The EU hits Valve, Capcom, Bethesda, more, with fines for "geo-blocking" game sales

EU - the greatest Pile of

But ok,we are "all in" actual.....

 

That's what you get for trying to stop people from scamming your system, Valve

 

i live in canada and i can't gift any of my friends anything because cad is such a trash currency and steam says there's too much of a price difference, so i'm all for this stupid bs getting shut down

 

There is no scamming. If you live in a country member of the common market you are allowed to shop anywhere in the common market. By restricting it you are going against the law, that's the reason they were fined.

Of course that doesn't apply if you tried to buy outside of the common market

 

Better that nothing I guess.

 

I hope this extends to bigger companies, like Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony, who have their own digital markets and restrict what can be bought where, gifted to who, etc. I'm really wanting to gift a few games to friends living abroad.

 

So.. nothing changes?

 

This is a pretty big double edged sword that the EU is throwing around. While I'm in general not in favor of region blocking (fucking Nintendo not letting me play JP games on my US console), regional pricing is generally a consumer friendly move. The standard of living and wages are (probably) vastly different across the EU, and all that this is going to do is have valve say "fuck it, you're all paying $60 for the game now", because that's what the majority of their consumers are already purchasing in wealthier places (France and Germany, maybe). Now places with a lower standard of living are going to have their prices raised.

This is much easier to imagine when you compare the standards of living in the west vs a country like India, where $60 is estimated to be roughly $1260 USD equivalent. You think anybody in India is going to be buying games at such an absurd rate? The answer is no, so they geo-lock the software and sell it for cheaper instead, where they might actually be able to make legitimate sales instead of no sales at all.

 

regionlocking is among the most anticonsumer practices there is, i dont really like the EU or goverment dictating stuff about business, but i'll have to side with the EU on this one

 

Last time I have checked, though, India is not in the EU.

The issue is not that they are not offering specific games in specific countries (in fact, that's still required by law of specific countries), the issue is not even that they charge different prices in different countries, they are free to do so. The issue is these companies selling in the EU single market, but preventing someone from within the EU to buy from somewhere else in the EU - which is the entire purpose of the EU single market.

 

I'm at that age where I can appreciate that certain things are unique to certain regions; it creates added value and desirability.
As such, I'm really not too concerned with this.

If the game is in my region and is good then I'll buy it; if it's good and not in my region then I'll either wait or import it.
If it's neither good nor in my region then good riddance.

 

This is ridiculous. First worlders trying to gatekeep the developing world from getting games at prices we can afford. Steam REVOLUTIONIZED legitimate game sales in the developing world, moving the needle on piracy to a crazy degree. It's literally what personally allowed me to stop pirating.

Fuck the EU.

 

sadly who's affected by this the most are europeans living in the less-rich countries, since valve will probably have to use a single price for all countries in the EU. for people in germany and france for example it's likely that pretty much nothing will change.

 

If you don't like the single market, maybe leave the fucking single market, the UK just did. Don't rely on certain industries breaking the law for you when its convenient.

 

This has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with any of that. You need to learn a little bit more about what the EU is (it is great, unlike was the asshat who responded first said, and the UK was very, very dumb to have left the EU like Putin wanted them to) and what these companies were being fined for.

 

..Excuse me?

 

You obviously have no idea what this article is about...

 

Fair enough. However what they did, by extension, was prevent customer from buying games and gifting them to friends. I can't buy a copy of a game in the US to gift to a friend in the UK because of these Geo-locks. And it's a multiplayer game. Doesn't matter to me if the cost of the game is different, or isn't even sold in that region. I just want to buy it so we can play a game together. While the fine may not stop them from continuing, it does hurt them a little bit in the wallet. Depends on how much.