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."

9 years ago*

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Probably gonna get attacked by all "holyer-than-thou"s for this comment but after seeing all the trashing of people gifitng only bundled games and those aiming for CV I just have to say it- wow, how dare you people?!
So many comments here on how this is gonna affect gifting (in the sense of buying cheaper and then gifting for full CV) on SG just opened my eyes to the ultimate hypocrisy that's been going on. I've never thought about how people get the games they give away here as I really don't care but after seeing all these comments 'm getting pretty sick of it all. Now to emphasize- I am NOT talking about everyone here, only those whom I've seen trashing others for gifting bundles and people who have been asking about CV.
So you buy drastically cheaper games than in our region and then give them away here- as far as I'm concerned- great. I love the prevailing attitude here- it is all about generosity; but those who do that and then have the audacity to trash those who don't do that so they can only afford to give away bundled games... Well isn't that just dandy...
I'm not gonna go on about this as I hope I've made my point well enough, just needed to say it.

9 years ago
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CV is only there to encourage people to something else other than bundled games, otherwise the site would be filled with them.

9 years ago
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um, it's already filled with them

9 years ago
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not really - try comparing it to GameMiner (coal GAs) or GalaGiveaways and see how many actuasl non-bundles and reguion free games you can get on each one.

9 years ago
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it may be worse there, but don't forget that the 1,5k games you own get automatically filtered from your view, so you likely don't see much of those here in the first place (but they still exist)

9 years ago
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indeed, but I do see the number of non-bundle games I do not own on SG. And this number is much higher than the number of all non-bundle games (including the ones I already won) on Coal GM and surely GG.

SG as a bigger community will not only have more non-bundle GAs, but generally more GAs altogether. It mean that in raw numbers we will also have more bundle GAs just because we have few times more GAs generally compared to other sites. but the % of non-bundle GAs will still be higher on SG thanks to bundle list system.

9 years ago
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I just can't wait GOG Galaxy client to be released.

9 years ago
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Siiiiiigh... +1.

9 years ago
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RIP Trading

was (to me) a fu#@ing waste of time anyway, shall continue
to collect games from bundles or the usual with 100% discount

9 years ago
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I think we need to make group on Steam to boycott purchases during this sale, so they will realize that their new system can't work, at least in future. Cmon people, let's do something, we are their customers, they depend on us, they live from our money!!!

9 years ago
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Don't think you need a group for this. I doubt people who were looking forward to buy a game for, say, 5 TF2 keys during the sale will now pay 20 Euros just because Valve says so. But in the long run Valve will probably lose nothing, they will simply sell less games for more money.

Personally I just traded away my last few TF2 keys and I won't buy anything during the winter sale.

9 years ago
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+1 I absolutely agree with this statement. We should do something about this, ASAP!

9 years ago
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You don't need to make group, just don't buy anything from steam.

9 years ago
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I was thinking about it to, we all support you and ready, please take some times to get an good fcking serious team to get out from this hell new steam policy.

9 years ago
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I am from SEA region. I hope Steamgifts will be enhanced someday so that I am still able to giveaway SEA-locked gifts to fellow SEA gamers.

9 years ago
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You could always open a group specifically for steam users from that region, to my knowledge you're allowed to create giveaways for region locked games in group giveaways, this should also be easier in SGv2.

9 years ago
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That sounds like too much job

9 years ago
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This is both bad and good news for people from North America/Europe.

Bad because you can't get super cheap games.

Good because the value of what you buy will now hold and will be much easier to make profit, so buying on sales and buying 3 packs, etc will be far more profitable as you no longer compete with cheaper games.

I also suspect TF2 keys might go down in price, so not good for people who are heavily invested in TF2 stuff like unusuals.

Steam economy is a very dynamic place, it will adapt and change. Hard to say if it's better or worse for everyone in the longer run.

9 years ago
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I understand region locking RU/CIS.

But why South America, South East Asia and Turkey?!

9 years ago
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They locked the other regions so nobody would call them biased.

9 years ago
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*sings* it's all for the money...

9 years ago
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How is that you understand RU/CIS and you don't understand other ones? What is the difference? All this regions are cheaper then rest non locked regions. It's completely unfair what happened to all of this. Don't make differences, sound unfair...

9 years ago
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They said "rubles are cheap, so we block Russia". That's understandable. How rubles affect Brazil prices, nobody except Valve knows.

That's why he doesn't understand it. Because Valve didn't said "we are greedy bastards, pay 2-3 times more".

9 years ago
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Valve just lied its obvious. This has almost nothing to do with rubble. Valve is one of best liars I ever saw. They could just make games little coster in Russian store if they wanted, but they just wanted prevent all of traders to get profit "on them"...

9 years ago
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it's just excuse, they have finally something to blame and make themself angels

9 years ago
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It's not the worst that could've happened really. Yesterday there were talks that Steam is going to obliterate the "different prices for different regions" policy and set the prices for Russia at the same level as the US ones. So yeah, they kinda killed trading but at least people can buy games for themselves... for now. If ruble continues taking a tumble you can never guess...

9 years ago
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Yesterday there were talks

um, where and with whom

9 years ago
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The director of Wargaming.net wrote about it in his twitter and also various Russian gaming sites (Riot Pixels etc) reported that as well.

9 years ago
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actually the talks was that valve might change currency from rubles to usd, so that games will cost the same in all cis countries. This will make games more expensive for russians because $1 was 34 rub and now it is 66 rub.

9 years ago
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Rubel is crashing really, really hard - it's not getting more expensive, because Valve hates Russia, but because 1 dollar worth more and more rubel -> even though the game's price stays the same in $, it's price will rise in R, while it's value stays the same.

9 years ago
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would be Epic Fail from valve, paying 1/15 of monthly income for 10$ game, no thx.

9 years ago
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Well this fucking sucks. ;_;

Not sure why people are saying this is a good thing, Russians and nonrussians both benefited from how it used to be. The only people who win is Valve. Scamming and shit will still happen too, this won't change anything except people will have to start giving valve more money.

9 years ago
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"The only people who win is Valve and the other publishers on Steam."
Where Valve is only distributing, they only get a slice of the income.

9 years ago
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with one third of all sales of all games I wouldn't call that "only"..

9 years ago
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I just saw this on the TF2 key community market page:

Note: Starting in the next few days, items purchased for Team Fortress 2 either in-game or on the Steam Community Market will not be tradable or marketable for one week after purchase. We are making this change to combat fraud and scams, and to help maintain a safe and healthy item economy within Team Fortress 2.

I don't recall seeing this, but I haven't checked on the market page in a while. Seems related.

9 years ago
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That's what they wanted to do to block trading few days/hours ago, but then people said "Paypal FTW", so they blocked it all.

9 years ago
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Just hoping: are prices in the African store different?

9 years ago
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there is no African store, US$ for that continent

9 years ago
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Wow.

This will be a major problem for Russians creating giveaways on Steamgifts D:

9 years ago
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Solution, block all RU ip, to avoid army of leechers and locked GA's.

9 years ago
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Aw :(

There are plenty of good Russians!

9 years ago
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You can this a solution?

Wow...

9 years ago
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what a dick move would that be Dumboff

EDIT:
agh u russian troll u got me :P

9 years ago
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Who? me? nooo, Russians don't speak english.

9 years ago
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Us too. :(

9 years ago
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Good, Steam is becoming shittier and shittier everday

9 years ago
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+1

9 years ago
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Just sold my last 35 TF2 keys while prices are still half decent.

Goodbye my pretties ;__;

9 years ago
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Same here, sold about the same amount.
I do have a nicely filled steam wallet now though.

9 years ago
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I guess there's that!

Lord Gaben giveth, and Lord Gaben taketh away...

Worst summer sale ever?

I think so :)

9 years ago
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I feel sorry for the guy who bought almost 25 tf2 keys from me. I hope he isnt preparing for the winter sale.
But I'm happy to get rid of them for a decent price

9 years ago
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Who knows? Hopefully he's a TF2 aficionado, with money to burn and a stack crates to open... There are going to be some deeply unhappy people on Steam once the summer sale begins.

The price is only going one way now. Expecting it to drop below $2 per key within the next 36 hours :/

9 years ago
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I highly doubt that, I've been keeping track of tf2 keys for quite a while now and this isn't the first time people panic and unload them on the market, take the moment they announced that dota2 keys where going to be phased out for example, prices dropped below 1.30 yet they've more then doubled by now again.

Especially TF2, it's use for trading was already at a bare minimum, if you take a look at market stats you'll see that in the same period 1 year back TF2 keys sold at a rate of roughly 10k an hour as opposed to the max 1k per hour these past weeks, that's gotta mean something and I highly doubt that the active community of TF2 decreased that much, it's more likely that trading in general has become such a hassle that people already couldn't be bothered anymore, sure we all still loved to trade but the "general population" of steam seens to already have given up a long time ago.

My guess it's going to take a dive, and then slowly recover once people start trading within their own regions, not to get cheaper deals during sale like it has become now, but to get a game that isn't on sale for a few bucks more then it'll cost during a sale.

9 years ago
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It's Xmas sale, not Summer/Winter sale. It starts in Spring/Fall :)

9 years ago
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Massive upset for me, I will still buy games from my regional store, but no-where near as many games as I would have from trading. GG Valve

9 years ago
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Its a pity but this was bound to happen...
I'll be buying less games now and will wait longer for sales.
I think in the end those who will suffer the most are small indie devs. I bought that kind of indiegames often because they were cheap through Russian traders. They are the ones that will get hurt the most. More bundles incoming, more early access failures, more bankrupt indie devs! Who wins here btw?
GOG galaxy is looking more and more interesting each day....

9 years ago
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I'm not that upset I suppose. Will save me some money now I guess, I use to wait until summer/winter sales to buy stuff on sale but after I found out about lower region trading I started going a little crazy spending more than I should of on games I still haven't even touched just because they were super cheap. Guess i'll just have to wait till prices drop low enough in the actual store and I actually intend to play the game when I buy them from now on.

9 years ago
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i've sold all my tf2 keys..bye russian traders :(

9 years ago
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+1

9 years ago
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This comment was deleted 5 years ago.

9 years ago
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But I like borscht! I made some a couple weeks ago. It was delicious!

9 years ago
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I prefer pelmeni ;-)

9 years ago
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Cool, Russian pot-stickers!

9 years ago
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This comment was deleted 3 years ago.

9 years ago
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Valve: win
Gamer: lose
Indie devs lose

9 years ago
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Not sure where you're coming from as it's mainly AAA titles that are mainly gotten from RU/etc stores and sold for keys. Indie games are far more likely to end up in bundles or brought domesically.

9 years ago
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AAA titles were often locked already

9 years ago
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Yes they end up in bundles because sales are bad mostly. Sales that will get even worse now.
Triple A games were often regionlccked already and people always want to buy the new COD, Witcher, GTA or whatever.

Gamekeys are back in business I guess

9 years ago
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For people who don't want to play VAT-inflated prices there's still the US area, then again people were saying that as a flimsy justification to abuse RU/etc.

9 years ago
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Thanks Putin

9 years ago
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+1

9 years ago
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Just a few days from Christmas too... this is a nightmare.

I hope this isn't permanent.

9 years ago
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Great...Just great! Thank you.
I understand they like to make money and stuff, but they are excluding more and more what separates Steam from everything else.

Now SG and ST will suffer so much with these decisions. We will lose great friends. But that's how life is, isn't it?
Now I'm sad :(

9 years ago
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Please 2 questions :

  • A contrario, for a ROW gift bought before region-lock, will non-US/WestEurope players be able to activate it ?
  • And... The gifts bought in RU/CIS before new region-lock and stocked in inventory, still can be activated in US/WestEurope area now ?
9 years ago
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Seems to be like that.

9 years ago
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So the answer is yes/yes ?

9 years ago
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Lock only affects new copies.
So the old stored in the inventory are fine

9 years ago
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Ok thank you very much for answer !

9 years ago
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