News Valve acts to close Steam grey market

I read somewhere else that it was due to the Ruble dropping through the floor, but i guess that can't be correct if the region locking is also being applied to those other countries.

 

That will teach me to read the whole article next time.

 

Well that's me buggered then isn't it. A**holes.

 

Greetings!

Its a FUBARed market.
Its cheaper to order a physical copy from Amazon abroad, wait 4-5 days, than it is to buy in Steam, play after download.

Example, Farcry 4:
Amazon.co.uk: 31,22€ (£24,59)
Steam: 59,99€

Almost half the price.

 

Ah too bad. I did not care about the price too much, but now I will have to bugger someone on this forum again to get games uncut instead of just ordering them from some key site. Greenmangaming, humble store and the likes have provided cut German keys to me in the past, g2 has been safe so far.

 

If I'm understanding this correctly, this does not prevent you from purchasing foreign keys and applying them to your account, it just prevents you from buying those keys as gifts and sending them to other regions.

 

This whole crap wouldn't have been necessary if they (to be exact, publishers) didn't charge vastly different prices in different countries. It's arbitrage at work, and that's a key component of efficient markets and capitalism in general. If companies can benefit from globalisation and technological advancement, why can't we?

We still get off fairly lightly in the UK all things considered. In eastern European countries that are part of the EU, they get charged the even higher prices in Euros despite having wages that are more like Russia's. Imagine paying over 10% of your monthly income on a game.

 

It's still cheaper to buy most new releases on Amazon and wait for delivery. If you have a prime subscription then your not waiting much time either way.

You can save significant sums of money going that way over steams nuts pricing. This is to stop a lot of the key reseller sites.

 

I don't think I ever bought a game on Steam outside of a sale, so a thorough case of...Meh!

 

I think the issue is that those people buying the keys will now be stuck with them for up to a month from the game's actual launch (I don't know when these keys are made available/how it works).

I've bought a few Russian versions of games on a CD key site featuring a penguin mascot, and they've all been fine. Those were VPN-to-register games where I got sent the CD key by email. Those should be fine. But the games I have bought where they gift you the game, well, those guys now have to wait a month before they can complete the transaction. So who's going to bother buying off them?

It does seem like it is hitting sellers more than buyers, which is nice, but all the same it is just a way for Valve to cut back on things they don't like. Which is fine, Steam is their's at the end of the day. Just sucks a little for some people.