Few weeks back I covered an article in which it was mentioned that ‘Horizon Zero Dawn’s’ PC release version got a price hike globally, due to people misusing VPNs in some countries/regions. Now, an updated policy from the ‘SteamDB’ indicates that Valve is taking measures to restrict users who use a VPN to purchase games at a lower price.
Simply put, STEAM client now requires users to pay corresponding to the local currency/payment method of that country, should they plan to use VPN to change their store region. The local currency should match with the buyer’s location. Users will now have to complete a purchase using a ‘payment method’ from the country they want to select, before Steam will allow them to purchase games in that region. Steam is forcing currencies used on the purchase to match those of the country where the purchase is actually being made.
This new policy has been implemented to stifle the use of virtual private networks (VPN) to bypass region restrictions (when gamers want to purchase games from other regions, because they are more expensive in their own country). This move by Valve aims to keep the pricing fair according to users’ and countries’ purchasing power and aims to protect users with lower purchasing power from the exploitation of regional pricing.
Few years ago VALVE banned some users who migrated to the Russian store to buy games. As the updated policy now reads, “Valve has recently made changing your store country more strict, which requires completing a purchase using a payment method from that country. This should hinder the ability of using VPNs to buy games cheaper.”
Many Steam users likely use VPNs, but those users shouldn’t be worried as long as they aren’t using the VPN to buy games in another region. Although buying games using a VPN is against Steam’s Terms of Service and policy, playing games and using Steam while also using a VPN at the same time, isn’t prohibited though. Games on Steam are often priced differently based on region. ‘Rainbow Six Siege’, for example, is $20 if you buy it from the American storefront, but it will cost only 829 Russian Ruble, which is equivalent to $11.42, if you select the Russian storefront region.
Valve has recently made changing your store country more strict, which requires completing a purchase using a payment method from that country.
This should hinder the ability of using VPNs to buy games cheaper. pic.twitter.com/IozwoO6gsi
— SteamDB (@SteamDB) July 29, 2020
Steam’s new change of policy should hopefully now curb a significant amount of VPN abuse since acquiring a payment method of another country is a much bigger barrier/obstacle, rather than switching regions through a VPN.
Valve explained its new region purchasing policy as follows, “If you have moved to a new country, or are living abroad for an extended period of time, you can update your Steam country settings when you complete your first purchase using a payment method from that country”.
“Using a proxy or VPN to disguise your location is strictly against the Steam Terms of Service and may result in restrictions on your Steam account”. Valve also explained on its support page that, “If you attempt to redeem a region restricted game and your location is inconsistent with your past Steam activity, the following warning will appear: ‘Note that using an IP proxy or other methods to disguise the place of your residence to activate [a game] is a violation of the Steam Subscriber Agreement and may result in restrictions on this Steam account.”
Using a VPN to get a game for a lower price is against Steam’s terms of service, though people still take the chance. With some games, Valve and the publisher use geoblocking to stop the codes from working in other regions, though the European Commission considers that a breach of the EU’s antitrust rules. Valve is currently contesting this.
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Regional pricing is literally closest thing for racism in digital stores. All expenses are same, but some are getting it cheap, some expensive. They should ban it
I have to disagree.
From the gamers’ standpoint, if you are in a poor country and have a significantly reduced income compared to say US and west European citizens, having the same price points as them makes games prohibitively expensive and deter you from buying them and enjoying them like anybody else would.
From a publisher’s standpoint, if you lower your price in some regions you may entice gamers to your game and actually have an income where otherwise you would have not.
This could be a win-win scenario if it is implemented correctly, without flaws or prejudice. Currently it is not.
Regions =/= race. Dumping regional pricing punishes those who live in poor or underdeveloped countries. Keeping regional pricing opens up possibilities for people, and also boosts sales for the publishers.
People using VPNs to get cheaper pricing is borderline stealing (they’re just not stealing all of it).
I’m not sure it’s stealing but it certainly is cynical. I can afford 50-60€ games. I’m not going to screw over someone who earns a quarter of my salary and obviously can’t part with what would be 200€ for a game.
It’s not your fault your economy is underdevelopped.
This logic doesnt work, for example my country is poor but still gets 60 euros treatment.
“Poor underdevelopped countries” like Russia Sh*thole who put all their money in weaponry while their people are dying in the open dump country…
Racism ? LoL are u trolling ? Why should a game cost the same price in a 3rd world country that it does in a 1rd world country since the purchase power of the audience is not the same. There is no point in not supporting regional price, anyone that argues that it should just be a conversion of the original price is ignorant specially nowdays.
My country the minimal wage is 1045.00 R$ that converted is 202 USD. How can u even expect that we pay around 30% of our monthly wage in a single game ? That is why piracy will never die.
Start making your own games? Not meaning you as a person but in your country?
We have a few of them most indie games thou, the industry here is just beggining. Out of the top my head Knights of pen and paper, Chroma Squad, Momadora Series, Dandara, Odallus, Blazing Chrome and a few others.
So their own games will be comparable to GTA and Max Payne and Yakuza? Yeee no.
You do realize that it’s still up to the publishers if they want to set regional pricing? Look at Death Stranding. Still really expensive here in my region.
Here is why i agree with this dude, but i’m not going the race route, cause that’s a whole other can of worms but he is right. Regional pricing shouldn’t be a thing, not because I LIVE IN THE USA doesn’t mean that people that live in russia and the CIS countries ain’t richer than I am, This is total nonsense and i can’t believe people support this garbage. the cognitive dissonance is strong with this one. Who is anyone to tell me that i’m more fortunate because i live in the USA. We have poor people everywhere and all over this world despite your countries GDP. I’ve never agreed with regional pricing it’s utter garbage. Why should i pay more cause i live in a more fortunate company? Well news flash my bank account and financial worth isn’t a communal well. I totally agree with you and as for the people thumbing down this guy, use your brains and stop being so quick to trigger. Because poverty comes in all places, unless you live in monaco, where they have hundreds of billionaires and thousands of millionaires.
In closing, I’m all for lower prices, IF IT’S ACROSS THE BOARD FOR EVERYONE. Regional pricing is basically AFFIRMATIVE ACTION. And we know how alot of these racists idiots on this website HATES things like AFFIRMATIVE ACTION. So now is the time to see how big a hypocrite these fools are.
I understand your point of view. There are poor people everywhere.
BUT, lower GDP normally means lower income for the majority of population. If I’m in a country with lower GDP than yours and we do the exact same job, there is a very high probability I am earning less than you.
The same goes for almost all of the population.
And games are consumables, like many other product such as food or clothing. By that argument food or clothing should also be priced the same everywhere in the world.
So now what?
Should the entire population of a country (actually many under developed countries) suffer or should the prices be lower?
I totally understand your point, there are a lot of rich people in poor countries who benefit from this and that’s sad for poor people in rich countries, but if we talk about the majority regional pricing can help a lot of people to get access to entertainment. But whatever we say, it mostly helps the store to sell more and it’s designed for that first and foremost.
***Why should i pay more cause i live in a more fortunate company?***
Question and the answer.
Also – you’re still paying less even with regional pricing. $60 is 1/50 of $3K salary. $20-30 is 1/15-1/10 of $300 salary.
You’re that ret4rded? Expenses the same? Earns the same? World is slightly bigger than your rich western city.
Hahaha! I wish I live in rich country, I wouldnt be complained then! 😛 We are one of poorest country in EU with most expensive games!
Of all m0rons here who disliked my post, nobody bothered to check regional prices and deduct that they dont have slightest clue with economic power, rather its just tailored to political meanings. TL;DR : USA need influence = cheap games and vice versa
Steam does not have eastern Europes regions , until then I will keep buying Virtual currency from Russia and will buy games without a need of any Credit card. It is not my fault that our country is poor and Steam has prices like we are from Sweden. When a minimum wage after taxes is 400€ games should not cost 60€ .
Yea but you get a weeks worth of luxury food for the money we get a days worth of cheapest food or gas. And then minimum wage is 1000 €. So who actually wins here lol
That is not true , we pay more for food and clothes than Germans .
Yeeeee no
Eastern europe regions get full prices LOL how the hell can we afford 60 euros games lol. In russian region for 50 or 60 euros I could buy lots of games. Now this.
I’m from Lithuania .
Ah, the land of hitmen.
not criticizing here, but have an honest question. is this more to do with the country’s economic situation they agreed to have, or steam? or is steam gouging?
good,, now those idiots from 1st world country should just play mario..
The problem is not the pricing, it’s Region Lock. Steam started to block redeeming region-locked keys by validating account’s region settings since last year’s July. And now this even more strict regional measure has been implanted by Steam, that means people won’t be able to play region-locked titles NO MATTER WHAT. For example, Korean people won’t be able to play Homefront titles, and western people won’t be able to play Super Robot Wars franchise titles due to region lock, forever, period.
Imagine you cannot play or even purchase certain games due to region lock. Sometimes the reason is political or by the government, sometimes it’s due to contract or because of business, but it doesn’t matter; it’s digital border created by greed. Once again, pirates can enjoy these games freely while legit customers are not even allowed to purchase.
Yeah, you’re right, I was mean about the future customers, those who wasn’t lucky enough to grab the region locked games before these measures implanted. Unless the publisher put launch/play restriction, you can play the games you already own. And it’s been some time that Steam disabled cross-region gifting, I guess you were lucky, most people can’t directly purchase gift for most of games on Steam to their friends due to this. You can see the error message if you try to gift games to other region’s user. Maybe you got it before cross-region gifting ban, or you and your gifter shared same currency, or the game wasn’t purchased directly as gift and it was in the gifter’s inventory.
I was just really salty about the region lock getting reinforced instead of abolished. It’s outrageous that you can’t play certain games due to government censorship or bad business decisions.
There’s no region lock on uTorrent store.
Very good. Taking advantage of poorer countries is a scummy practice. It only screws people in those countries.
Well this is shiet, for example my country is part of europe union, but whats the point if my country is poor as f@@k bu we still get 60 euros prices what an actual f@@K? Now I can tell you this there will be a lot less money throwing without VPN, cause there is no way poor countries can waste that kinda money.
When the “globalists” suddenly don’t want to be “globalists”.
Regional prices for you! for you in the back! for those on the sides yess aaaand …… no, not for you you live in a s h ! t hole country i don’t care about you.
Globalism is for the most part, a terminal cancer…..
This dose not change anything, You can this use a VpN and a payment from that region. Just like I have always done.
If you can easily find argentinian pesos then yes.
I’ve always heard that the Publishers set the price on Steam for their games. I assume valve offers them counsel on what to charge for each region to maximize total revenue for their games. A basic tenet of business is to charge whatever the market will bear.
Also if the prices are set too high for a region to the point that the average gamer can’t afford the games then that will just increase piracy. It’s better to charge $11.42 for their game than to push more people to piracy and make nothing for their game.