Valve Cracks Down on Trading - Region Locks Activated in Several Games

[Foxi4]

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In an attempt to crack down on international game trading, Valve "Region Locked" several games, some retroactively, rendering them unusable if you've traded them with a person from a different region. This move was made in response to the common practice of trading games with users from regions where they are available for considerably less.​

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The list of games confirmed to be locked in the store is as follows:​

• Rust
• Banished
• 7 Days to Die
• The Banner Saga
• Thief
• South Park
• Hawken
• Hegemony Rome: The Rise of Caesar
• Divinity: Original Sin
• Kerbal Space Program
• Assetto Corsa
• Deadfall Adventures
• Men of War Assault Squad 2
• Payday 2
• Injustice: Gods among Us

The list of games confirmed to be locked retroactively is as follows:

• Banished
• Rust
• South Park
• Thief
• Kerbal Space Program
• Hawken

If you've traded any of those games, it is advised that you check whether they are functional and can be activated if received as a gift. It's also recommended that you hold off from trading any of those titles before the matter is clarified by Valve.

What can I say? That's naughty, that's very naughty, Valve. Region locking content? Digital content? In the 21st century? Really? Especially retroactively - I can understand locking games in the store, fair play, but after they were traded, so that the gift can't be activated? That's bogus.

Update: Several games from the list have now been unlocked - it's possible that the Steambot responsible for Region Locking simply went nuts for a while and the situation was amended later. Yay! Well... partially - some games remain locked.

Source #1, Source #2, Source #3 (Update)

 

[Ulieq]

Region locking is the most bizarre practice.

 

[DinohScene]

Wow Valve....
Just wow....

 

[Armadillo]

Valve. So they will get away with it. Steam/valve can apparently do no wrong.

 

[Gahars]

How do you region lock that which has no regions?

That's a serious question, not some zen riddle, by the way.

 

[Joe88]

Im surprised it took them this long to act as many people have been abusing this

 

[vayanui8]

if its that big of a deal to them why didn't they just raise the price in the regions where it was cheaper

 

[Gahars]

if its that big of a deal to them why didn't they just raise the price in the regions where it was cheaper

They still want to sell games in those regions, and a lot of people there wouldn't be able to afford/be willing to pay the higher price.

 

[nryn99]

How do you region lock that which has no regions?

That's a serious question, not some zen riddle, by the way.

what do you mean? they can make games unavailable to you already. I don't have access to several or maybe a dozen games unless i use proxy.

 

[calmwaters]

How do you region lock that which has no regions?

That's a serious question, not some zen riddle, by the way.

Everything is in a region. In this case, since it was all one region, it was easy to break down the region into smaller regions and then lock whichever ones they wanted to. Of course this is positively stupid, but unlike Nintendo, they won't get flamed for it. (btw, Nintendo should do the opposite of this, while I'm on the subject)

Something about how you worded your question sounds... poetic... and very eloquent... I'll stop now...

 

[loco365]

I'm surprised they didn't look at the Nintendo fanbase to see just how bad region locking is.

 

[d4mation]

Region locking... PC games...? GabeN should know better. Now they'll release Half Life 3 in just one region to screw with everyone.

 

[Veho]

This is linked to the fact $10 games are €10 in Europe and 10 Rubles in Russia*. Dropping prices to 10 rubles everywhere is out of the question, raising them to €10 everywhere would be even less popular than the locking.

I'm surprised they didn't look at the Nintendo fanbase to see just how bad region locking is.

The only thing they would learn from the Nintendo fanbase is just how bad the Nintendo fanbase is


*(Not really 10 rubles. But cheap.)

 

[The Catboy]

Seriously Valve? ಠ_ಠ

 

[Bladexdsl]

go ahead valve do what nintendo are doing and look whats happening to them

 

[cearp]

at least they didn't retroactively put brick code in, haha

 

[WiiUBricker]

Run Steam with Gecko OS. Fixed.

 

[nryn99]

idk why you guys arecomplaining. afaik, games are still available for each region.
it's not like you will buy rus when it's available in eu so it should not be a problem unless you purposely want it cheaper.

 

[the_randomizer]

What's the problem again?

 

[trumpet-205]

The problem is unlike console, PC games tends to come with multiple language in foreign language. This makes PC game lacks language barrier, which normally is a big factor at stopping people to import games.

This is a sad day for PC gaming...