Answer is simple - gift notice is pure bullshit as often as not.
It does not mean though that info from steamdb is enough to make a decision - it's correct (if you know correct sub), but steam seems to have some other region restriction mechanisms too. I've seen keys that were not restricted in my country according to steamdb, but still refused to activate.
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Yeah, I saw mentions of a 10% regional price difference limit that's also required (but maybe only relevant to steam gifts?). It can also work the other way round - I purchased a game from fanatical that activated and installed nicely, and only later (when I was curious about its DLCs) found out I couldn't purchase it directly from steam.
I wish it was clearer. It can be - GamesPlanet, for example, shows an explicit list of regions where a key can be activated, and not just "activates in your region".
Thanks.
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Also SteamDB doesn't have full info on every package that exists.
Just the other day someone was asking about a region-locked key for "Rage 2", whose package turned out not to be indexed by SteamDB, hence it doesn't know about its region restrictions..
PS: you can help SteamDB retrieve these missing packages by using their crowd-sourced token dumper (which is also available as a plugin if you are an ASF user). Plus you get the "donator" badge if you do :)
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Well, of course it's possible. Packages created all the time, and steamdb is not official, so it's technically impossible for it to be 100% complete. But if you know the subid and it's indexed - it's usually pretty precise. Only chance for it to be incorrect is if it was just updated.
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But if you know the subid and it's indexed
yep, keyword is indexed. As you can see from the rage 2 page:
https://steamdb.info/app/548570/subs/
None of the packages indexed (SUBID) cover that particular key region restrictions (because the true one "689116" is not listed), so by just consulting SteamDB you wouldn't know that an "Americas" region locked key exists.
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Will definitely look into this. I was not aware of the crowd sourcing aspects of steamdb. I just assumed they scraped all their data from steam.
In any case the key in question is an extra key for gifting that I got from Humble Bundle. The one I have activated in my account I got from GamesPlanet, almost a year ago, so in theory, they can be different subs, with the HB one not indexed yet. Or not...
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Since you already have the game in your account, you could try to redeem the key to get the package (sub) ID.
Though there is a high risk that if the publisher puts different package contents for the same game, the key will be consumed.
After you or your recipient redeeming the key, if the package is not indexed yet on SteamDB, please consider submitting the key to it here, along with using the token dumper.
If a key is valid and Steam returns information for it, package name will be updated on the site.
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Thanks for the suggestion. It didn't occur to me to try this. I was pretty sure that I purchased the same content, so I tried activating the key and got a response that I already have the game, with the known package id that I already have (I followed the instructions in the discussion that ormax3 pointed to).
This just proves the point made by Rudokhvist - "gift notice is pure bullshit as often as not" 😬
Thanks everyone!
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Ran the token dumper as you suggested, and it basically told me my library is not so special...
Thanks.
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See also Lilly's explanation of how the gift notification works here: https://www.steamgifts.com/go/comment/7awsCSv
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Thanks. That explanation makes it both clear and unclear at the same time...
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The game in question is Castlevania Anniversary Collection.
It has several region locked subs.
I purchased a copy from Humble Bundle, so, most likely I got the RoW sub, which excludes China, Viet Nam and Japan.
However when I press the "Gift to a friend" button I get a warning that lists the regions where the gift link is expected to work, and that list is missing some regions - e.g. US and CA (see attached screenshots).
Why do I get the mismatch? shouldn't the gift notice match the sub?
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