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Valve Responds to Steam Territory Deactivations
An anonymous reader passed us a link to Shack News, which is reporting on official commentary from Doug Lombardi of Valve about the international Orange Box code problem we talked about yesterday. According to Lombardi, the folks who bought copies of the game from a Thai gaming store are pretty much out of luck. They'll need to buy a local copy to have a working version. That said, they should be able to replace the old code with a new one. "'Some of these users have subsequently purchased a legal copy after realizing the issue and were having difficulty removing the illegitimate keys from their Steam accounts,' added Lombardi. 'Anyone having this problem should contact Steam Support to have the Thai key removed from their Steam account.'"
Or people who move? I would have hated it if, when I moved from Europe to the US a few years ago, all my games stopped working.
I've bought games while living overseas, and find this a bit disconcerting by Valve. Yes, most (if not all) of the purchasers were trying to save save some money, but the case where the person who is in Thailand and then returns to there home is a legitimate circumstance. However, they are going to run into these problems when moving to this distribution model. I don't know if you can keep selling boxed versions (where this would not be a problem) and distribute electronically and expect to enforce something like this.
Only console companies have been doing this same game region lock-out for YEARS. I don't see you complaining about that.
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"In any event, this sounds like a lawsuit waiting to happen. And the bad publicity is likely to cost Valve/Steam far more than any additional revenue they make from selling the game twice."
I know what I'm about to say is not popular on sites like this, but I think it stands to reason. Double selling is not the point from their perspective. This is a form of arbitrage, which they consider wrong. I know people disagree, but I can see the frustration on their end.
They basically have two choices - sell games for cheaper in poorer countries, or not sell them at all in these countries. I commend them for choosing the first option; people in less wealthy countries deserve entertainment too (without the Windows 3rd world crippling mentality). Arbitrage threatens to cut their main sense of revenue: American gamers who can afford American prices. Obviously they could choose the latter option I mentioned above, but this is lose-lose. The Thai can't play Valve games, and Valve loses a legitimate source of revenue.
How many industries outside of gaming, movies, and the like, can get away with offering products in one country at a price that is significantly different from that in others (i.e. no more difference than the cost of shipping from one country to the other)?
I do get your point, and I do indeed also see their point of view.
However, they are allowed to hire programmers from the poorest countries, in order to reduce their costs. So why aren't I allowed to buy from the poorest countries to reduce _my_ costs?
It seems like a double standard.
Why cant you have two keys?
If you have legally purchased a Thai key, why do they want to take it away from you? What happens if you move to Thailand? Can you call Valve up and ask for your key back?
Can't believe people are actually trying to justify Valve's decision
Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but I imagine it's reasonable for Valve to quick fucking with products people paid good money for and breaking things via remote control just because they're greedy. So a product moved across a national border or an ocean or whatever -- big deal. Happens all the time and that's the nature of the modern world. The copy from India or Taiwan or whatever was legal and I'm sure Valve would prefer that it stay far, far away from the more profitable countries (so as to not illustrate the price disparity) but that's not reality.
Put simply: The customer bought something from an authorized vendor; there was an exchange of good for payment. Give them their game, Valve, or return them their money. Anything less makes you a common thief. End of story.
Just curious. Are you also against reimportation of 'cheap' medicines from foreign markets back to the US?
You have said that Americans should pay more because they can. What about wealthy foreigners in otherwise poor countries. Are they taking advantage of the local market forces? Should poor Americans get a price break because they are penalized by being in an expensive market?
Now (and here's where it gets interesting...) what if the product isn't software? Pharmaceutical companies make most their profits in the US, to subsidize the socialized ("free") medicine in the rest of the world. But notice they get mighty pissed off if someone reimports their medicines from somewhere "cheap" back to the States. You see, they're still getting paid, but not as much as they want and the business plan depends on these artificial boundaries, even though the world is becoming less divided and more accessable thanks to technology. IOW, their business model is becoming antiquated. So they must either fight for more artificial boundary enforcement, or raise the prices elsewhere+lower them in USA.
Your thoughts?
Not only is that a lot of hogwash, but even any of that were the case, it wouldn't be Valve's business and wouldn't make the copies themselves "illegitimate" in any way, shape, or form.
So a product moved across a national border or an ocean or whatever -- big deal. Happens all the time and that's the nature of the modern world. The copy from India or Taiwan or whatever was legal and I'm sure Valve would prefer that it stay far, far away from the more profitable countries (so as to not illustrate the price disparity) but that's not reality.
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.
Put simply: The customer bought something from an authorized vendor; there was an exchange of good for payment. Give them their game, Valve, or return them their money. Anything less makes you a common thief. End of story.
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 in such deals you should not be surprised to find that you have bought stolen or counterfeit goods. Yes, counterfeit. If the locked Russian/Thai version was sold to US/EU customers then it is counterfeit, a misrepresentation, much like a 2.4 GHz CPU that is remarked as a 3.0 GHz CPU.
No. Breaking the law and sabotaging legally purchased products make Valve into some sort of monster. Telling people that they're SOL and will need to buy another whole copy, that's monstrous.
I imagine the houses of Valve developers, and their office, and filled with things that weren't made in the USA. Should we "remotely disable" (ie, break in and smash with a hammer) all of these products? It would help local industries, and it would make Valve pay what they can afford. No cheap overseas pencils, only the expensive made in the USA kind. No overseas RAM in their computers, etc...
That'd be fair. They want to disable our products to push a buy-locally message. So they should start.
And really, $15 is a lot more to a poor teenage gamer than to the owners of Valve. They'd need to lose $15,000 or more to feel empathy. Wouldn't it be funny if their cars were all disabled and they had to buy new ones. Like a joke. Except with justice attached.
Except that the boxed versions you can buy are all distributed by EA..
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Thus the customer should seek action against the merchant.
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