https://www.steamgifts.com/discussion/hK2kQ/orphan-keys-drop-thread/search?page=458
You can post it here. So someone can redeem and tell you which country the key for. But if you win the key from SG contact with the GA creator and agree with the deletion of the GA or ask them to provide another key that you can activate in your own country.
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commenting on the giveaway is actually the easiest way to contact the giveaway creator
a lot of ppl dont like being added on steam by "random" ppl and might refuse.
other like me are more often online on SG than on steam itself due to limited time to actually play throughout the workweek. but dropping by SG once in a while is doable.
so i would really recommend you to comment on their GA
edit: dont go dropping the key somewhere else. like some ppl suggested here
you won the game on SG so it either should be activated by you or stay with the creator so he can re-do the GA with correct region-restrictions.
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saw your response as well.
sadly the guidelines here arent specified from the winners point of view but from the GA creators point of view.
but yeah.. theoretically the key should still be valid if he wasnt able to activate it and can be given away
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There's 4 known restricted subs:
https://steamdb.info/sub/629512/ (RU/CIS/TR)
https://steamdb.info/sub/629511/ (LATAM)
https://steamdb.info/sub/629510/ (SEA)
https://steamdb.info/sub/629509/ (Africa & Middle East)
However: a VPN is not enough for key activation. You need to change your shop region, which also requires a purchase with a valid and verified payment method from the correct region beforehand.
And like others said: the giveaway creator is responsible for providing a working key for the regions they allowed their giveaway for. If they can't, you can either agree to the deletion of the giveaway or mark it as not received.
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Stop recommending posting a won game key.
You should read the faq and rules of this site.
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As mentioned by other users, this is not okay. Agoneous had specified that they were talking about a won key and yet you suggested they'd drop the key somewhere.
From our Guidelines:
Won gifts must be activated on the Steam account used during registration, and they cannot be regifted, traded, sold, or removed from your Steam account after activation.
If a user is unable to activate a key due to region-restriction, then that key still belongs to the original giveaway creator. Users shouldn't just be taking keys they can't activate and posting them wherever they want, so recommending this course of action is not okay. Please refrain from suggesting other users should break our rules in the future.
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just to note if you win something and you can't activate it, don't do anything with it other than telling the gifter its region locked and approve deletion if you want to.
doing pretty much anything else with the key can earn you a suspension.
since you named the game, its source is region locked: see here
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From the FAQ:
"What happens if I create a giveaway and the winner is unable to activate the gift in their region?
If you setup the giveaway with the appropriate region restrictions, and the winner was outside of those regions due to inaccurate information they provided, then you can request a new winner for the giveaway. If the giveaway did not have the correct region restrictions assigned to it, then one of three options are available.
You can acquire a replacement gift or key for the same game, which the winner is able to activate in their region.
You can accept the giveaway as being "Not Received" by the winner.
You can submit a ticket to have the giveaway deleted. In order for us to delete the giveaway, the winner will need to post a comment on the giveaway saying they agree to have it removed."
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i actually already met a few ppl who thought like that but all of them - you included - were risking their own account to be flagged as rule breaker for the sake of being ... well... nice i guess. though most simply didnt understand the rules and eveyrthing.
initially it is the creators responsibility to correctly set the region restriction (if there are any) for their GAs. so if they didnt its on them to deal with their mistake one way or another (like JTC3 explained)
hopefully everything can be sorted out
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so reading a bit more into detail of what is going on here i have to say that there were a lot of things going wrong here.
you entered a GA and cant activate it due to the key being region restricted.
that means the GA, even though it was region restricted, was not correctly set up and you happened to win it.
that or something went wrong with your region setting on steam because you said you were travelling a lot?
look through the coutries in the GAs that are allowed to enter. do you find the country your Steam is set to? maybe they thought it was the other way around and non of the countries are able to activate it lol
youre supposed to contact the GA creator if something is wrong with the key. but you didnt do that and you even marked it as received even though you couldnt activate it.
you know you can be suspended for that? you have a not-activated win now.
btw... the easiest way to contact a creator is by commenting on the GA itself.
this win is 8 month old! why wait so long?
im really dumbfounded by how many ppl suggested to give the key away one way or another. DONT do that!! thats re-gifting and against the rules.
the best course of action would be to contact the GA creator via comment on the GA. tell them that the key was region restricted and that you couldn't activate it because of this on the GA! they hopefully see it quickly and can delete it with your approval.
in case the GA creator wont reply/take action: since its been already 8 month since the GA ended you cant set the GA to not-received anymore. so create a ticket for support to change your feedback and link to the GA and maybe to this discussion as well. explain what happened.
hopefully you wont get reported as a rule breaker for having a not-activated win until then.
excuse me if i came a bit aggressive but it just baffled me quite a bit. as you can see im usually the helpful type of person regardless.
hopefully you can sort everything out
have a nice day :)
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Thankfully, the warning about needing to be activated by the won account is right in plain sight - so I'm aware that that I'm not supposed to give it away.
I figured since I travel a lot I'll be able to redeem it sooner or later. But despite passing like 10 different countries since the GA ended I still wasn't able to redeem it and at that point it occured to me that it might be the steam's store location that determines the geolock.
I guess I'll comment on the GA, and also open a ticket.
Thanks for the help.
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This is because you didn't change your Store Country.
What if I move and want to change my store country to the new location?
If you have moved to a new place, or are living abroad for an extended period of time, you can update your Steam country setting when you complete your first purchase using a payment method from that country. If your location differs from your current Steam account store country setting you'll have an option to change your store country while you view your cart or as you complete your purchase. You will only have the option to change your store country once every 3 months.
Oh, and if you really want that game and don't want the unactivated win mark on your account, you can always get it on Steam at 90% off right now.
You really should have contacted the GA creator right away to say you couldn't activate it. They would have re-rolled. No harm done. At least you will know this for the future.
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This will be helpful and great to know in my near future. Thanks!
Also, have you personally played Epic Chef? I has been interested in it given the developer (I am a massive fan of Team17 in general and their games always catch my eye) and it seems right up my alley in terms of genre.
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No, I don't own Epic Chef, so I couldn't tell you how good it is.
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Yeah, when I was sick, I had a bit of a problem collecting games and not playing them, but it gave me some amount of joy haha. When I finish my paper next month, I have a list of games to play first.
I have calmed down on the bundle buying. Now mostly just get Humble Choice, unless there's something I'd really love.
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Please remove the trading offer from your comment as it infringes on Steamgifts' rules:
Trading. This site is not for trading, so do not attempt to directly trade games or other items with users in our community. If you attempt to indirectly trade or express a willingness to trade with an unusually high frequency, it will also be viewed as trading.
I advice you to take the time to familiarize yourself with the rules of Steamgifts as outlined in the FAQ and Guidelines.
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Good that you opened a ticket about the situation, a moderator will continue with you in there but I'm still answering this part here in case someone else might have confusion about the subject:
But despite passing like 10 different countries since the GA ended I still wasn't able to redeem it and at that point it occured to me that it might be the steam's store location that determines the geolock.
Yes, your Steam Store location needs to be matching whatever the region on a key is.
Keys activate different subs, and these could be a base game, DLC, or whatever else. These subs itself can be region-locked and are set to only be redeemable in specific regions. Sometimes this can also include a runlock. Some years in the past it was still possible to activate region-restricted keys by just using the key when you are in a different location like during travel, etc, but this seems to have almost entirely been disabled for a while now. It's possible that there are still some cases where activating a key in a different location could work, but at least I have not heard of it working for a while.
It's probably because Valve became increasingly aware of VPN abuse of people acquiring cheaper region-restricted keys from outside their own regions and using a VPN to activate them. If you would have wanted to try activating a key during your travels, you would have needed to attempt to change your Steam Store region to match the country you were in (as mentioned above), but this would've likely been much more trouble than it would have been of worth.
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The thing with switching store location is that it's limited to once every three months, and I actually changed it twice in that time (although not specifically for the GA activation but because I actually lived in those countries for a while), but I remember I attempted to activate it every time I settled in a new country and still wasn't able to. Now that I came back full circle when I won the GA I don't want to hold unto it anymore hopping I'll eventually get it to activate.
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I travelled across multiple countries since winning it and I couldn't activate it in any of them. No idea what to do with the key since I don't know in which countries it's redeemable.
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