially when Dark Souls III closes to the menu because you disconnected from Steam.
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This is the first time I know Steam has a weekly maintenance schedule.
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They shouldn't be doing as the rules forbid creating giveaways for regions the site doesn't support. The site doesn't support either of those regions and this is just showing yet again why it should. Sure, there may only be a small selection of games that get these keys but how often does Deep Silver stuff in particular go on sale.
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Is there something more specific than "we ask you not to post these giveaways at this time" in terms of rules?
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Additional regions such as these should have been added a long time ago (also NCSA region comes to mind). The system is already in place so why not utilize it? It would make sense to adjust to the needs of the users, no? Definitely an oversight, like so many other things around here.
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It's not an oversight, those regions aren't common enough to require coding in. It's been brought up repeatedly and that's always been the stance.
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Well if it's been brought up repeatedly as you say then it would seem to be a common enough issue to consider addressing (instead of sweeping under the rug). As pointed out, this is going to be a problem with particular Deep Silver games, as they love to region-lock their stuff, which go on sale/promo often, and we are talking about a big publisher too. If other publishers start jumping on board the region-locking bandwagon to this extent as well then it could become even more of an issue.
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It's not an oversight, it's a matter of consistency. The current set of regions is determined by Steam. If a game is being sold in Ukraine, we can be sure it will activate in Ukraine + a pre-determined set of other countries in the same region (usually visible in red text on Steam gifts) and won't activate anywhere else. This is true for 99% of similar cases.
Now, how consistent is this Deep Silver lock? The region lock in this case is determined by the publisher, not Steam. Which countries work, and which won't work? If we add a NA or EU region right now to match the Deep Silver bundle lock, which countries do we include? USA only? Or maybe USA + Canada? Will Eastern Europe be able to activate those EU keys? Can we be sure that other EU-locked keys from a different publisher will include the same set of countries? Otherwise we would have to either modify the regions every time a new bundle with a quirky region lock pops up or add specific regions for each bundle (EU Deep Silver, EU Capcom, EU Bethesda and so on).
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Checkboxes, or just read from SteamDB?
On another topic, why can I not be a member of multiple regions? ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
And does this in general mean that the lock-affected games from this bundle may not be given away at all, at least in public GAs?
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Checkboxes, as in, let users pick which countries their locks apply to? You have a lot of faith in people. I am afraid to imagine the amount of tickets we are going to receive in the vein of "I picked a wrong country, pls change". That, plus a common region lock includes 10-15 countries - imagine the fun creating, say, 10 giveaways at once.
SteamDB integration - can't comment since I don't know if that would be possible.
As our Guidelines state,
Region restricted gifts and keys are allowed for a select number of regions. If you have a gift or key for another region, it should not be posted at this time.
So yeah, you create those giveaways at your own risk. You won't get a reroll if you get an ineligible winner.
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Actually, I don't even understand why all these region locks exist. xD
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somehow, region locks on digital media are good (not physical because this logic doesn't apply on physical media). region lock allows put fair price to digital goods, considering how wealthy people from that region is or how much taxes (a.k.a. corruption) they have to pay. also, I think (not sure) region lock can help, somehow, with regional content, more suitable to that country (like translations, low violence version, etc.)
BUT in the practice, region lock is a mess and hardly accomplish its goals.
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But I'm talking about the recent humble bundle. Did they have different prices or low violence, depending on your region? :P
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this recent one, imo, its to discard their region lock keys generated... didn't find any reasonable explanation beyond this one.
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whats a fair price ?
you mean that i have to pay double because i live in europe.
and you pay less because you live in brazil .
for publishers profit is profit. they would not sell games in russia if they wouldn't make a profit.
so if you mean everyone should pay a reasonable amount globally for games then that's fair.
but that is not what you meant.
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A fair price would be a certain percentage of the average income for that country. It's unfair to expect people to pay more if they earn less or pay less if they earn more. Publishers would rather make some money than no money. Global prices are only advantageous to rich countries (since the price would drop or at worst stay the same), poor countries would always suffer (in the best case the price would stay the same, worst case they have to pay more). So no, your system isn't fair.
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let me explain this in a easy way. check this stats http://steamspy.com/country/ specially "owned games". if it doesn't help you, think about how many active users or how big is the country when compared to another one.
Brazil have 200 million people with 7 million active on steam (something around 3,5%).
Germany, for example, have 80 million people with 8 million active on steam (something around 10%).
how come more people play less? one word: wealth.
that numbers comes with region lock. imagine without it.
if you do want to pay less for stuff, I do invite you to live in brazil, but be aware that you'll get way less to buy stuff.
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i'm not saying that brazil or any other "poor" (brazil and russia aren't that poor) countries should pay more but that we need an global average and no region locks. why should everyone profit from globalization but a consumer in a "wealthy" country should not .
60€ is a week of food for me.
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How do you do a "global average" exactly? Do you understand that that only makes it cheaper for high price countries and impossible to obtain for poorer people?
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In the early days of Steam, everybody paid dollars, but also had to pay their respective country/state specific tax rate on top -- so a lot of the prices were actually higher in my country than they are now with Euro prices.
"Fair" is really much harder to do than it seems.
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das kann ich fast nicht glauben
ein spiel hat also 120DM gekostet .
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Irgendwelche Nintendo 64 Spiele haben tatsächlich mal ca 120 DM gekostet. :)
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das heisst das in deuschland spiele rund 20% mehr als in österrreich gekostet haben.
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Oder dass der Shop in meiner Nähe besonders teuer war, oder dass ich mir nur den höchsten denkbaren Wert gemerkt habe, oder... :)
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60€ is what more than half population have to spend in one month. you'll only able to understand how region lock (eventually poor or poverty) works when you look beyond your own world. til there, you will need to keep ignoring facts and numbers.
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so your logic is that i have to finance the gaming industry so people that have only 60€ a month can play games.
i think this half of your countrys population has other needs than gaming.
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"I have to finance the gaming industry"
man, I've got to tell you... that's the most funny thing that I've ever read here, by far! xD
today's lesson: never take the red pill over the blue one.
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You also need to buy a PC to play on Steam, not just digital no-cost licenses. PCs are hardware and have set (not regional) manufacturing prices, affected later by transport costs and regional taxes.
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http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-35810578 might help for context
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I still don't know how that equals taxes with corruption?
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Maybe because he wants to say that he's from a country where your tax money goes directly into the pocket of somebody else, or maybe he wants to say that tax money in his country is primarily used to further existing corrupt systems. The president of his country just got thrown out for 'creative accounting' of more than a billion.
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Because Germany felt that there was enough blood in WWII and that by banning violent videogames they won't be able to produce another Hitler. They also apparently don't trust adults to make their own decisions or raise their children properly without making decisions on their own behalf either.
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Because videogames are what created Hitler..... ;)
But yeah, that's what the generally badly-informed politicians in most countries have come to think. (Not surprising due to the skewed age-demographic they seem to be in mostly.)
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Because videogames are what created Hitler..... ;)
xD
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Well we can't deny that the videogames community created some very nasty characters and habits, so ... pretty close? ;-P
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I got on some new blacklists for my comment. I guess Germany is mad at me now. I hope that you didn't get on any because you replied to me.
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Tiny increase. But that's life. No regrets in saying what I think.
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Well, have you seen what a German looks like when they play a video game that involves violence?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8Y3e1c9RMg
No wonder they want to censor everything. And to remove nuclear power plants. If they got a little gamma radiation, the entire country would turn into a bunch of Hulks.
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I have a hard time believing that video is real. Just an opinion...looks staged. But who knows?
At the very least, he knows there's a camera on and is being overly dramatic.
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Oh, I have seen Germans raging even more in Twitch live streams. It looks like there is something in the air there that makes people react vehemently to video games.
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But it's a Twitch live stream-- they're practically acting at that point.
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Not really. Mostly really not. Very few people act on Twitch, and those are usually the ones who make a living of it. The majority are just streaming as they play and that's it.
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I'm not saying they have a script or anything, but I have to think that if you're streaming yourself playing a game, you want to be watched...want attention. And you want people to keep watching, so you exaggerate or "ham things up" a bit.
It's like reality television. They're not actors, and they have no script, but they know they're on television and there are millions of people watching, and they want to make "good TV" and get a little notoriety maybe.
I'm sure there are exceptions. And I will admit to having watched very few Twitch live streams.
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It is fake. Was made to satirize the gamers are a violent mob media frenzy... and then misused as an example of gamers are a violent mob... figures
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I'll reply you with this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5usx4mQg6x8
This explains everything, it was staged and satyrical, but Focus-TV claimed the kid was mentally ill and undergoing therapy.
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Yeah, I don't really get why countries, like Germany and Australia, censor so many games.
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Technically most of the time it's not the countries that censor video games. They just prohibit the games being sold to minors. It's the game developers/publishers that rather cripple their own games to make more money off a broader client base instead of keeping their games as they intended and sell a few less copies. It's just greed
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Or they just think that with their daily struggles with blood-sucking drop bears, laser-eyed land-walking sharks, truck-sized poisonous spiders, man-eating carnivorous plants, and Tony Abbott, they have enough bloody violence, so at least entertainment should lack it.
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Because the keys are for your own use, not to giveaway around :/
All keys have appropriate region lock from where you buy them, so you can activate them without issues.
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so... the gift links are available to gift to yourself? it doesn't look right.
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Well I guess usually you gift that stuff to your friends and HB assumes that they live in the same country as you, I guess. Well, at least that's my explanation haha
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"All purchases are for your personal use only." - thats what they say...
I haven't tried it with this, but maybe creating gift links will ignore the region restriction?
If i create a link from EU and send the link to NA guy, maybe he'll have NA version?
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I always wondered why they said that and then offered a gift option when purchasing. I think that it applies to the original region where it was purchased from though. They don't assume that we may have friends who live in other countries other than our own I guess. You can try but I don't think it will work.
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Region elements are set on bundle purchase, that's been confirmed in the past.
"Personal use" doesn't mean "for your own private use only," necessarily, it's mostly a way of specifying that you can't resell/etc the game.
This seems to be the legal definition of "Personal Use":
Personal use means non-commercial use of the Media- the Media may not be used in any way whatsoever in which you charge money, collect fees, or receive any form of remuneration.
as well as
A type of property that an individual does not use for business purposes or hold as an investment. In other words, property that an individual owns for enjoyment or benefit directly relating to their personal considerations.
A good example is 'personal use vehicle' and 'corporate vehicle'. A company that offers a 'corporate vehicle' expects it to only be used for business-related transportation, while a CEO that gets a 'personal use vehicle' has freedom to use that for "personal use"- which doesn't restrict them from allowing their family to ride in the car. :P
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Ah, interesting. Thanks for clarifying the "Personal Use" thing for me, appreciate it!
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incorrect - I bought April Humble monthly and have been unable to activate Stikbold - even though humble knows where I live, and we have an AU version available.
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It depends on what keys they get from the publishers. The publishers and not HB decide on whether to distribute region-specific keys or not.
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Not all of them.
I've had issues with GRID DLC pack (don't remember autosport or second) from HB - Steam just said "this game cannot be activated in your region". ):
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If I get lucky enough to win Sacred 3 Gold I hope its for my region then. If they sell a bundle it should be noted what regions or it should be ROW.
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Hey, you can have my key if you want. Or at least try it haha
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I bought Sacred 3 when Humble had the Deep Silver build your own bundle. The Metro Redux keys were tagged EU but Sacred 3 wasn't so that one at least should be okay.
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I sent you a friend request if you are looking for that one.
(Nevermind - saw you got it!)
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Thank you anyway. Accepted for future. Read bio and see what HB Charity we are.
Your both White listed.
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Once you chose it on humble Bundle it stays perm as choice for reg buys and some bundles
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It says I own it but it does not show up in library and I can not play/dl it?!?
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From my previous experiences there are purchase locks, activation locks and play locks. So it can be possible to activate and play a game that you can't purchase. Or activate a game (add it to your account) but not play it. I don't know the region of the person who gave you the key - it sounds like maybe you got something you can activate but not play?
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Germany has certain restrictions on violence in games that often means it is its own region with its own versions of games that might not work elsewhere. You are still welcome to try the key I have but it is possible that you may need to have support remove the version you have from your account for it to work.
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Thank you. I would like that.
Edit: it worked even though it said I owned it. :)
Once again thank you both.
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Yeah hi, I did a dumb apparently. Though that's not the case for this game as there is no "low violence" version.. I don't know what is going on though.
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As I was saying to Azanthriel in chat, I blame Humble Bundle for a lack of transparency and Deep Silver for issuing keys that can be activated but not played. You are right though and I remain baffled...
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I know right? Why would you even be able to activate a key that won't let you play the game afterwards? I kinda expected steam to go "nope, not able to activate that in your region" if it then wasn't playable. Oh well..
Glad that it now worked with your key though.
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Yeah really bad system. It was the same for me one time I activated "Hitman Sniper Challenge" many moons ago. Allows activation but not to install or play :(
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Well I'm not going to risk making a giveaway for the Saints Row 2+3 keys I have, so in the absence of a better idea I added them to an old giveaway I made for my whitelist and some awesome groups. Let me know if they get used!
(Saints Row 3 has been redeemed by a Canadian and I purchased in the UK if that helps anyone else figure out region locks, Saints Row 2 may still be available. Also a Russian acquaintance was able to redeem my Dead Island GOTY key but not my Dead Island Riptide key, so locks seem to vary from game to game.)
(Both games now gone - sorry! Also Killer is Dead and Sacred 3 both redeemed in NA without issues.)
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I was able to redeem SR2 in the US. Thanks for the key!
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region-lock for everyone! enjoy the fun i have to deal with since 2012 on steam \o/
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Wait, what is the lock specifically? I redeemed one of my keys and I briefly remember seeing "(ROW)"
Is it locked to NA, or locked out of EU, or what?
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WHAT?!
I HAVE RIGHTS! I'M AN AMERICAN! YOU CAN'T DO THIS! THIS IS AMERICA!
Time to edit me giveaways.
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Deep Silver is NA+ROW usually, they lock Europe out for some reason. (But they do have NA-only keys…) Funny enough, I never managed to find an explanation on why.
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I only activated one key. I barely glanced at the success screen it but I'm pretty sure it said NA + ROW.
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It seems to vary by game. One of my friends was able to redeem my Dead Island key but not Dead Island Riptide, but I don't know exactly which games are locked to which regions.
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FFS. Ugh. As it is, I've edited all my giveaways to say steer clear if you're not NA. Nice big pound sign asterisk asterisk warning text asterisk asterisk pound sign.
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They should actually receive no requests to reroll. As I understand the rules the if person making the GA has tagged the GA as ROW they must provide a ROW key/gift. So if the winner insists on getting the game then the GA creator must provide them with a working ROW key/gift or face being tagged as not providing the game. However I suspect that some winners will take pitty on the creators and agree to do a reroll.
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Ok, so I live in North America, and want to give away some or possibly all of the games in Tier 1. Am I safe in doing so as RoW? I see elsewhere that at least Dead Island: GotY may be region locked to NA, if so, how do I give this away, since NA isn't a selectable region, just state that in the giveaway text?
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I got a Dead Island GOTY key from a Canadian and I could activate it without any problems here in Germany. Gave me the NA version of the game
17 May, 2016 Dead Island GOTY (NA) Retail
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"Dead Island GOTY (NA)" should not work from a DE IP (https://steamdb.info/sub/15204/), but...
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Apparently you're not allowed to give away games with other region locks than those specified on Steamgifts (so you can safely give away Risen 2 since that has none at all), and apparently special rules for giveaways (ONLY ENTER IF YOU CAN ACTIVATE THIS might count, or might not) are only allowed in non-public (group, private, etc) GAs -- and only after asking moderators for permission.
That's how I currently understand this anyway.
What I can certainly tell you is that the majority of keys in the bundle is not "Region Restriction: None".
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I thought about that but I'm technically not begging/asking for anything. I'm merely offering a service/half joking :D But I suspect I'll get blacklisted for it and/or if I get suspended for this I understand.
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I'll remove my message if it bothers you, since you are the OP of this thread.
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I'll remove it since people seem sensitive about this kind of stuff :)
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There is a zero tolerance policy towards this, otherwise a lot of people would suddenly start "joking" and use that as an excuse
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That does make sense, it's not my intent to cause any trouble or break the rules. Consider my lesson learned, I'll be more careful in the future to not post anything that could be interpreted as begging in any kind of way (even as a joke).
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I think it's better I don't say, just to not cause any more problems.
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I semi-jokingly said I would take a certain key from this bundle, but it could be viewed as begging.
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But 44% of Steamgifts comments are "ahh, I don't have <this game>", followed by ten people offering it for free.
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It's fine I really don't mind, I know it's not easy for them to differentiate and it wasn't worth the joke.
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Oh my, I'm scared to imagine. They may just get to the point where they allow anyone giving away a Deep Silver bundle game to re-roll without the need for mod approval q:
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Well if I do win Saints Row 2, I'll hope I can activate it.
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I can't seem to find the word region locked. Shouldn't be most EU counties compatible? Except maybe germany? Where can i find more info about it? Sorry for posting this here, i'm feeling kinda lost
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Keys provided to Americans for most games in this bundle don't work in Europe. This is because Deep Silver wants to sell for higher prices in Europe and thus want to prevent imports. That this HB is the same price everywhere apparently does not faze them.
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i really don't get economists... So for Europeans it's fine?
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Deep Silver's Dead Island Riptide for example is 13% more expensive in Euro (€) countries compared to the US price, and 44% more expensive in Britain (£). People there could just get a cheaper key somewhere else, and to prevent that, the cheaper keys don't work in Europe.
For a different example, Egosoft's X Rebirth has a UK retail version that cannot be activated in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France & Italy, because those are the countries Egosoft wants to have the highest price in, while they are willing to sell cheaper retail copies in Britain.
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They have Europe-only locks. And separate German keys. And separate Pole/Hungarian/Czech/Slovak keys (because totally not part of the European Union here…). And on some game they even have UK keys.
The bundle should be Europe-specific though… Other keys were reported to be NA or (NA+ROW). It is… a clusterfuck. This is why I chose to stay the hell away from this bundle.
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What a mess. I'm just so upset they didn't even mention it on their page
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I don't know if this means anything since they are probably processing the re-rolls quickly, but It looks like they currently have 129 requests for new winners waiting to be handled.
https://www.steamgifts.com/stats/community/support
Edit: Not sure if those stats update on a regular basis or like once a day. I know the personal user stats are updated a lot, seems like every time you load the page.
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I'm in NA and this is what I've got from the keys I've activated:
Dead Island GOTY: NA only
Sacred 3: unsure, but didn't have anything specifying region
Risen: only said it was the retail version
Saints Row 2: retail
Dead Island Riptide complete edition: NA+ROW (I guess NA apparently decided to leave the rest of the world behind to make it's own world with blackjack and hookers)
Killer is Dead: NA+ROW
Saints Row 3: retail
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From my own experience 'NA+ROW' seems to be everywhere except RUS+CIS...
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NA+ROW activates in the UK, at least for some of the games. I think we are Europe still, at least until the referendum...
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Dead Island Riptide Complete Edition (NA+ROW) does not activate in the UK; Killer is Dead (NA+ROW) does not activate in the UK. Are there other games in this marked as "NA+ROW"?
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I can't say for sure about this bundle, I gifted most of the games from it as I already owned them from previous bundles and I can't tell you for sure what they all activated as. I'm basing my comment on the fact that keys of games from this bundle that I acquired from previous bundles and/or sales on Indie Gala and Bundle Stars activated in the UK as 'NA+ROW' - although I will concede in hindsight that those may not have been the same Steam SubIDs or whatever the hell as keys in this bundle. And I would conclude that overall this is some messed up crap from Deep Silver.
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Terms like "NA+ROW" are not picked by Valve but by the publishers individually.
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I fully understand that, and publishers can assign whatever attributes they wish to a given Sub ID regardless of the identification assigned to it. I'm not sure what your point is.
Additionally, based on your comments elsewhere I think you may wish to consider that a purchase lock for certain Sub IDs is not always the same as a lock on activation/play/cross-region trading (for instance while uncensored versions of Dead Island GOTY can't be purchased in Germany they can often be activated there.)
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Risen 2 activates everywhere, Killer is Dead is a non-europe version, for Saints Row 2 and Saints Row 3 Germans get a cut version but it's otherwise the same I suppose, Dead Island are locked down a tad more, etc.
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So, i can giveaway SR2 and Risen1-2 without problem, only one i should be careful is DI:GOTY?
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It looks like Risen 3 is the only one of those games that is region locked so you should be safe giving away 1 and 2. It also looks like SR 2 is safe, but DI:GOTY is a crapshoot. It says it can't be activated in Europe, but several people in Germany have been able to activate it so I'm not really sure what's going on. My guess is some people got region free keys and others got region locked ones and there's no way to know which you've got until someone tries to activate it. I'd definitely put a warning on that one saying it may not activate in Europe.
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Damn. What a mess. As soon as I saw that they were locked, I left the giveaways. I've been checking which country the user is from so I don't end up disappointed when the key doesn't work. Less work for support to deal with too.
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Users also don't know about the locks unless somebody tells them. Humble as usual do not communicate this.
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Made a reroll ticket 3 days ago, still no response. Seems like a pretty big backlog even before this fiasco :/
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How long did it take to get the response in the end?
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So how many days did you have to wait before getting a reply from our dear support people? I'm asking out of curiosity... Yeah normally, my reroll tickets were answered fairly quickly, within a few hours like you said, but the three tickets sent last evening are still pending. :o/ (for GA's not related to Deep Silver games, mind you)
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