Steam Discrimination or bad commercial decisions?

[Mcintosh Pro]

I’ll try to keep it short.

Steam region locked every single game for gifting in the country I live (Mexico), so during holidays I couldn’t gift games to my friends and family (US,Canada and Europe). This is both discriminative and a bad move. It’s a bad move, since I used to buy hundreds of games to gift during holidays (and I’m sure I wasn’t the only one in this region). It’s discriminative, since for some reason they believe people here need a lower price to be able to purchase their games. So… we can receive gifts but not gift ourselves?
So I would like for steam heads to reconsider. Why not just make the store go back to dollars like it was some months ago… charge the same price for them as the US and CAD… and we are all happy.

We don’t need a lower price.. I bought my games in normal pricing and nobody asked for that price reduction or help… it would be ok if only it wouldn’t actually mess with the BASIC functions of steam and take away the spirit of what the community likes about it.

So I’m sure that we are not the only ones with that problem. So here are 2 possible solutions:

1-Go back to a universal price in USD (or actual local exact equivalent) and charge the same amount to every single country. If u really want to give out discounts, average your prices so everyone gets benefited. So people won’t be paying 60euros for a 600 pesos game that should be 60 dollars. Equality over discrimination (exploiting the “rich” or giving advantages to the “poor” wtf)

2-Make it possible that we can choose the regional price of what we are buying. So we can gift it to anyone.. making us pay the “universally unlocked version price”. That way we can buy a “full unlocked copy” for the “full price” even if it’s different from the price of our region (we don’t mind paying more if it’s for a gift!!! Get it?)

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3-Give your solution.
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So the idea of this post is to get more ideas and in a way settle for one that we can really push steam to take. So give more ideas or develop these I’m giving please. This is a huge problem for me… I can’t even gift my kid presents from my account since he is in Canada… I want equality, I’m sure Steam doesn’t support discrimination and this was just a bad commercial decision without the intention to damage their customers.

Note: This doesn’t have to do with normal developer regional locks (so please refrain posting the concept that developers can choose the locks and areas since this doesn’t have to do anything with that). Please investigate this problem a bit before trying to explain your imaginary hypothesis about why it’s ok for us to be going through this problem. I’ll help you with a link… but its extends are much bigger (also check for the rupees problem). http://kotaku.com/you-cant-gift-steam-games-wherever-you-want-anymore-1672525767

[Anaxagoras]

Yeah, it`s completely stupid that you can`t gift to people outside of your region. Like what the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ ♥♥♥♥ - I have friends all over the world!

This is one of the most idiotic things I`ve ever seen. Who made this uncalled for decision?

[Grimaldus]

Here's my solution: FIRE the guy who came up with the idea of this change..

Then turn Steam-store back to what it was, remove the lockout (discrimination) and
then have everyone use the USD as a common currency, or equivalent to it.
So lets say a game costs 60$ but the russian rubel is crashed.... not our problem, pay up.

I think this is THE worst solution ever that steam has done, and most discriminitive
when they take away the ability for certain countries to gift games just because some
people were "abusing" the differense in currency...

Remove the new system.

[supertrooper225]

That is the way the world works. When people abuse a system it is good people that wind up having to deal with the problems that stem from it. It is the way it is. Firing people does nothing but satisfy your base urges for payback and it is not even a feasible solution. This is not discrimination or abuse at all.

[kdodds]

The pretty much HAVE to come up with a solution for region-locked gifts if they continue to allow gifts. It would make the most sense for them to ask you to choose the user to which you're gifting the item, reprice the game to that region, then send that region-locked copy directly to that user's inventory.

[TeKraken]

Originally posted by kdodds:

It would make the most sense for them to ask you to choose the user to which you're gifting the item, reprice the game to that region, then send that region-locked copy directly to that user's inventory.

In my limited knowledge this sounds like a good idea. Rather than gimping the whole trading function.

The cost to set it up must be less than the loss of sales for cross region gifting as lost income stream?

What do I know.

[Grimaldus]

I dont' really care how they solve it, but they need to remove this new system.
It's enough that players from "rich" countries have to pay for per game, but now
they change the entire system for the worse..

I pay roughly 15€ more per big game then some of my friends, and this is compared
to the value of dollar. I have a friend who buys games for 40$, while i have to pay 60$ on Steam..
How is that not discrimination !?. Not everyone in europe makes alot of money,
any not everyone in poor countries are poor. There can be a player in Brazil that
is a trustfund-child with millions of dollars on his bankaccount, and at the same time
there can be a player in UK that is barely scraping by on socialcare.... that's a problem.

Everyone should be paying the same amount of money for the same game, doesn't matter
which country they are from.

And everyone should be able to gift whoever they want. STEAM is a community-based
"platform" and you're changing it for the worse with these bad rules.

[Cinnamon]

I always love it when something goes wrong and the wronged person (in this case Steam) has a knee jerk reaction and everyone who was not screwing Steam is themselves screwed. I live in a "rich" country so I guess that means I will pay premium prices. So be it. Allow folks who don't live in the "rich" countries to gift their freinds and family with games regardless of where the friend lives. Steam seriously needs to rethink this tact as it is discriminatory to say the very least. The assumption that someone who lives in a country Steam considers poor does not mean EVERYONE who lives there cannot afford to buy games at the going rate. It's ridiculous to dump everyone in the same vat of misconception. There HAS to be a middle ground Steam. - find it or live with the fact that people will buy games for their family/friends through other vendors.

[Silicon Vampire]

When you run a multi-million dollar corp with a multinational store that could be abused, you will be welcome to implement any measures you deem necessary to protect yours and your company's interests.

Valve have facts, you have speculation.

[Grimaldus]

Originally posted by Silicon Vampire:

When you run a multi-million dollar corp with a multinational store that could be abused, you will be welcome to implement any measures you deem necessary to protect yours and your companies interests.

Valve have facts, you have speculation.

Running a multi-million dollar company BASED ON THE COMMUNITY doesn't give you the right to screw said community when you feel like it... its counterproductive.

[Mcintosh Pro]

Originally posted by Silicon Vampire:

When you run a multi-million dollar corp with a multinational store that could be abused, you will be welcome to implement any measures you deem necessary to protect yours and your company's interests.

Valve have facts, you have speculation.

I thought that i was integral part of this company. I am a client and a fan. Even further than that, this company is based on the principles of community. Making the spirit of the company something that in way is part of me and i care about. So if u don't care about steam's community then u don't care about the company indeed.

I don't have enough information to asses the whole problem, that is why i am posting solutions that might be helpful to those that control these decisions in valve.

You are basically telling me i can't complain if i don't own the company, and that is your problem, what solution do u have for me.

"Complaining about a problem without posing a solution is called whining" - Teddy Roosevelt.

I guess that a company that can use a moderator to tell people they cannot complain or care about its affairs doesn't have their clients interests in hand.

Btw- with this i'm not accepting that its correct to abuse valve, but the solution they have given is creating a problem that demands a solution. I feel unprotected as a client.

[Cinnamon]

Originally posted by Silicon Vampire:

When you run a multi-million dollar corp with a multinational store that could be abused, you will be welcome to implement any measures you deem necessary to protect yours and your company's interests.

Valve have facts, you have speculation.

While I appreciate that Valve is running a multi-million dollar corporation, isn't that key phrase here? For the few that abuse the system Valve makes millions from those that don't. I appreciate the ease with which I can use Steam to run games and purchase games, and did gift friends this holiday season with presents through Steam. But for those who couldn't, well, they will find other engines to gift their friends and Valve loses money. That interpretation of business would make most CPA's cringe at the loss. Again there must be a better way. Valve can certainly afford to engage a consulting firm who can come up with a better solution.

[Charlie]

Originally posted by Matthew Sobol's Daemon:

So wait, you can't gift to people in other countries at all?

Did Valve REALLY not think that would cause issues?

I mean, there are still ways around this, but unless proven otherwise I can't see how this couldn't have been handled better.

For example someone suggested that the system ask them to pay the higher regional price (though I can imagine that Valve doesn't want to advertise the fact that publishers screw over certain countries just because they can).

It's been happening a lot recently, I know people who live in Russia can no longer gift outside of Russia. As for publishers ripping certain countries off that sure is correct, so many publishers will just change the dollar sign to a euro or pound.

[HLCinSC]

In my opinion, the best proposal is giving the option of buying a ROW/Region free version gift.

Maybe there could be a system where you can gift to any region where the game bought is at the same price or lower than what the giffter paid.

[kdodds]

The problem is that gifts can make the rounds. Savvy users/system scammers could set up multiple accounts and gift themselves. This has to be the reasoning behind region locking the game version. The only real problem with this is that users in country A can't buy the country B version for their friends in that country. Well, they could, if they wanted to jump through the system scammer hoops. But since such gifts are not likely to happen all of the time, it would be a PITA just to give a gift. Hence, assuming different region lock versions, if say I, in the USA, want to buy a gift for a friend in NZ, I could not do so without making it look like I'm in NZ and then buying and gifting the game. This could simply be fixed as I stated above by forcing fixed delivery of said gift directly to my NZ friend, at the NZ price. This would prevent "PayPal" friends from working out deals since a lower paying country would still have to pay the higher paying country's price for a gift to that region.

[Mcintosh Pro]

Originally posted by kdodds:

The problem is that gifts can make the rounds. Savvy users/system scammers could set up multiple accounts and gift themselves. This has to be the reasoning behind region locking the game version. The only real problem with this is that users in country A can't buy the country B version for their friends in that country. Well, they could, if they wanted to jump through the system scammer hoops. But since such gifts are not likely to happen all of the time, it would be a PITA just to give a gift. Hence, assuming different region lock versions, if say I, in the USA, want to buy a gift for a friend in NZ, I could not do so without making it look like I'm in NZ and then buying and gifting the game. This could simply be fixed as I stated above by forcing fixed delivery of said gift directly to my NZ friend, at the NZ price. This would prevent "PayPal" friends from working out deals since a lower paying country would still have to pay the higher paying country's price for a gift to that region.

I like various things about your solution, tho i still think that a universal price for gifts would be a better solution. Due to the fact that many like me took advantage of a sale to buy various copies of a certain game and held it in my inventory so i could gift it later. Having a universal price would probably solve the problem where some countries have to pay exremely high prices for a game that just had its sign switched to its currency. EG. Euros.

In many cases a $60usd game is sold in europe for 60 euros or 60 pounds.... and now for a couple of months since they changed the currency for mexico for 600 pesos which is 33.7 euros or 26.4 pounds. So u can see the discrepancy here. I'm sure by just making it 60usd (or its actual conversion) people all around the world wold be happier.

I do want to explain that i'm not complaining about a price cut for me.. that would be stupid. But the idea that i'm not getting the full game and all the services that come with it is agravating. So having a "special" gifting price is not out of question here.

In the case where in european countries they pay 60 pounds for a 60 dollar game... the savy ones could still ask an american friend to buy it and gift it to them.... why aren't they applying the same rules to people in north america and avoiding them to gift to europeans????

That is where the discriminatory speech comes in. Tho i'm pretty sure they aren't discriminating on purpose. I hope.

Note: the regional currency for mexico was just applied some months ago, before we bought everything with USD (converted) and there was no problem. I made my game collection %99.9 buying games in USD, so i don't see why we need the regional currency... in our case (Mexico) its actually a detourent, since the prices seem so much higher in pesos (although they are not, just a commercial psichological thing that happens to all of us here). So commercially it would be better to have lower numbers hence the .99 idea, just to cut off a whole unit.