I hope that in this thread we can discuss how to buy games from international steam stores to avoid regional pricing. It will certainly be helpful for me and anyone else who has never taken this path before.

I am currently in Australia and normally use Paypal for transactions. What are the ways of bypassing the restriction?

12 years ago*

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And for those that say "US only" then just use a US address. It works all the same.

12 years ago
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They're ROW. Russians are screwed though, they don't belong to the "Rest Of World."

12 years ago
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They will put your account on hold after some purchases. It will remain locked until you can verify the billing address.

12 years ago
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Does it stop you from making other accounts?

12 years ago
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No, but who knows if they will terminate your accounts if it is on hold for too long. If they do terminate, according to their ToS, they might also disable the code for digital downloads, meaning your games might disappear.

12 years ago
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hmm good point, well I guess it's just one of those things where you decide if you wanna take the risk.

12 years ago
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(If my may quote your post below: "Unless you have some proof, you can't say that" ^^)
Source please ?

12 years ago
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Happend to two of my accounts just recently. I made them for the summer sale. Proof enough? or should I copy paste the emails?

12 years ago
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I'm sorry to hear that :(

Of course you don't need to c&p the emails if it happened to yourself; I had mistakenly assumed that you were spreading hearsay. My apologies.

12 years ago
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Np. Lost about $10.5 in the first account, because me being an idiot didn't copy the codes.

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Ouch... good precaution for me. Gonna make a backup right now. Sorry about your loss though. :(

12 years ago
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When buying some items you must add a credit card with a US address. That doesn't help at all then so technically it can be called US only

12 years ago
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Simple. Find someone you can trust from USA and paypal them the money to buy the games for you as gift. Please note however that if the games are available earlier in their region, the gift will not be available until it unlocks for you region.

12 years ago
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^This is a safe, reliable way to get your games cheaper and not break Steam's TOS. Highly recommended.

12 years ago
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+1

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Nice bump

12 years ago
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As far as I know, tho I'm not an expert, is that Steam checks your IP when You play games.

For example:
If You live in Europe You obviously pay more for the games. 1 dollar = 1 euro here, not a cool thing.
If I somehow cheat and pay for something, for example Max Payne 3, 49 dollars instead of 49 euros and play it while being in EU Steam might deactivate game and/or ban account for messing up with buying prices.

Legal way to bypass this is to have family in USA who will buy games for You on their USA account, send it to You as a gift and You will send them money back via bank account.

Proxy thingy etc might not end well for your account as far as I'm aware.

12 years ago
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Unless you have some proof, you can't say that. What happens if you are on vacation and buy it, then come back home and get banned for playing it? Nope. I don't think it will matter if you do a few purchase, but don't let them see you keep changing IPs and buying games and then playing them from another IP.

One way is to make a fake steam account, use proxy all through the creation and use of the account. Buy games and gift it to your main. Gifts bypass all regional restrictions so you should be ok. Just don't log in to the other account without the proxy.

12 years ago
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Well, I am heading out for a holiday to US soon. Not sure how I will handle the summer sales should it fall in the week of my vacation. :(

12 years ago
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I have a couple games including MW3 as Russian versions while using an American IP. No problem for me anyway :p

12 years ago
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1 dollar = 1 euro not cool u say ?
How about other countries ?
I have to pay obut 4,25 for my euro in my curency.
And they dony know why ppl piracy games.

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It have discussed several million times.

"What are the ways of bypassing the restriction?!
Its against the TOS so we can't help you.

12 years ago
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In the FAQ's it states:

"Overall, we're simply helping people find a way to share their extra copies, and SteamGifts is not setup to dodge country restrictions or pricing in anyway." and Do not submit CD-keys that require VPN activation or methods to bypass regional restrictions.

Not once does it say that it is against the TOS of SteamGifts.

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No, it's against the TOS of Steam.

12 years ago
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I know that bit....

12 years ago
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Close this thread. It isn't allowed talking about ways to bypass regional restrictions.

12 years ago
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Buddy, I am not on Steam forum. I am on SteamGifts forum. I am not violating THIS SITE's rules at all!

12 years ago
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You do. Don't look for loopholes. Previous similar threads got closed by a mod. If it's against the rules of Steam, it's against SteamGifts rules as well.

12 years ago
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You have the power of the Report button. Use it if it hurts you too much...

12 years ago
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What ever you do, just don't use VPNs

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Use VPN. I use this https://www.privatetunnel.com/index.php to buy games if price difference is too much. Or find someone that will gift games to you from USA.

Never had a single problem like steam removing or locking me out of the game because of my ip.I bought Section 8 Prejudice , Batman Arkham City ,Dead Space 1-2 and Might % magic 6.No problems with any of them.

12 years ago
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lol, Your comment challenges the above main comment by zell963...

12 years ago
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nice... do you need an unlocked account?

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You can do it with a free account from that website.

There is a few rules to this.

1- You cant use paypal
2- You have to use credit card or steam wallet.Steam wallet makes it a lot easier.Just add how much you want from your normal region.
3- Use a USA adress when it asks.

Thats pretty much it.I also would suggest you to use your web browser instead of the steam client when doing VPN.Steam client sometimes doesnt change its region when you relog.

Also dont worry about account getting locked.I have been doing this for over 2 years with a lot of different games for my self of my friends.The most problematic thing is finding a decent and working free VPN that you can use.

Edit : Dont buy from CIS countries.They are a hell lot cheaper but most of those games require you to have CIS ip when launching and playing the game and they are most of the time russian only.

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It would be really funny if a Valve employee would see this and ban you because of it lol

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When was there regional pricing? :S

12 years ago
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Come to Australia, It will slap you hard!

12 years ago
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Max payne 3 is $89 amirite?

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$89.99 USD!!! Convert that to AUD and it gets more expensive!

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Sounds about right.

iirc Skyrim is still a ridiculous $90.

L4D2 is $20

Pretty much, anything that's kind of old, add ~$10

Anything new, double the price US gets

12 years ago
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the exchange rate is worse in nz -_-

12 years ago
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Ouch... didn't think about you guys down there. I thought Australia was bad. Come to think of it, how bad is it in Fiji?

12 years ago
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That's not unlike pre-Nuuvem brazil either.

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must be nice living in america and being ignorant of the existence of other countries :(

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According to his Steam profile, he's from Australia...

12 years ago
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Whoops, my bad. Just realised that you are in Australia. Ummm.... browse the US steam store to compare prices.

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I am from Canada, and I am currently living in Europe for the next year. For the past few months I have been using this link:

http://store.steampowered.com/?cc=ca

But I also have a Canadian address and Canadian Mastercard/paypal

You can also use:

http://store.steampowered.com/?cc=us

12 years ago
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And if you could buy games from other countries why would you want it to be US? Ukraine and Russia have games 3-4 times cheaper :D

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I don't trust Ukrainian or Russian VPN's. Have had a bad experience in the past.

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I'm from Aus and I've tried using a VPN. It works for most people, but it depends on your payment method. It won't work for PayPal as steam checks the country on your paypal account (unless, of course, you make a US paypal account). It didn't work for my commonwealth debit card either. If it doesn't work for your card, you could try a prepaid visa card.

Also have a read of the last page of this thread: http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=1887436&p=69

EDIT: Just thought of something, maybe you could add money to your steam wallet from Aus, and then use it on the US steam store. This would only work on stores that use the same currency

12 years ago
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Yep... already been though that thread. BTW, is your account locked?

Any idea if NAB Debit will work?

12 years ago
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I made a new account to try it, nothing happened to it but i wasn't able to purchase anything. I was trying on the russian store.

No idea about NAB debit. :(

12 years ago
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that's not allowed to put money on another courency and use it on another store i had ticket about it :) here is it

1 Message by you on Thu, 3rd May 2012 7:26 am
can i have USD and RUR in steam wallet. if i add USD and then go russia will i have USD in my steam wallet or RUR and then if i add RUR will i have both of them like RUR currency and USD currency.

2 Message by Support Tech Toby on Fri, 4th May 2012 9:01 am
Hello Lasha,

Thank you for contacting Steam Support.

This behavior is not supported.

Please follow the link below for information:

Title: Steam Wallet
Link: http://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=1122-RTSC-0478

If you have any further questions, please let us know.

12 years ago
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Australian steam store uses USD

12 years ago
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Still doesnt work, the country where u add funds from is the only country u can use them on.

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It doesnt work like that.My store is tr which is turkey.Its uses usd when selling but there are restricted or expansive games and if i want to buy them i put some money into steam wallet , use VPN and use web browser to buy games from US store.Steam wallet shows exact money i put in on my region

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there is option to buy from ru or most (CIS countries=ukraine prices) steam store u just need to have webmoney, unlocked account(u can ask steam support to unlock account. like reason u need to move another country for some time do this with newly created fake acc to prevent consequences if there is one because i purchased from ru steam store from Georgia about 3 months ago here the proof they didnt ban my account hadn't any issues from steam ) if do this just go to store.steampowered.com/?cc=ru that's it add to cart item and purchase make purchase option webmoney :) it's easy as hell :) and there here is support ticket message:

1 Message by you on Tue, 21st Feb 2012 2:51 am
i purchased from russian steam store without using any programs like VPN, i just checked that i'm from russia i used webmoney purchase. because i had money in webmoney and for me it's hard to get money to another account from webmoney. will i get banned for it?
2 Message by Support Tech Scott on Wed, 22nd Feb 2012 11:06 am
Hello Lasha,

Thank you for contacting Steam Support.

In order to prevent any issues with your account in the future, you will need to keep purchasing from the Georgian store.

If you have any further questions, please let us know - we will be happy to assist you.

P.S. i hope i wont get banned for this on steamgifts :D i didn't used VPN

12 years ago
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Can you pay with WMZ? Or does it have to be WMR?

12 years ago
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it's must be a wmr but if u dont have wmr there is no problem webmoney will exchange automaticaly u can use wmz

12 years ago
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To purchase form USA steam you need to use a vpn, however 8 people i know had their accounts closed within a week and had to beg to get it unlocked.

They all gof it back but were warned.

DONT DO IT>

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This comment was deleted 6 years ago.

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Closed 12 years ago by liveyourlife.