Please help stop steam from region locking game gifts!
Steam is Region Locking Gifting (petition)
https://www.change.org/p/valve-steam-please-cancel-the-region-locking-of-all-steam-games
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I just realized something. If you bought a game from the Russian Store even though you were living in another country, you were being a cheap ass. Why? Let me explain you something. As example I'll use Russia (and the Russian Store) and Germany (and the German Store).
The average wage in Russia is around 382€.
The average wage in Germany is around 2054€.
Let's take a random game which is currently not on sale: Bloons TD 5.
Bloons TD 5 in Russia: 249 RUB (3,79€)
Bloons TD 5 in Germany: 9,99€ (619 RUB)
Now let's calculate how many times you could buy the game if you would buy it from the store of your country (Russia -> Russian Store, Germany -> German Store)
Russia: 382€ / 3,79€ = 100,79 = ~ 101 times
Germany: 2054€ / 9,99€ = 205,60 ~ 206 times
As you can see, you are able to buy Bloons TD 5 a lot of more times with your average wage in Germany than in Russia. This means that compared to Germany, the games in Russia are way more expensive for the Russians compared to their average wage. Let's calculate how many times you could buy the game with your average German wage if you would purchase the game on the Russian Store.
Germany: 2054€ / 3,79€ = 541,95 = ~ 542 times
This means that you would be able to buy the game 441 times more often with the average German wage of 2054€ when buying from the Russian store than the people which live in Russia with the average Russian wage of 382€.
In the end, we shouldn't complain that Valve region locked the cheapest countries. Don't complain that it's unfair for users which don't live in Russia. We were abusing a loophole and we were getting games extremly cheap compared to our average wage. And well, we are still able to buy more games with our average wage than the people in Russia, which is still nice.
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it's like people forced russians to sell the games to them. russians (or whatever the cheap country traders are from) sell games, get their cut, people from expensive regions buy the games cheaper. it's a win-win for them. your example doesn't make any sense. people paying more doesn't benefit russians in any way (except russian developers who trade games for profit in their spare time).
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I'm not talking about any benefit for anyone. I'm just comparing the average wages and the amount of times you could buy a game with the average wage of each country. And well, you are able to buy more games with the average wage in Germany than with the average wage in Russia.
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so what? think trading as an instrument of the economic equality. if you're really concerned about their low wage, you should be happy for them to make money this easy. russians don't earn as much as europeans. so let's chop their way to make money on steam. makes perfect sense.
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have you ever bought something online because it was cheaper than the store near you? if so, then you're a cheap-ass.
we live in an interconnected digital environment. the internet is ONE. when we purchase things online, we are using this international market to find the best deals possible, thats all. this is why i shop online instead of letting local stores price-gouge. so yes, we should complain. i bet youd raise all kinds of hell if your government decreed that you could no longer purchase anything from online stores because it was getting in the way of bricks and mortar stores being able to price gouge and charge whatever they wanted.
prices in russia and other countries exist because the company that sells them, has determined that THIS price is a price they find acceptable for 'people' to own it at. the only reason it costs more in other countries is because these companies know they can milk MORE out of those people (ie exploit more out of these countries, price gouge in these countries, etc). this has nothing to do with us exploiting 'kindness' on a companies part, dont fool yourself. A product is sold at a price the company feels they are comfortable with selling it at so as to make a profit.
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I can absolutely understand that everyone wants to have something as cheap as possible. I bought stuff from the Russian Store too, because yeah, it was way cheaper compared to the actual German Store price, I was able to save a lot of money. However I can also understand why Valve decided to region lock the cheapest countries and in my opinion it's ridiculous to complain that they region locked the cheapest stores.
Valve improved the economy like that, atleast on Steam.Yes, we can't buy extremly cheap games anymore. Yes, a lot of people will torrent games from now on instead of buying the game for an extremly cheap price on the Russian store. which actually may be counterproductive. If that's a good thing or a bad thing, considering that many people won't buy games on Steam anymore, is another question.
To sum it up: Valve made the economy more fair on Steam. But: The earnings and profit of Valve and the developers of the games on Steam will sink and the decision will most likely be counterproductive. As example it could be that the developers would have to increase their prices on Steam because no one is buying their games on Steam anymore, simply because no one is willing to pay "the full price" for an indie game, as example.
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Besides i´m a bit curios on the source of the average wage of Germany (are all social contributions and taxes excluded otherwise it seems far to low) ...you can´t play with the numbers this way. In Germany we have one of the strongest competitions in the market...even if we earn more we don´t have to pay five times more for food and other daily needs. We don´t pay five times for fuel and many other things...so at the end of good month Mr. müller can spend some money for games....while Mr. [common russian name] still has a problem to pay his other bills...
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The source is WIKIPEDIA, it's the net wage or net salary. I think the most of those average wages are wrong, but I used them to calculate what I calculated up there. However those numbers reflect that people in Russia earn less money than in Germany, and that's what we all can tell.
And your example perfectly makes sense. In Germany we earn a lot of more money, still we don't really have to pay more for food, water and other daily needs. This means that we can buy other stuff which isn't our daily need with out money.
In Russia they earn way less money, still they don't have to pay less for food, water and other daily needs, they have to pay the same. This also means that they can't buy as much games with their money as we can in Germany, because they need their money for things they really need. That's why the games are "cheaper" in Russia. And Valve simply has blocked us from buying those (for us) cheaper games, which makes sense.
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Just curious, have you considered comparing a country that actually has same or even lower salaries than Russia and still has EU prices? If you feel like it you can take the time and check the usual income in Bulgaria, or any country in the region (Greece being the richest, even after the economy collapse). Now let's figure out how is it possible to have ~300 euro AVERAGE salary (minimum one was 160 I think) and buy a game for 60 euro brand new. Realistic? I don't think so, unless someone poops money.
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Sorry for being pedantic, but your calculations about buying from ru store aren't precise - you are forgetting about 15% to Gabe from selling keys on the market + 5-10% to russian resellers for doing this.
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For Brazil...
The average wage in Brazil is around 653€ (Data from November/2014)
Bloons TD 5 in Brazil: 19,99 BRL (6,08€)
Brazil: 653€ / 6,08€ = ~107 times
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Well, if you guys really want to unlock those games, stop buying or trading on Steam. When money stop flowing, Valve will change their decisions.
But since "everyone" rushed to Japan etc., I'm guessing Valve plan worked and those regions will be locked forever.
Also, funny how "good thing Valve locked Russia" comments comes from I'm-guessing-not-RU traders - looks like someone doesn't like competition :P
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About last line: they just didn't realize yet that all the cheap gifts were from Russia.
Wait until all remaining russian gifts will be sold out from the market, then post a steamDB link for games that are like a half of US price price in Russia.
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People from the U.S. trying to sell the games they bought for trading will actually be happy from this. The will now have the cheapest copies on the market.
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Some of us don't want Russians to steal away income from the devs who make games we want. It has nothing to do with US traders.
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Well, noone forced anyone to buy gifts from russians. If you care about devs and you want pay more for just the same game copy, you could always buy more copies of the same game from Ru and give them away here on SG so more people would know about you favourite game.
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All US traders have been buying games for $3 from Russians (who got them for $2) to sell them for $5 by themselves. Now US traders are forced to buy for $5 to sell them for $7 instead of previous $5.
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I thought giving the devs the option to region lock their games if they wanted to in steamworks would have been enough. Some of they lesser indie games on Steam relied on RU trading to make any sales at all. Valve may as well just remove all indie games from Steam now.
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Anything you buy from the Steam store will be region-locked. You can gift something you purchased before that new rule was set in place, or that you acquired from someone else in a region-free area or any region-free Steam key.
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Anything* you buy from the Steam store will be region-locked.
*except extra copies from multipacks.
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just because mushrooms are popping up like mushrooms doesn't mean mushrooms are free in mushrooms store.
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You bought the dead organic matter that caused them to grow on your lawn.
u wot m8? O.o
afaik dead stuff don't cause mushrooms to grow. they would help mushrooms to grow up if mushrooms were plant but since they're member of fungi, there is no relation.
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jazzmaninca2003 looks smarter than me. i'll go along then. as long as some mushrooms end up in my plate (preferably stuffed with cheese and not poisonous), i don't really care anyway.
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I'm from VN, and we have the same price as US steam users TT
Plz bring to us a fair price based on fair elements, sr for my bad English !!!
Thx you Steam !
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well...at least we still have a lower price than EU facepalm
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It's illegal :D
But you can try it at your own risk !!!
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All these people complaining about EU2: while I agree with you, the whole of Africa is completely ignored by Steam and any other major store. We have to pay the US price in USD which puts the cost even higher due to currency conversions and we earn much less. Our currency here in South Africa has fallen so badly - in 2011 I could get $1 for R5-6, now it's R11-12 for $1. How is that fair?
Just as a comparison, I earn R1500 currently, yes it is low but that's what I get. This converts to $129.12 currently, do you think I'm going to use half my salary to get a new game? I only buy on sales and bundles for this reason, and before I found out about the Russian traders, I'd buy maybe a few bundles and 1 or 2 games / a bundle of games (Like Tomb Raider Collection at 80% off, for example) in a year. This last year I even bought some gifts for friends through trading, because the price was affordable. Now I will probably only buy bundles and the odd cheap game, no more gifts for friends either.
Overall, it means I will go back to spending less than I have been spending of late. Now I have accumulated a nice library of games, and I don't really need to spend more money on Steam. I hope that anyone else upset by this will do the same, that is the only way they will rethink their decision.
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Ok, so, WORST sale EVER finally is gone. I really hope that Steam company is ruined and that people really boycotted them for purchase games for costly price, so maybe they will not after all damage they caused to us (and themselves also) will remove this no sense region lock...
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Now those poor Russian traders can no longer profit from other people's games.
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But also as some non Russian people complained(i.e they have a friend on Russian place)they can't gift to em. I mean the non Russian can gift to Russian,but the Russian can't gift back. I seen those posts on steam discussions regarding those.
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People from South America (excluding Brazil) have to buy from the US store, but can't gift to people from the US. lel.
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It is still possible to use region locked games, using a VPN software or an Hide Your IP app.
I tried it and I activated a Russian Mafia II code that I got for 99p
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Hiding your IP is against TOS? I know about VPN, but hiding imo isn't prohibited
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The Steam Subscriber Agreement does not specifically mention VPNs, it says this:
You agree that you will not use IP proxying or other methods to disguise the place of your residence, whether to circumvent geographical restrictions on game content, to purchase at pricing not applicable to your geography, or for any other purpose. If you do this, we may terminate your access to your Account.
So, things like "Hide my IP" which probably uses a proxy IS specifically mentioned as being prohibited, but it doesn't really matter that it doesn't specifically mention VPNs since ANY method you may use to disguise where you are coming from is against the rules and if you violate these rules, access to your account may be terminated.
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Now even some items have restrictions.......LEL Valve
Also, WTF Brazil is doing there? with all those SEA countries...
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What about traders? There's opportunity for dishonest people from those countries to scam people, the other people don't know they're from one of those countries, the person in the country with the lower revenue gets a game they can activate while the person in the country with the higher revenue gets scammed.
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Forewarning, I didn't read the whole thread so I don't know if there's already a plan of action. I've just won one DLC on SteamGifts but it's region locked (CIS?) and I can't activate it despite having it on my inventory.
Is there a plan to start classifying gifts or users by Steam Region on Steamgifts to avoid this?
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There was some discussion about it at some point but no announcement have been made yet. Currently, region-locked games and DLC are simply not allowed.
If the gifter can't provide you with a region-free copy, the only thing you can do is return it and mark it as not received.
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Well i am in reverse situation, i'm brazilian, living in brazil and traded couple of games from Greece and another from USA so it's not "gifted or traded from a lower priced region to a higher priced region" it's higher priced from lower priced. Curious because we just trade games, not intended to win money or get advantage just some guys trading games or stuff that we won't use.
This lock region it's just because of sites like g2a and people that live to buy cheaper games to sell expensive later. This is because raised a black market of steam games, even the games beeing cheaper than consoles games.
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Response from dev forum:
"As most of you know, our developer tools suggest pricing based on market research and purchasing power parity. In the case of territories such as Russia, Brazil, and SE Asia, we suggested pricing that is lower than the direct USD conversion. This is based on our assessment of actual pricing of comparable products in that market. Recently Rubles have hit an all-time low which has been a concern of many game developers. We are still assessing the market to see if suggesting new prices in Russia is right for customers who live in that market. We do not think that pricing based on currency conversion only is the right way to approach the Russian market necessarily.
What we are doing immediately in response to the Ruble drop is limiting trading and gifting from Russia to prevent people from taking advantage of the situation. We have been applying a gifting and trading lock of this type on all newly created packages on Steam since mid-2014. Today we have propped a change that will affect all packages on Steam which will not allow them to be unpacked to an account, if gifted or traded from a lower priced region to a higher priced region. This change is not retroactive and only affects new purchases. It also will not affect customers in that region from gifting a copy to other people in that same region. All customers will have proper warning when they are purchasing a gift prior to checkout in those regions as well. We will continue to assess the situation and make changes if necessary in the future. If you have any questions please feel free to write us via the contact form via the Steamworks Development site - Documentation & Help -> Contact Steam Publishing."
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