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.'"

Comments

Consumer rights

[stryyker]

What about those that were and are in regions of the world where importing software is allowed like Australia?

Re:Consumer rights

[darkitecture]

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.

If you'd lived in Europe and went to the US, you wouldn't have been affected. There's no regional restriction for copies sold in any of the European countries (except Russia, I think).

Then again, I could imagine it would be a reasonable compromise for Valve to check you actually played the game for an extended period of time in Russia before you legitimately moved to the US. If it showed you played it for a few weeks in Russia and now you want to play it in the US, then I would agree that they should allow it. If their records show the game was never played in its original country of purchase, then I think they'd have decent grounds to decline your request.

But we're just talking about Russia here. If you bought yours in the UK or Germany or whatever, you could play that in the US without any problems.

Re:Consumer rights

[WNight]

There are two different cases, one where the software is different. Where the student version has only half the features. If you resold that as the full version you'd be guilty of fraud. That's not what happened here.

In this case though, the software is functionally identical. It will do everything the other one will, but is prevented from doing so by DRM access restrictions.

They're allowed to make a Thai version, or even to stick a sticker on the English version and call it a Thai version, but not to shut it down anywhere else in the world.

That's how they're breaking the law. Taking something I have legal right to own, to purchase, and to use, and shutting it down remotely because of DRM which was enacted specifically to bypass the right of first sale.

Yes, I know they can't enforce their fancy marketing scheme this way. Tough luck.

Legal, illegal, legitimate, illegitimate

[alexgieg]

"'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.'"

I wonder how much time it'll take for all the people accused by Mr. Lombardi of being criminals to sue him for, well, calling them criminals. After all, if, according to Mr. Lombardi, they "subsequently purchased a legal copy", it's clear that's because they "previously hadn't purchased a legal copy", aka, they "previously purchased an illegal copy", aka, "why are all these lawyers looking funny at me?".

That, in addition to the class action suit for not being able to use the software they lawfully purchased, of course.

Re:Moneygrab

[Town Czar]

Drug companies refuse to sell low-cost HIV/AIDS medicines in Africa and other impoverished, AIDS-affected regions for fear that these products will be sold at a cheap price on the black market in the developed world. So because of the fear that drug prices in developed countries will drop, no drugs are sold at all to the people who need them the most. Drug companies "get away with" charging the same price for the same product when the ethics of the situation seem to dictate that the drugs should be sold at a discounted price in poor countries.

Of course, AIDS vaccinations and video games are two very different things, but the same principle applies. If Valve didn't protect its regional sales like this, some kid in Thailand might not be playing Portal right now, because it would cost too much. Valve's actions are undoubtedly profit-motivated, but they also protect the game's international audience. Just some food for thought.

Re:Shitty Company

[p0tat03]

They do complain, but the difference is that it's made plenty clear (generally anyway) that imported games will not play on your domestic console. This is in stark contrast to the Thai copies of Orange Box, which worked JUST FINE, but were LATER deactivated by Valve. So there's the anger that something that was reasonably legitimate has been banned, and owners were affected *retroactively*

Problem with this is..

[JackMeyhoff]

I live in a country that is not my native language, I wish to purchase products in MY NATIVE LANGUAGE. I have to import a lot of stuff for this reason. I may have no other choice than to no longer purchase their product if they block this. Good luck doing this in Europe also where free trade is REQUIRED.

Re:remote control disablement = stealing

[LingNoi]

I have never seen a Thai version of Windows.

When I bought STALKER in Thailand for 800 baht it came with a Thai manual but that's about it. A Thai version would suck and no one would buy it. It's cool to have western stuff.

WTO

[brunes69]

This whole thing smacks of a blatant WTO violation to me.

You are not allowed to restrict products to sale in a given region. This is the whole purpose of WTO treaties. It is what allows the US to sell it's food internationally and to import international goods.

The WTO are who brought down the MPAA region codes. They could do the same to Valve.

Re:remote control disablement = stealing

[WNight]

If it means 'SUGGESTED DONATION' then you're okay with people walking past and paying less. You made a suggestion, they decided otherwise. Maybe someone would look cheap, but that's not a crime. If you *need* money, don't use the word suggested.

I know what Valve is doing. (But I find it disingenious the Fanbois keep saying they're doing this to help the poor Thais and how everyone else understands that like every other company since the beginning of time they're simply trying to reach a larger market.) That doesn't mean that I have support them breaking the law to do it.

Once I buy something, for the full price or not, from an authorized reseller or not, I have full legal title to it. You don't have the right to disable the product simply because you don't like how I got it.

Valve broke the law when they tried to enforce their scheme.

If they really want to help the poor they wouldn't try a region locking system - what about the rich Thais and the poor North Americans. They'd introduce the 'welfare version' and simple put 'Welfare Version - PlayerName' in the player name field. Nobody would want to be seen using the welfare version (not donating the $10) unless they were poor. That would actually give poor people the ability to buy a poor copy, the rich the ability to buy the regular (even if they were in Thailand) and wouldn't do anything but apply a little social pressure to the cheapskates. That would achieve the goals they tell you they're going for. But they won't do that - a non-fanboy might wonder if that's because they're lying about their goals.