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Valve Locking Out Gamers Who Buy Orange Box Internationally
Via Opposable Thumbs, a post on the Consumerist site notes that some enterprising gamers who bought the Orange Box in a territory different than the one they lived (to save a few bucks) have now found themselves unable to play the game. "One user, Todd, explains that thousands of crafty North American gamers looking for a deal have 'bought the product (and hence, the serial numbers) at well known international game stores' at a significant markdown. Activation of the purchased titles went off without a hitch. However, Valve apparently has taken issue with the region-specificity of some international versions and has begun locking out accounts of those living in North America, but owning international serial numbers with the message that the purchased game is in the 'incorrect territory.'" Worse, folks who tried to 'make it right' by buying a local copy have found they're basically SOL. I've been a big fan of the Steam concept since it launched, but this is the sort of thing you need to communicate to your users before you sting them.
Buying what you want, where you want, when you want at the lowest price you can find is for corporations. Why do users keep thinking globalization should benefit them. It's really silly.
...is why I didn't like the idea of Steam the first time I heard of it (not this specifically, but the idea of things like this happening). If I bought the game, it's mine, jackasses. They have no right to be disabling people's games after taking their money.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
Glad I wasn't swayed by all the glowing reviews.
Worse, folks who tried to 'make it right' by buying a local copy have found they're basically SOL.
"Basically?" I've been following this on the CAG forums and if you try to enter another serial after you've been locked out, Steam won't accept it because you "already own the game." Since there's no way to remove the other serial, it means that you're not basically SOL...you're just SOL, plain and simple.
Goo goo g'joob.
to protect deals with distributors.
Reading some of the various "deal" forums it amazes me what people will go through to save a few dollars, yet turn around and brag about their $300 cases, water cooling, and thousand dollars worth of video cards.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
So with Steam, one of its ballyhooed features is that I can get on someone else's Internet-connected computer, install and sign into Steam, and have it download my games and let me play them there... but now they say I can only do that so long as I haven't left my home country?
"In Russia, we don't have American Express. We have Russian Express: `Don't Leave Home'." -- Yakov Smirnov
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
can valve bypass the wto free trade rules?
pwn3d
I got Orange Box in the US, but am moving to Japan next September, and don't plan on buying another copy of a game that I already own.... region lockouts ftw!
If you didn't get what you believe you paid for, ask the vendor for a refund. If the vendor refuses or ignores you, ask your credit card company to charge it back to them, and they can pick up the tab for their DRM silliness. I happen to love Steam, but not more than my rights as a consumer. Steam is working very nicely for me now, but I know my rights and if Valve take away my games (which they can certainly do if they feel like it), I am within my rights to charge back everything I've paid them in the last two years, and there's nothing they can do about it. This is the only way to tell companies that their DRM isn't working - be on your guard and don't let vendors forget their responsibilities to play fair.
Matthew @ Bytemark Hosting
Should we accept region coding now for all software? Is this good for the consumer?
It just encourages people to pirate the software. No more steam!
I bought the Xbox version specifically to avoid Steam. Glad I did.
Comment of the year
In my opinion, they also have no right to deny users their right of first sale.
They also have no right to require an active Internet connection in order for users to play offline, single player games.
They also have no right to make the game "phone home" every time the user wants to play.
They also have no right to force-push updates to single player offline games every time the user wants to play.
But that hasn't stopped them.
It has just stopped me from buying their games.
Actually, that's how it works everywhere.
After digging around on the Steam forums a bit, I'd like to clear up some misconceptions that people seem to be getting.
1) Orange Box purchased through Steam (online) is NOT REGION LOCKED IN ANY WAY.
2) Codes from retail boxes in America, the EU and most other places are NOT REGION LOCKED.
3) Codes from Thailand and Russia ARE REGION LOCKED. This is done because Steam games are sold in those countries at a tiny fraction of the US retail cost. The boxes are marked (in the appropriate language) that they keys will not work in other countries.
In other words, people are getting "burned" because they bought keys from companies that buy the Thai/Russian retail boxes, opens them up, and sell you the codes for several times what they paid, which is still cheaper than the rest of the world pays. They companies know that the keys don't work anywhere else, so the people are getting basically scammed by the companies selling them keys, not Valve.
They're not military servicemen living overseas or families on vacation in Europe, they're cheapasses who fall for a scam because they're too eager to get a "great deal".
Karma: Contrapositive
This is why I only buy Valve's multiplayer games. Other Valve games I'll play on a friend's computer/console once and forget about.
Insert self-referential sig here.
It doesn't matter how evil the DRM, when Valve does it, it's OK!
More than a decade after MPAA invented region-coded DVDs explicitly to protect deals with distributors, it's still an affront to us. But when Valve does it, hey, it's "just something they put something in to protect deals with distributors".
Product activation and phone-homeware is just as bad an idea when it's called "Steam" as when it's called "Windows Genuine Advantage".
Cozy deals to fuck over the consumers in favor of artificial segregation of distribution channels are just as defective by design whether they're called "Steam" as when they were called "Region-coded DVDs".
The Steam may be delicious and moist, but it's still a lie.
Steam is no triumph.
I'm making a note here - EPIC FAIL.
It's hard to overstate dissatisfaction...
Valve's DRM scheme,
It does what it must, because it can.
For the good of none of us, (except the ones who wear suits.)
But there's no use crying over software that breaks
You just keep on paying 'till you run out of cake
And the damage gets done, and the DRM's won
For the people who are selling lies.
No cake for you!
I actually wonder if they'll also lock you out if you pay more for the game in fact. I ordered the US-import of orange box to circumvent the german censoring (no gibs 'n' blood, they're so cruel!) and also (even more than to circumvent censorship) to have a "original" Half-Life experience with English dialogues, texts, etc. I did not rip off any money and the US dealers got their normal share of money - I'm paying about 10 Euros more for this imported version than I would pay for the German version in German stores. If they kill my serial off, I'd sue them right away if I had the money :/
My Blog: "sum it up - News, emotions and science"
Sounds more like some folks got scammed by some people selling retail boxes in a manner that they shouldn't, or people were just trying to work the system.
I've used Steam, and bought games over Steam, played games over Steam, in various countries with no problems. There's no lock that I've ever found for the stuff bought over Steam. It is just some of the retail copies in a few places do have a form of region lock as I understand it.
Too bad they can't just buy the right copy at the moment and play, although I wouldn't be surprised to see that issue resolved eventually. Steam has been nothing but quick and convenient for me since I've used it for the HL2 release.
Since I didn't want to pay $50 for Episode Two + Portal (since with a baby and two year old at home multiplayer holds zero value for me as I can't hit pause on either one...) this is just another nail in the coffin.
And as I'm not paying $30 for Episode Two alone I'll be waiting until next year to see the end of Half-Life 2. Let's hope this has an affect on their sales.
I'm moving to the U.K. in a few months.. will my steam account die? :/
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
remember when you could buy a game and just go home and play it?
you'd either plug in a cartridge, or if it was a home computer game, it would more than likely come with instructions for making a backup copy to play from.
those were the good old days
fuck steam, i have not been a fan of the concept - the concept of what?
the ability bend people over is the only new feature steam really offers over the 'old guard'. no patches to download, no copy protection schemes to hack around, just a game in a box - and if the game didn't work, more often than not, the company that produced it would tank.
fuck valve.. this news is what, a day after zonks glowing slashvertisementbationfest?
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
In reality I should have 400 billion dollars. Damned errors.
It truly is a golden age.
One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors - Plato
Instead of a university id, they check your nationality/exchange rate/subsidy rate. Fun!
I knew this would happen, so I pirated a copy of half-life 2.
I liked Steam. I got some of their games (CS:Source, HL2, etc) as a 'gimmee'... way back when... because I bought an ATI 9600XT card (the box indicated the free games, it did not mention that it would take Valve a year for them be released).
I switched to Linux in the meantime. I've run Valve's games under Cedega and Wine for quite a while, with few problems. I actually thought that Steam was the future of distribution... a method that would even work native to Linux.
I didn't buy the orange box in any territory (why buy what you already have, legally), but, I can't help but say that this just sucks.
I won't be buying any more Valve/Steam games, unless they completely and explicitly rectify the situation. At first I thought they cut out the middleman... but it turns out that they're using all the same tricks to squeeze out the same number of pennies.
I thought... wow... now theres an application that will really work!!
Then I used it...
While against the Steam agreement, you could workaround this by using the gift functionality http://support.steampowered.com/cgi-bin/steampowered.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=750
Get a Russian to purchase loads of copies and gift the international buyers.
Valve have shot themselves in the foot.
When all is said and done, nothing changes...
> In short, closed source does not fucking mean that you're going to get bent over by every company that makes a program, stop pretending it does.
You're right. But the problem is that that's changing. We're getting more and more systems like this and with Microsoft having patented that "mother of all adware" I don't doubt that they could take other obvious steps like using Windows update to update other applications... or disable them.
Sort of an unholy merger of Steam's features, Windows update, and adware.
Oh, in the event this idea isn't already patented, I'm just going to say patent pending! That's my idea and don't you dare infringe upon it! Because I'm tempted to go out and patent such a monstrosity if only in the futile hope that it will prevent them from making it for at least a few more years. Or at least to sue them if they make it anyhow.
... but this is the sort of thing you need to communicate to your users before you sting them.
... don't sting them. They're your goddamn customers for chrissakes! PAYING CUSTOMERS, something any corporation selling intangibles like software should treasure in this day and age.
Better yet
This is the same crap the movie companies have pulled wherever they could get away with it on DVDs. I'm sorry to see Valve stooping to the same level.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
I remember when steam first came out and how enthusiastic I was at the possibilities. Then came the greed (retail pricing for bits, cybercafe suing, crappy distribution, invasive DRM, etc.) and the lies (remember how HL2 was almost done? :) )and the deleting of critical forum posts.
They say Valve is community oriented. Yeah, oriented towards their wallets!
They do make great games though. But they could have truly revolutionized game distribution.
*shrug*
Valve has violated the Uniform Commercial Code as well as numerous state and federal laws. No amount of legalese or EULAs will allow a company to willingly violate the laws and scam consumers in this manner. My advice to any victims of this scam is to do a chargeback on their credit card and to file a complaint with their local Attorney General's Office as well as the Federal Trade Commission.
So the expect the America and EU to fucking subsidize Thailand and Russia?
Fuck them!
This is why slashdot sucks. The only topic immune to flamebait and sensationalist articles is Linux. Google used to be slashdot's favorite little company. But, then the editors decided that is was more fun to create fear and hate about a company and then the only Google stories that got accepted were those that bashed the company (about privacy or whatever BS someone would write about). At first when I saw a couple Valve stories and whatnot about Orange Box I was happy that slashdot was reporting on something I had an interest in. But, as the numbers grew I became wary that the editors were merely gauging the response of their readers so they could launch a new smear campaign. I was worried that maybe this was the slashdot method, boost interest in a topic then create a hate campaign towards it for their trolling readers to comment on and stay glued to the website. Now, at the first of many anti-Valve/Steam stories to come, I'm just gonna have to leave slashdot forever out of disgust. Disgusted that my farfetched idea that bordered on conspiracy theory has come to fruition. Slashdot sucks. You are the Fox News of the internet.
I'm an American, currently working in Mexico for 2 months. I recently bought a brand new laptop with a 8600M GT 512MB video card, and I've been looking for games to buy and play, since I haven't played many games since BF1942 and Counter-Strike.
I've been seriously considering purchasing the Orange Box, and even signed up with Steam (they can check this fact against my unobscured email). I even watch some forum threads about TF2 and Portal, and played the Portal flash game. But, with a possible disconnection, they've just lost a sale unless they can absolutely prove otherwise. Ya hear that Valve? LOST SALE RIGHT HERE BUDDY.
Fantastic! Now nobody even has to be pirating anything in order for customers to get treated like criminals. Go go gadget DRM.
This is what happens when a developer becomes a distrubor. They slowly stop caring about their gamers and making the highest quality product, and start to think primarily of profits. They even rush to market games that are not finished, and then abandon their development (it was promised that dod:S would eventually include vehicle combat, and tf2 lacks basic class limit cvars, which have been in pretty much all tf games, as well as all of valves' DoD offerings, and the old %h %l %i variables from tfc).
Valve is getting complacent in its position. This needs to end.
Viral software licensing is not freedom, it is in fact GNU/Socialism.
Remember all of the Xbox Live players out there who love digital distribution? Well, here it is. You do not OWN ANYTHING. You can try to pry my CDs/DVDs/BlueRay Discs out of my cold dead hands, but that would be theft. Delete a bit on my game to not make it play, that is protecting your revenue stream. Why is the digital download so damned attractive? You don't get box art, you don't get a manual. You don't get the right to play your game on a non-networked machine. Now, you know why volunteering your computer to be part of a corporation's distribution network is a bad idea. Hmm, let's give away my bandwidth, HDD space and processing power to Company A when what do I get in return, disabled products. Ohh, and this is just the beginning. It will only get worse. This just proves, I am not a tinfoil hat theorist, it is true, today, not someday, it is here. Welcome to not owning anything.
This is why I play games on the consoles, you buy the game, you play the game. I want imported games, buy imported console, hook up to TV, play games. No one can come into my house and take my games away from me. The reason I stopped playing PC games was I was always treated like a darned criminal, especially when I paid for the game. The cracked games don't have the nagging that the retail versions do. Now, they are playing this game. This is just lovely. When did I stop being the person who put food on your table and became just another game citizen to keep on taxing with no accountability to? I stopped playing Valve games after steam came out. You could see the writing on the wall, this was going to end badly, just a matter of time.
One Token Ring to Rule them All, One Search Engine to Find Them, One WAN to bring them in, and TCP/IP Bind them...
So perhaps there's no net play with Team Fortress 2. Big deal. At least with warez, you don't sign away your "second virginity" to Valve.
Stand Back!
Stand Back!
What are those dogs doing sniffing at my feet
They're on to something, picking up
Picking up this Cheap, this Cheap
[Chorus 1:]
Give me steam
And how you think to make a deal
Real as anything you've seen
Get a life, wipe this cheater's dream
You know your good games from your trash
You know your plastic from your cash
When we lose money we'll fight brack
The game is like crack
And we'll screw you
Because you can't afford a politician. That's why.
I see your informative link, and raise you a pithy comment.
Well, if everyone chips in, maybe we can afford a Senator?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Was it stated anywhere on the box that it would only work in it's home territory? Almost all region encoded DVD do...
also has anyone tried changing their Address in the profile?
I'm not German. I don't live in Germany, and I don't have a German credit card. Hell, I don't even speak the language much. I'm over 18. However, I just happened to be in Germany when Episode 1 came out, and I bought the Valve Complete Pack. THEY DIDN'T TELL ME I was getting a CENSORED version for three-year-olds! I've hated Valve ever since.
If anyone knows how to get the HL2+EP1+EP2 experience without censorship and preferably without paying those assholes any more money, let me know. Some blood patch maybe?
And don't even get me started on Linux support.
What ever happened to consumers being able to exploit the global economy on the same footing as corporations?
Globalists and free traders, man up and tell us why Valve has a right to do this.
Valve should be deported from the United States and not allowed to sell anything here, ever.
Incidentally, HD-DVD doesn't include region coding, though Bluray does.
Never bothered to buy Half-life because of the steam thing. If at all possible (With games always possible) I will not buy software that locks to specific hardware. This, because I don't trust any company to be around long enough to issue me new license codes when I change PC hardware so if I buy software I always download a pirated copy as a backup from torrent. That is my insurance. I have had an issue with the racing game "Live for speed" . This games uses an activation server for which I bought a license and subsequently lost the license code. I emailed them, send my registration credentials transaction details but they won't even reply so $100 or so down the drain. You don't see your local supermarket come around to take back your groceries when you change your pantry door do you?
This just reminds me of how Valve moved Counterstrike to Steam and required us to register with the CD Keys. Unfortunately, their CD keys were not unique and if someone registered with your CD key before you then you were out of luck! To hell with them.
"they're cheapasses who fall for a scam"
It wasn't a scam.
And trying to get a good deal is not being a cheapass. It's common sense.
Someday when you get out of school, you'll look for a job. Your boss will pay you as little as he can. He will do this not because he is a "cheapass", it's just common sense and the way the world works. I realize when you go to school sipping $5 Latte's at the local starbucks then it seems silly to save $10. But that's because you're still young and have a funny value of things (you probably pay $50 a month for a portable phone, despite the fact this takes most of your disposable income. I'm not criticizing; I'm mainly jealous that I have to pay my own way.
Someday you'll understand saving $10 is not "cheapass" and you'll understand when companies shut you out of a legitimately purchased game because you didn't pay enough is an insult. But instead, you sit and champion an abuse of your rights because you like a mediocre game enough to pay too much and use up too much time that you don't really have to spare.
But yeah! rah! Steam. You rok! You really rok those gamez.
They fail some critical parts of contract law:
1) Contracts must happen before the deal. Contracts cannot be ex post facto. This is why you sign contracts before you buy a house or car, and why people talk about prenuptial agreements. If it doesn't happen before the exchange, it isn't valid. All terms must be agreed upon up front by both parties, you can't tack them on later. Since EULAs don't come up until after you bought the software, they aren't enforceable.
2) Along those lines contracts must involve an exchange. There's no such thing as a one sided contract. No exchange, it's not a contract and not legal. That's why if you do something like quit your claim to a piece of property to give it to someone else the contract will read (I, yournamehere, for the sum of ten dollars and other valuable consideration do hereby quit all claim..." and so on. Without that exchange in there, it's not legal, even if the intent is just to give it to them.
3) A contract must be open to negotiation. You are not allowed to make it a one sided thing of "Here it is, you have to accept it as is and I won't talk to you." You HAVE to negotiate. You don't have to accept what the other side wants, but you have to be available to the negotiations. You either have to be able to meet with them, or they have to be able to send you a modified contract and so on that you can then review and accept or reject. Well you can't do that with EULAs so again, they aren't contracts.
4) There are various rights you cannot give up. You cannot, for example, sign yourself in to slavery. I can draft a contract that says you'll be my slave, it can be an exchange, we can negotiate it, and you can sign it. You still aren't my slave, you can't sign away that right. EULAs often say you are giving up rights you can't sign away. That clause in unenforceable and having blatantly unenforceable clauses is a great way to have the whole contract tossed.
EULAs are just companies being stupid. Half of it is usually shit they don't have to say, like "You can't copy this." Well duh, that's copyright law, don't need a contract for that. The rest is irrelevant because you already bought the software, it's way too late for them to restrict it. They want a cotnract, they need to get one beforehand.
With some major packages, that'll happen sometimes. We've bought engineering software that required a signed contract. That one is enforceable. You sign a contract prior to the sale agreeing to terms of the sale, that's legal. However EULAs aren't. That is the reason why our lawyers, who have to be very careful since we work for the state, tell us not to worry and just click through. However real contracts we may not sign, those have to be sent over to legal and generally get torn apart.
Theres this thing called "terms of service" that comes up when you install these games, and if people read it they would know about things like buying outside your geographical area... Either way Halflife is about the best single player game ever made IMHO and I will buy it and episode 3,4 and 5 if they continue to make em fun to play, and with Orange we get TF2 AND portal... I would pay the $55CAN just for portal alone... Steam itself is one of the best content delivery systems out there, and I have never had any problems with it, and I own most of the content that you can buy through it at this point. So READ YOUR TOS and ffs stop whining like women.
Retail stores are not happy about charge backs. If it happens because of defective merchandise, you'd better believe they go after the suppliers. Remember that at that level payments don't work in a "You pay cash up front." Suppliers ship them merchandise, and the store pays them what they feel they should. There's all kinds of negotiations as to what the store gets to deduct.
If this starts happening on a big enough scale, the retailers will be pissed at Valve and demand compensation, yank their products, or both. Don't think for a second that Walmart is going to shoulder the charges. They'll charge whoever supplied the games to them.
I somehow read that as "Valve Locking Out Gamers Who Buy Orange Box Intentionally. That threw me for a loop.
You're nothing; like me.
Globalization cuts both ways. There are benefits and detriments to both consumers AND companies. As a consumer globalization is bad, because you have to compete in a world wide market and risk losing your job or having less pay. However it's good in that the pay you do get goes farther since goods cost less. As a company it's good in that the cheap goods let you make more profit, but bad in that you now have to compete with other cheap goods.
This isn't a situation where companies get to have all the good. You want a global market? Fine, but consumers get to reap the benefits too. Don't be surprised if when you break down the barriers, consumers do as well.
http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=222993&p=43
Whirpool is an aussie forum for discussing all kinds of things over here.
Anyhow an online store 'just over the pond' in Thailand called Zest has been selling a lot of games lately, they often open the product, give you the CDkey via email and dispose of the rest, or you can pay to have the whole lot shipped.
Sounds shady but well apparently it works and very few cases of people having CD key issues.
It's hard to know where to stand on this, I can certainly see why Valve have done it. In order to stop piracy in dodgy countries like China and Thailand they simply drop the price, way way low, if I recall Microsoft were thinking (or did?) the same thing with Windows at one point..?
Technically it's still a valid key, however it was intended for that country.
All that being said Organge box (stupid bloody name) is cheap as chips right now. Despite being a tightass consumer, when you think about 45$ US for the preorder is like 55$ AUD, that's fantastic value in my mind. (yes, I purchased on steam)
However! other companies besides Valve like EA are also blocking these online sales and they DON'T release with nice prices like Valve. You want Crysis? 100$ AUD (or 91$ US) and we speak the same damn language, it's not like they need to re-author it (color/colour jokes aside) or make a 220V power supply (software here, not hardware)
I don't agree with those prices at all.
I frequent US-centric forums all the time and it kills me to hear of the bargains you guys get as consumers.
Price match this, rebate that, sale this, 2 for one on that.
I mean you get a brand new game, sure it's 50 or 60$ US but within 2 weeks a smart consumer can have it for 30$ US (40$ AUD)
Over here, the new stuff starts at 120/110/100$ AUD (109/100/91$ US!) and may drop if we're lucky to 70$ US in a month or two - what the fuck people what the fuck.
So ultimately, this isn't cool for some tightasses but really go complain to EA about blocking regional games from Thailand, because those cockhats DON'T offer a cheap good download service like Valve yet they are doing the same thing.
This is not globalization, but regionalizing. Something the "IP" industry loves, because it allows them to set different prices in different markets.
Globalization (= free trade) is good for consumers (and eventually, everyone). Regionalizing (= artificial trade barriers) is bad for consumers (and eventually, everyone).
It is basic economic theory, when you prevent a trade, you make both parties poorer.
I personally have not been a fan of Steam since it launched. The DRM is too heavy-handed. Why the hell would I pay that much money for a game so I can get screwed by a DRM system that has done nothing to hamper piracy of the games in question?
Does Play-Asia count as overseas because it's located in Hong Kong? I did a quick search and it doesn't seem to be on the site (maybe it was before), but assuming it is the same price as the Xbox 360 version (59$) while the US version of the game from the official site has it listed at 49$, were people really trying to save money? Or were they just buying it from non-US based sites for the convenience of it? For example, you're buying 3 other games from the same site, why get a 4th game from the official site when I can save on SHIPPING, and not necessarily the game itself? On the other hand, shipping costs are typically more expensive from overseas than it would be for regular ground shipping + currency conversion fees (2.5% for my credit card :/). So, maybe people were getting this game for a DRASTICALLY lower price (sites? anyone?) or else why would they go through the trouble?
I'm not a network tech, so am merely raising the question of:
wether you could have a proxy server in to connect to then redirect to the valve steam service, masking/mascarading your IP address/etc as being from there for validating your copy?
See my art -> http://herbevore.deviantart.com
What about military members? We are assigned all over the world for up to years at a time. What about the poor guy who buys a US license and is stationed in Korea or England? Or is in Korea, buys a copy in Korea, and then gets stationed back in the US?
What about guys who deploy elsewhere?
Region dependency is just as stupid as most other DRM restrictions. Maybe even worse, since they're explicitly disallowing people from using legit originals. That sucks. Bad move.
I was going to buy the orange box but I'm in the military and might have to move or deploy before Valve fixes their rectal-cranium inversion on this issue. No way in hell will I buy something that could be disabled just because I move.
Thanks
I got 10% off by buying through Steam before it came out, so I don't know what your quarrels with Steam are. I had the TF2 beta just like everyone else who bought the Orange Box for 10% off. I unlocked the Orange Box the very morning the game was released, and was able to play immediately. What's so wrong with this? Instead of paying the inflated, never-dropping prices of Best Buy, I can get it ahead of time for a discount by buying software from the people who spent their years of effort and money to develop it.
The issue here isn't with Steam, it's with how the company handled the problem. Even if Steam wasn't involved, using a CDKey system, keys would have been deactivated. Everyone bashing Steam needs to realize this (the majority of bashers probably don't even use it - I actually really like it).
To re-iterate what the real problem was: the *majority* of people (sure one or two may have legit complaints) affected tried to buy the game for a discounted price, had their games de-activated, can get a refund and buy it properly now. For the few people affected, I don't think this is that big of a deal - don't be so cheap on a company that's offering 5 very awesome games for the price of one, and one that even offered a discount beforehand.
No, this is the sort of thing that you just shouldn't be doing because its a rotten thing to do period. This is the sort of thing you should especially not do to geeks who happen to be very internationally minded thanks to the net, technically savvy enough to understand just how rotten and greedy this is, and (as a whole) an unusually devoted sort of fan-base.
Oh, and did I mention, geeks tend to have very long memories.
To boldly use to and too two times and get it right too! They're not gonna believe their eyes when they see it there!
As American military overseas who recently ordered the Orange Box (it hasn't arrived yet), I am going to be seriously pissed if it doesn't work. Vavle sucks. I will just return the damn thing.
>In order to stop people from buying Russian copies en masse for, say, $10 USD a piece and selling the keys online for $20 USD each, they lock the keys to the geographic region in which they're sold.
Yet, people overseas can come here and get products cheaper here due to the declining value of the dollar [http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=15154553], no problem. And corporations can go overseas and exploit low wage labor. To you, however, a consumer must NOT be allowed to take advantage of lower prices overseas. And the ONLY WAY to enforce this is through DRM... The foundation on which you build your arguments are so laden with hypocrisy, it's absolutely breathtaking.
For old games (especially ones designed for old OSes), one ought to be accustomed to looking for 3rd party workarounds, graphic fixes, cracks (which sometimes include functionality patches), OS emulators, etc. to get them working on modern systems. Of hundreds of "classic" games that I've played, I can count on one hand the number that I've been unable to load and play; two were due, I think, to corrupt files (the games were on old discs I found in a computer junk store), two didn't like any of my OS emulators (you'd think a DOS game would be at home on a system running a crappy-but-modern DOS GUI), and ONE had some sort of dongle/hardware-based copy protection scheme that I couldn't find a workaround for. The Orange Box is going to be the same way; not that I've searched (I bought a copy at Best Buy so I could play online...flame on if you please), but if there isn't already a full "no phone home" patch out there, it can't be far away.
So...the 'instant gratification isn't fast enough' crowd has now found that someone has been 'pissing in their Cheerios' all this time they claimed to like it, and now are outraged?
Cry me a river! (but don't hold your breath waiting for me to join your cult!)
Where is the "bend over and put a target on my ass' tag for this kind of tripe?
Online subscription services all seem to want to root your PC for their control, and are all the same in the end. (YOUR end- if in doubt: look up goatse!)
I guess I need to patent a 'robofscker online subscription-service chair' that automagically goatse's your ass and pwns your identity/cc card info every time you log in and attempt to play/interact with said online subscription service. It should make at least a million-billion from what I see happening now days!
*off to patent office* w00t!!!
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
I bought the orange box to show my support for the games that Valve does, and promptly put it in a cabinet and torrented the games. I'll break it open once I feel like playing TF2, probably, but I'll be damned if I can't play single player games without an internet connection.
Activate TIME TRAVEL...
http://www.politechbot.com/2005/01/06/test-bed-for/
Regrettably, the original Steam forum posting has been removed. No surprise there. But Valve was enforcing hacking restrictions *on the single player game* in 2004. Mod your non-multiplayer game, and it's taken away from you.
Region-locking is pretty tame by comparison.
Rick R.
Well, I'm not very eloquent so I'll just say, "Valve can suck my ballz." Ever since Steam did that thing where you've got to check in to their server to play HL2 I've been so not impressed. Actually, I've been severely irked. They will never see another dime of my money. Ever. F'em and the horse they rode in on. And I laugh at the idiots who got away with the first HL2 fiasco and are now finding fault with Steam/Valve now. You should have seen it coming. It's your own damn fault for being compliant in regard to their scheme.
Make a product, and sell it for a price. If your price is lower in a different country, then people will go to (or correspond with) that country to buy the product!
What an idea! Let's call it "a Free Market!"
Then we can get that Adam Smith guy to do a writeup...
I've always said that Steam was the devil. And this is exactly why. You can buy hundreds of dollars with software - If Valve goes out of business, you can pretty much forget ever playing your games again. Or, more likely, Valve gets a bug up their ass for whatever reason and starts revoking games like in this article, or even better, revoking the account itself for some arbitrarily identified violation of the TOS. That's just the client side. Remember "Hot Coffee" in GTA3? How about Valve comes out with something that's deemed offensive one day and gets taken to court over it, and an injunction against the software is won. If released on Steam, it would probably mean that no one could play the game until a patch was rolled out, if ever again. Somehow I doubt they'd offer refunds.
I remember when HL2 came out there were people dumb enough to put in warezed serial keys into the same accounts in which software that was legitimately purchased lived. Valve went through and terminated the accounts of everyone who had done this, no questions asked. Harsh justice for filthy pirates, but it could have just as easily been someone's kid brother screwing around - Valve did not care. "Buy the software again" was Valve's mantra. What are we buying again? Because I could swear it's an admission fee to see Valve wave its scepter over our heads with a flourish and bless us with the privilege of playing its latest precious game - but only for so long as it chooses.
I was rudely introduced to the evils of steam when I purchased Half-Life 2 and was forced to load that Steam crapware on my system. Since then, I've refused to give another dime to Valve. And here I thought Microsoft was evil. Valve took all of Microsoft's wildest licensing fantasies and made them come true.
-R
I understand your points, however it was *Valve* who decided to sell these products at a different price. ... Valve should have *never* offered these products for such discounts.
No. Valve sold lower value products at lower prices. Why were they lower valued? Because they were region locked to Thailand and Russia. Higher valued products that work in the US and EU are sold at higher prices.
The market discovered a cheaper price and now they have locked out the deal finders.
No. The deal finders mistook a lower valued version for a higher valued version. Or perhaps the deal finders were scammed by middlemen who misrepresented the products. These deal finders now understand the phrase "a deal that is too good to be true". When you engage is such deals you should not be surprised to find that you have bought stolen or counterfeit goods.
Wow. Who woulda thunk it?
http://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=137739&cid=11518823
Re. Dic. Ulous.
This does NOT affect the Steam version, so stop with the raging against the big evil Steam machine here. Just buy the Steam version instead of a seedy Thai or Russian box and you won't have the problem. Stop making a big deal about nothing; nobody who bought the Steam copy is SOL, only scuzzy people who imported retail copies from other countries.
1. Get refund for not working game.
2. Launch up eMule, grab the game + a crack. Comes with a No-Lockout Warranty.
3. Profit!!! (to you, not to Steam or Valve)
Distributors should realize that if they want the players to play fair and pay for the games, they must play fair themselves.
Sorry, but most of the world's mentality (including mine) is it's not a crime to cheat scumbags of their money. The moment they start playing dirty on me, I start playing dirty on them.
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
Now the companies are the pirates.
http://www.grcrun11.gr - MUDA tribute
I love it that this article gets the oh so subtle tag: cunts Is that why tagging is still in beta?
If enough people do that their scam will be bust!
I noticed this when Half-Life 2 first came out--I was casually interested in it, was walking through an electronics store one day and they had retail copies, so I bought one. I later found out that the online version had a couple added features that you could not download for free, and could not buy separately. If you wanted them at all, you had to pay full price for ANOTHER copy online.
,,,,,
(-at least,,, I think that would have worked.... I never tried it-).
I also noticed throughout its initially buggy-ridden first few months, that the online-purchasers seemed to have fewer problems than retail copy purchasers did. It seemed like most people posting problems had bought hard copies, either CD or DVD.
My copy of HL-2 worked fine for about a year, then told me one day that the password was no longer valid. Emails to the Steam support and on the STEAM forum went unanswered, and the entire game would not work anymore after that. It looked nice, but didn't play all that great and wasn't worth the risk of my computer getting rooted trying to use cracks on it.
Was it only good for a year? I don't know.
Would it have worked if I'd have bought another copy? Maybe, but that won't happen.
Valve got its last $60 from me.
~
This is ridiculous, in germany the Orange Box is censored (no blood and hamburgers, unicycles, ballons and springs instead of your vitals) and we have to import the game from elsewhere to play it uncensored. This is the recommended way from the steam support to play the Orange Box uncensored as an adult in germany. http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=601594
It continues to surprise me that some people will jump on every possible opportunity to hate on Steam. As was already mentioned, this is nothing more than a scam by some retailer and now everyone is pulling out their shotguns and aiming for Valve...
Does Valve have the right to sell their product at regionally appropriate prices? Hell yeah. Do they have the right to lock the Orange Box to a certain country? That is debatable especially since only two countries are affected by this. If anyone should be called out for this, it should be the scammers who failed to inform their buyers that you're buying something which you basically can't use (unless you decide to move to Thailand soon).
My point is, give Valve a break. Steam is a revolutionary service IMO and it's absolutely great despite a few hiccups here and there. It gives smaller developers a shot at superstardom and offers new and old games for less than retail prices. I for one think Valve is doing a great job...... I feel lonely!
When I went to buy the Orange Box last night, I was informed by the store owner (it pays to buy from small game stores) that I would need to download a large portion of the game via the internet. Over dialup. This is apparently required to ensure that I'm not pirating it.
Fuck that.
If they don't want to sell me a game, so be it. I'll spend my money elsewhere. I really wish people would stop rewarding companies who do this sort of thing. They don't deserve it.
Who is buying it elsewhere, and finding it cheaper? I found the exact *opposite*, that it was cheaper to buy it on Steam than it was to buy it in the shops (or indeed online, from another source). Mostly due to the US dollar being so damn cheap right now.
/. is usually american-centric, who is finding it cheaper to buy from overseas? It's cheaper for the Europeans to buy it on Steam than online, and it's not going to be cheaper for the US players to buy it from overseas.
Orange box is £35-40 from most retailers (list price 40), it was US$45 from Steam. Turning that into pounds came out to just under £25.
Considering
So, I'd have just one question: if I travel, I'd need to buy another game in every country I happen to be ? If so, just keep the friggin' game, there are plenty others.
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
This is because allowing people to shop for a better deal is illegal in most parts of the country and very bad for business. (Read MAFIAA)
Whatever happened to the Doctrine of First Sale?
See, this is what happens when you switch from Software as a Copyright Work to Software as a Service (i.e. Steam).
Steam does not guarantee your right to anything. When you rent/lease/license a game from Steam, you haven't actually bought it, and there are restrictions on whom you can transfer that right to.
DRM+Software-as-a-service. Yuck.
Don't buy from Steam, folks. I was thinking about Orange Box, but given Valve's attitude toward OS X/Linux, and this horrible piece of DRMware called Steam, and anti-consumer actions like this, they can go fuck themselves. There are plenty of other vendors that are pro-consumer, support all 3 major desktop platforms, and produce excellent games. (In terms of FPS, I'm going with id, Epic, and S2games. S2games released Savage1 as freeware once Savage2 went into preorder. How cool is that?)
Valve's management is simply a group of anti-consumer ass-clowns.
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
as I guess thats where most of the US 'victims' bought them from.
If you can't use a version bought in one EU country in another EU country, that is a technical trade barrier, and very much against EU regulation. The vast majority of EU regulation is directly or indirectly geared towards making EU (or rather EEA) a single market.
However, no such protection protection applies for stuff imported from outside EU. In fact, EU recently invented a new copyright concept "regional publishing" making it illegal to commercially parallel import copyrighted material from outside EU, that had not been published within EU. You can still do it privately, but it meant that the "region 1 dvds" shelves disappeared from dvd stores, and that the comic book stores reselling US comics are now breaking the law (fortunately, unlike the movie industry, the comic book industry isn't Pure Evil, so nobody gets sued for the later).
> Well you can't bring region-locked games or DVDs into other countries and expect them to
> work on your friend's console/player...
If your friend lives outside region 1, you most likely can play your DVD on his player. Most of the cheap, no-name DVD machines around here (region 2) are region free. I'd expect the same to be true just about everywhere outside region 1. Maybe even inside as well.
Valve would like to have your bank account details and your income details in order to determine at what price they should sell you their software at.
It's against Slashdot moderation rules to mod people troll just because you disagree with them.
I bought my Half Life 2 game of the year edition from ebay 9months ago. (Australian here)
I have the box in front of me. I got it cheap and it worked for 9 months.
When the orange box came out, i could no longer play Half Life 2, Counterstrike or any other games that came on the box. 9 months later? WHat kind of BS retroactive customer punishment is that. Steam has way too much reckless power to do something as stupid as this and expect not to get punished. I have submitted a complaint to the ACCC (Consumer protection) and they have said that they have received numerous complaints and may be launching an investigation soon. (if you live in Australia submit your complaint to the ACC too please)
And what does the valve customer support say? Get a refund from the seller? How the hell can I get a refund 9 months on from an ebay seller! Are they insane? Who thinks of these reasons? Who can I call and abuse!
Some people on Steam-Forums say their problems have been solved and they are now allowed to play their imported games. The usual way to go when something like this happens to you is to contact STEAM-Support. I cannot verify this (I buy my Valve-games directly through Steam, because that way I am NOT region-dependent AND get the games cheaper than in retail here in Austria), but it seems the last Steam-Update fixed the issue for many.
I have recently bought HL2 (finally!) that is officially localized to Russian (that's all they sell here). It also includes English version, which is what i played anyways. Worked fine here in CIS (ex-USSR) territory. This is no pirated game mind you, all perfectly legal, but it does sell for much less than HL2 does in the states ($10 on DVD media). This is frequently done here so that game could compete with pirated copies, which sell for approximately $5 per DVD.
However when i brought the laptop with installed HL2 to the States , i couldn't launch HL2 with basically the same message.
So the issue is not new.
I am planning to buy orange box in the states, hoping it will "internationalize" my copy of HL2, or at least TF.
Really big issue for people on the road, imho.
> Well, if everyone chips in, maybe we can afford a Senator?
Maybe we should.
Software Pirates 3,974,214
Paying End Users 2
But paying end users are expected to come up strong in the next fiscal year. Stay tuned!
Please stop stalking me, bro.
I've played it on the XBox and I know it's a great game and I know it would be even better on the computer but the Steam Valve activation crap has kept me from ever getting it and you know, the Orange Box and the two episodes/add ons just make me wish I could buy it but then of course I know the joys of activation and no way would I reward these guys with my money. I haven't even bothered looking to see if there is a 'crack' to make it work without making your computer a Steam Valve slave. No sale to me.
Enjoy your Karma, after all you earned it. Feel your Karma Joe, feel it burn.
So what happens if I buy Orange Box here in the USA then relocate to, say, Australia?
Presumably I'd be okay because Valve would have reaped their fattest percentage profit in that transaction, but the whole issue smells of DVD regions.
The DDoSer would be in Gitmo as an 'economic terrorist' thanks to our new laws which 'protect' us from 'terrorists'.
Blar.
Once some asshats decide to re-sell their $5 copies to the U.S, nobody buys the $50 copies anymore. Valve no longer has enough revenue to meet their expenses and shuts down.
So what you're saying is that Valve has, or will, release enough copies of the game to Thailand to satisfy the demand in every other country in the world? Either all at once, or continuing to release copies there after it is noticed that none of the games are selling in the US....?
I'm sorry but that's completely and utterly stupid. While I'm not exactly a professional supply chain manager I do now this: B) No [game] company releases more copies to a region than could be used in that region, ie there's no way that the Thailand market would EVER receive enough copies to cover their demand + all North American demand. B) Any company that found their products not selling and creating massive losses would *investigate* why and put a stop to it, in this case by not releasing any more copies to Thailand.
Companies are not some huge clunking machine that can never be steered in a new direction or shut off. If a business practice or sales tactic or product is going to bankrupt the company then they will do something about it, not just merrily watch the process unfold. (Oblig exception to the rule: Enron, but that was because of rampant fraud)
-- I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist. It's not my fault that life sucks so much. --
This is one more thing that makes me believe that increasing trend of localization on the internet will soon be made mandatory throughout.
.com through navigation due it redirecting to it myspace.de. Guess what: you won't find profiles of myspace.com on myspace.de :-/
Already when I go to google.com the site will redirect me to google.de which proceeds to show me links to german websites that happen to use the english word I searched for (or something similar).
ITunes has made it impossible for me to buy shows they offer in the US (but not Germany) or in the original language if I buy from ITunes-DE.
I was trying to look up a band on myspace made it was impossible to access
World of Warcraft: The servers you can play on (and transfer to) depend on the region (NA, EU, AS) where you bought the game. I just hope that I'll never have a business trip outside of europe.
The BBC YouTube channel has different content depending on wether you access it from within the UK or from the outside.
What the hell is this shit? I don't care about licenses. Get a global license already! I don't care about language. Translation is fine but don't "force" me to only view what's available in my language
The way this is going the INTERnet is going to end up being loosly connected NATIONnets.
This wasn't it's promise! The promise was that I can access services and content on my laptop in Timbuktu from anywhere in the world.
This goes for Valve as well. Just make a single price throughout the world and let people choose where they prefer to buy. Face the fact that the rules have changed instead of forcing the old rules on a totally different game.
___
No power in the 'verse can stop me
It's obvious that they make more money this way, but the question here is: do you really want a free market or not? Suppose I bake bread. One customer is rich, and can easily afford to pay $5 for my bread, another is poor and can pay only $0.5. Should I sell each for what they can afford or should I set one price for everybody?
Are free market and globalisation only for the big players, or should they be for everyone? Suppose a company is looking for labour, and they can buy it here for $50 an hour or overseas for $10 an hour. They think they can save some money by importing labour from abroad (or having their work done there), but when they import the goods, the government suddenly says: "since you didn't buy your labour in the local market, you can't sell those goods here." That's basically what's happening here. It's a kind of protectionism.
People who use STEAM deserve this. Obliging to DRM schemes, no matter how they're constructed, is an evil thing.
OK, it was nice while it lasted, but that's the end of my dealings with Valve. I hate crap like this and I'm extremely disappointed that Valve would pull stunts like this. Anybody can make a mistake, but evil behaviour like this means I will never deal with the company again. Backstabbing bastards.
So why is this just Valve's problem? Or why is this even a problem? Buy the version for your market and quit being cheap asses.
Outsourcing involves quite a bit of risk, as well as startup and building times. So there's quite a bit of inertia.
My point is that due to globalization - US & European countries have a downward pressure on salaries while there's an upward pressure in developing nations such as China and India. There workers in 'insourced' work often receive multiples of what they'd otherwise earn - Of course subsidence farmers don't make much. So you get situations where workers might make $5/day rather than $1/day. Thing is, they then use that $4/day extra to purchase stuff - resulting in secondary effects, making the region more prosperous all round.
I don't read AC A human right
JUST BUY THE LOCAL VERSION FROM THE LOCAL GAME STORE INSTEAD OF BEING STUPID. PROBLEM SOLVED. Or simply buy it over steam. Wheres the need to buy an international version when you live in the US? Thats just plain retarded.
Corporations can outsource their work to whatever foreign nation is cheapest, and thus reap the benefits of this "global economy," but if the consumer tries to gain the same advantage, they get smacked down. That is one-sided and wrong.
Thomas Galvin
of thing is BAD* for the consumer. Companies can make all the promises they want about online activation, but in the end one wild hair and customers are screwed.
Valve wants it both ways. They want the power to use the global market, but not let the consumer have a say in that market.
This is painful since their games kick ass, but so be it. Valve, you're on the list.
*I don't mean young Michael Jackson bad, I mean old Michael Jackson bad.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
It's a legitimate argument...granted it could have been presented in a more mature way.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Locking out your account with no warning or recourse is a great reason for me to avoid your business entirely. I was worried about the Steam concept from the start, and it appears that I was correct. Ciao Half Life, it was real.
You're right, in this hypothetical example, they could just stop shipments to Thailand. But at that point,the damage had already been done. Lots of U.S. customers (who originally would have bought the game at $50) have bought every single $5 copy the Thailand market has to offer, with little copies left over for the low-income local population.
The net result of that example is that Valve is now worse off than if they had just sold copies in Thailand at $50 (and had received zero sales in that region because of it)
To quote the Valve forum page describing this problem:
Question
When attempting to register my CD Key, I get the error message Steam Error: Game not available in your territory. What does
this mean and what should I do?
Answer
You will receive this error message if you have purchased a copy of the game in Russia or Thailand.
If you purchased a game from Thailand or Russia and you do not live in one of those countries, you need to contact the
seller for a refund.
This stub and the articles it points to are misleading and close to being troll bait. Plus if you look at both articles
reader/user "Todd" is the source for the info, no looking or further digging required. I'm sure he's pissed because his good
Russian/Thailand deal went sour but buyer beware does fall in to this, if it looks to good it is to good.
They need to save on that other stuff PRECISELY so they can afford the thousand dollars of video cards!
.
.
.
I feel like I am missing something....
Oh, yes. Ahem.
You insensitive clod!
Why, yes I have been touched by His noodly appendage. And I plan to sue.
I wonder how this works for me. I only live in the US for half of the year. Am I supposed to purchase 2 copies and run a different one in each country? I usually do the opposite of what the story describes though. I usually purchase the US version and use it abroad because I want the English version. Would that be a problem as well?
Either Valve is selling the Thai copies for a tiny profit, or at a loss to be subsidized by other sales. If it's for a tiny profit then they are just getting less than maximum profit since some $50 US sales are transmuted to $5 Thai sales, but still at profit. If they are selling at a loss then it is still the same total loss regardless of if it goes to a Thai player or a US player. The difference here is that there are less US buyers to subsidize the loss so again, it's simply less than maximum profit. But let's not kid ourselves, given the size of the two markets and the huge worldwide sales of this product, none of these scenarios will result in a NET LOSS for Valve, only in less than maximum profit.
Basically it comes down to the fact that Valve is using market segmentation to maximize their profits and if US buyers go around the market segments then the scheme fails to maximize. Valve is punishing consumers for finding the holes in its business model, standard corporate globalization hypocrisy.
-- I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist. It's not my fault that life sucks so much. --
Contact your state Attorney General's office. This is something they might well take a keen interest in.
is that they shouldn't charge what the regional markets will bear but rather one price regardless of inequity? Usually I like swearing and getting charged up but if we charged 1st world prices on everything we'd effectively cut less rich markets off at the knees and/or encourage the entrenchment of piracy as the market naturally adjusts itself.
People got caught trying to work an angle. Hopefully Valve will work with them instead of against them (paying the difference is much more reasonable then locking a customer out).
Quack, quack.
So...
I bought a retail copy of HL2 while living in Thailand. There was a large sticker on it that said something sort of like this: "Hey there, this is a regional copy of this game for sale only in this region, don't buy it if you don't live in this region, k?"
I bought it because I lived in Thailand and it was the logical thing to do. i think I paid about 11 dollars. An aside: Literally, ten feet away from where I bought this game were literally dozens of people openly pirating it.
So I took it home and oops, for some reason my Thai ISP won't play with Steam, I can't activate the BOXED game and therefore never play this game I purchased at a retail outlet. Oh well, I went out and snagged a pirated copy for a buck fiddy and felt not the least bit bad about it.
Eventually I moved home to the states and decided that I would try to install the game again, so I downloaded Steam, lo and behold Steam already had an account for me and reg'd copies of the game(s) - even though I was never able to play in Thailand I had still reg'd my copy with Steam, had a Steam account, etc. So I dl'd and installed and it works just fine. I was pleased.
I dunno if they are NOT doing this with older copies of HL2 or if the fact that I reg'd it from the region it was supposed to be purchased in made a difference? Anyway I didn't think it would work and was surprised when it did, and I thought good for Valve, that's the way to be.
Not so, I guess.
If i can purchase computer hardware at lower price in the world and get it shipped to my house i dont know why i could not buy a game cheaper elsewhere if it's advertise and use it like i want.
Who are they to block people? if they dont want this then they should sell it the same price or rather accordingly to dollar equivalent in other country, that way anyone wanting to get it cheaper would lose in the conversion.
Anyway, it sucks, suck i say
I live in the UK, and when I went to steam to buy portal, the only option I saw was to buy it in dollars.
Is this the reason why it crashes within two seconds each and every time I start it?
When you buy something that's not in a 'supported region' you're not breaking a law. You're simply doing business as you see fit -- which is your right.
When the company decides to cripple your product in response -- when does it become ok to simply evade their "crippling" and resort to piracy?
If I purchased a shrink wrapped copy while traveling on business, and was informed after the fact that my product was unsupported -- I would feel 100% justified "pirating" the product. In fact, I wouldn't see this as pirating -- and I'm not sure a court would either. After all, I purchased the right to use the product.
So, 3rd world gamers pay 150$ when the minimum salary is 130$ just to find out that Valve is censoring them just for living in a poor country. ...
Nice one Valve
Get my e-mail after a captcha test in: http://tinymailt
This is just another proof.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
"Please note in the future that Steam purchases, per the Steam Subscriber Agreement, are not refundable - this refund was issued as a one-time customer service gesture."
And we all know what thas gesture was...
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating