Gift from friend but cannot accept his side says cannot be redeemed in the US

[The Nothing Man]

so a friend of mine that isnt in usa
preordered and gifted me this game

but no gift notification popped up. nothing, no game in library.

now.. he looked in the inv gift and it says this

http://oi67.tinypic.com/2quq87k.jpg

only redeemable in 5 pan asian countries.
he does live in one of those , but im not understanding how he cant buy me this game from where he lives..

is there a way?
or a way around this (legally) wish steam had transfer funds from wallet to another user but idk
im kinda going YESSS and AHHH cry.. at the same time

help? info? advice?

[The Nothing Man]

https://www.vg247.com/2015/03/12/new-steam-gifts-restrictions-limit-games-to-country-of-origin/

found this, so this is just somewhat new, and even applies to key sites..

is there no way for him to gift me this game, is truly awesome he wants to.. how ugh..steammmm

[e.bkapalka]

Region locking prevents people from exploiting the pricing for games set in other countries. Key sites pretty much always give you a selection of countries to pick your keys from. I'd have them look around a little more

[Kain]

You can unlock it by using VPN. Steam doesn't like it, but chances are bad that they will find out.

[The Nothing Man]

I dont want to use a vpn to do this,
as it can get wonky in playing the game,
as you can only PLAY it in that same region, meaning if i use a vpn to get d2 then id have to keep changing back n forth to play it vs my usa games

key sites dont do the same thing

he isnt trying to do any loophole, in pricing just wants to buy me the game even in full usa price, just there isnt that option..

ugh..
whyyy steam, cant he on his end just click yes i understand i will pay more to let him be able to use this..
etc

[The Nothing Man]

oh thats... kinda a good idea.. but wouldnt he have to use my card or add his payment method?
i dont want him feeling odd about info or such..

[Kain]

Originally posted by Kaldire:

I dont want to use a vpn to do this,
as it can get wonky in playing the game,
as you can only PLAY it in that same region, meaning if i use a vpn to get d2 then id have to keep changing back n forth to play it vs my usa games

key sites dont do the same thing

he isnt trying to do any loophole, in pricing just wants to buy me the game even in full usa price, just there isnt that option..

ugh..
whyyy steam, cant he on his end just click yes i understand i will pay more to let him be able to use this..
etc

You only need the VPN to activa the game once.

[The Nothing Man]

from what i have read, if the game was purchased it not only needs to be activated in that country but it has to be played there too

so say i lived in china, and owned 2000 steam games, if i moved to usa, none of those games would be playable ever again.. unless I used a vpn to make usa think i was in china..

ugh

my head.. I dont want to gamble on that vpn,
there is tons of reddit about how that doesnt work as its not just a 1 time activation it requires you to live and be in that country to play ..
the link i put above says all that in the REDDIT section.
just fyi

hmm how the hell did this happen
i dont see how someone cant just pay usa prices to gift for a usa person..
so I live in usa he lives in asia ,just make him pay usa price and gift should be good. but nope ty steam trade/gift and publishers. ughh

[Drowning witch]

this is to prevent trading gifts from cheaper regions. you are out of luck unless you wanna use vpn, or have your friend buy the game from your account. both are against TOS though, so it's a risk. only gifts are region locked, not in account purchases. and yes, if you redeem the gift with vpn, you still need vpn to play. not good and against TOS.

he can simply uncheck the "remember payment for next time" during checkout.

[The Nothing Man]

well again the vpn on reddit has proven to not work
as its not just activation but play that must be done with the vpn

this isnt for all games

again he isnt trying to out cheap the region and scam anything, its odd there isnt some option to say, BUY USA VERSION FOR GIFT FOR FRIEND.. etc.

seems lame he cant even spend the extra cash to buy it properly,

and oh right forgot about the check for remember payment, it would work...
or paypal .. idk

still this is new .. ish, as a while ago a mate from finland got me a few games gifted just fine, but that was like 2010, this only started what.. 2014-15? ugh

but yea read that reddit stuff, vpn is a coin toss, it will let you BUY it.. and gift etc.. but unless he knows vpn, and allows himself access to being usa masked, which im not sure he does
it gets complicated

as its on his side he would need to use the vpn or.. id have to use it each time to mask myself as his country ack

steammmm

on reddit it shows a graph of 15% of steams community dying down since these insane locks,
why not just set the price.. say ok if you want to gift to usa, this usa ver is this price, vs your region and blam.. shouldnt be an issue..

seriously.

[Kain]

It's easier to test the VPN than to cry about it in here. Most of us really don't care about your problems.

[The Nothing Man]

kain go away.. or dont, either way pokes at me are trolling and flamebaiting, and dont belong
you are the first and only person to be a dork about this

vpn again would have to be on the buyers side, not mine..
and again im not with that person to help him understand that..

but go post someplace else. your words dont speak for anyone but you. and you are rude and not helpful.

im pointing out a very flawed system. which someone should be able to gift a game to any region from any region and just pay the regions price where its going to gift to. vs your own.

flawed .. system. it needs to be there but.. its flawed.

"most of us" glad you speak for your party... of everyone lol

again ty to those that did post productive messages seems only kain didnt.
kain try to relax..
its just something that was good turned bad. and you cant and wont ruin this for me mate.
im to old for kid pokes lol

damn almost 39.. ack old..

[e.bkapalka]

Originally posted by Kaldire:

seems lame he cant even spend the extra cash to buy it properly,

Just have them buy it from somewhere other than Steam. Using a VPN is against the Steam TOS and can (in some cases) result in your account being terminated. Just have him buy it from another site. The amazon.com digital download can only be activated in the US. G-TWO_A and C-D-K-E-Y-S both let you select the region you can get it from. The only difference between those sites and Steam is that you'll have to wait until a day or two before release to get a key to add to your account.

[The Nothing Man]

he does want to get the key from greenman but im not sure if thats also region locked based..

I dont mind waiting a day or two on keys
but i did one batman arkham + dlc on gamedragons or something and it was given out the same time as steam release but it all depends i guess

if he wants to get me the key from greenman is that also region locked to his country? ack

[e.bkapalka]

Every key is going to be region locked to a particular country if the game's publisher decides it so. Because Bethesda is clearly region locking their game every key for that game is going to be locked to a particular region, no matter where you buy it from. It's up to the site to determine whether or not it's worth their time to allow you to buy keys locked to particular regions. You can have a region locked gift in your library, just not activate it. Often a site will localize to whatever region it detects you're in and won't allow you to change that. What your friend could do is use a VPN to buy the game from the US version of a site (not illegal) and then gift it to you (where you'll activate it in the US). That's a legal way to get a VPN involved. Or find a site that gives you a choice of region, however I think most sites won't let you as it facilitates VPN abuse of the kind mentioned above

[The Nothing Man]

yea i was scared of this

so if he wanted to go on greenman and get this game, for me it wont work?

is there a way you can check that? i mean, it should have a way to say buy usa region one for x price..

im not sure he knows how to even use vpn or even wants to..
i assumed greenman would allow purchase of usa key for gifting..

urmm how can i get this awesome gift.. without the vpn headache?