In Canada, can't send Steam Gifts to US. How can I find out who I can send them to?

[BloodyAstartes]

So US people can send gifts anywhere because they use USD for their prices and that's basically what the world runs on. I live in Canada and I've tried a friend in Australia and another in New York and both times I couldn't send the gift because of the varying price ranges between regions.

First off... i want them to have a game... not 29.99 Canadian... so just charge me the difference. I'm pretty sure there's only like a billion places that have figured out how to work with varying regional prices.

Second... ok so this was 'to make it easier to send gifts' ya well then it was a massive ♥♥♥♥ing fail. If you're going to implement this massive overhaul of rules and restrictions... maybe tell people what they are. Like the first time i try to send a gift to somewhere I can't... have a window pop up and tell me not just why i'm not allowed to do it... but tell me what I CAN do.

Mac OS does a great job of giving you options. Programs will tell me why I can't play that format but then give a list of formats i can play. Or in an error message... 'you said do this, which will make me do this bad thing... so i can't do that. If you really want to do that... take these steps first, then let me know.'

What ♥♥♥♥ing good is an error message that just tells you you're ♥♥♥♥ed. Wow thanks. Didn't notice.

There are literally hundreds of solutions.

Easiest would be to allow users to have a US wallet that can buy games on the US store and send them as gifts. I buy 20 USD with 3,000,000 CAD and then I can buy the US priced game and send it with current gift rules.

At the very ♥♥♥♥ed off least. Show me where I can send gifts to so i'm not slowly going through my friends being like "Hey I've been playing this killer game and it has co-op I want you to play it with me so I'm gonna give you this kick♥♥♥♥♥game. Oh i can't send it to you. Ok well sorry to hype you up for nothing. I'll try and find another way to buy it and send in an email."

Uh. yeah. amazing. much convenient, many personals, so wow.

Valve is a billion dollar company. Maybe phone iTunes and see how they do it.

Or just keep telling me that this is all because a bunch of people want to be extra good at Counter Strike or whatever the ♥♥♥♥.
Can't let people camp in a glitch.
SURE YOU CAN JUST MAKE A CHEATER SERVER MOVE CHEATERS THERE AND THEY CAN CHEAT EACH OTHER.
Don't even tell them lol.
So many rage quits as the cheaters all cheat on the cheaters trying to cheat.

[wuddih]

you cannot send gifts to other people if the price differs more then 10% in their currency .. in any direction of the price. US people cannot do this either.

[BloodyAstartes]

So is there a list? or am i supposed to google currencies and see what places have a close enough currency. I guess the Euro and USD are close enough. Most of the people i've talked to have said they're in US and never had a problem, which is probably because of the strong dollar. Maybe one day Canada can come back to the grown up table. Thanks Obama.

[StickyPawz]

There's no "list" because currencies fluctuate.

You do not have to google beforehand … You just won't be allowed to gift at the time of purchase.

[BloodyAstartes]

Ya but like Apple, Steam will reset prices once currencies hit certain benchmarks. Like when the CAD got up closer to the USD for the first time in forever... Apple changed all their prices at once in Canada. Steam is the same. Otherwise you'd be seeing 10.73 but it's mostly rounded to dollars I mean at least it appears that the cost vs currency is not a constantly varying thing.

That means that they know what countries are within each others tolerances and the way currency is you're not going to have wild fluctuations.

There totally is a list. Because steam knows who can send gifts to who. It doesn't work like if Canada was 91 cents of a USD one day I can send gifts... and then it drops for two days and suddenly i can't send gifts over the weekend.

Steam will wait until currencies either vary far enough or get close enough... and then flip a switch allowing gifting between those regions.

SO TELL ME WHAT SWITCHES ARE FLIPPED.

The whole point of this is that if this is supposed to making gifting easier and a better experience... waiting until the actual moment of purchase to say "oh sorry you can't do that too bad." Is ridiculous. especially When you just have to do what dev do for certain games.

JUST ME GIVE A LIST OF TWO LETTERS THAT ARE IN MY TINY FROZEN CIRCLE OF HELL WITH NO GIFTING TO THE REST OF THE WORLD.

ie. AE, BO, JS, TS, RUE, WO ♥♥♥♥ YOU.

honestly it's not hard. The way it is now is like asking someone to walk up to the counter in a shop with their friend try to buy them something... and then have the shop say your card is declined. Which is literally the worst plan ever for retail. People do not like being told their money is no good. like at all.

[BloodyAstartes]

besides... even if they kept a live and fluctuating allowance for who can gift to where... i'm fairly certain one of they guys that wrote windows can figure out how to have a list that auto updates according to the market.

There's no list because they're either very bad at understanding customers... or they don't want to make it obvious that the new rules are about more money... not making gifting easier because if there was a list. I would probably see that Canada can send gifts to NO ONE. Much like places like Japan or Latin America. I don't think any currency is close to either.

[wuddih]

Steam does not do anything to the prices of the games.

the publishers/developer/owners of the products on Steam set the prices for each available currency manually.

there is no list, because such a list is not possible. it is completely dependent on every single product on Steam.

[BloodyAstartes]

ok but it's based on currency is it not... if that's true it's an easy list. If it's based on what the devs have set the price as in each country... then the system still knows according to the game and it's varying prices... who you can give it to. So give me a little message that pops when I select a game saying this item cannot be gifted to: yada yada.

The list exists. Right now it's just being used for Valve's internal rule allowances.

That the devs set currency prices shouldn't really matter. They still enter a bunch of values in that determine whether two regions can share. So show us.


In fact... it raises an even more important question. Why the hell are devs setting different prices for different regions. Because ♥♥♥♥ australia? what they all got together and were like '♥♥♥♥ AUSTRALIA!!!' Because my australian friends will sometimes tell me what they paid for the same game but in OZ BUCKS and when i do the conversion into Canadian it's almost tragic how boned they get.

[wuddih]

the current gifting situation was put in place a few months ago. you can see at checkout who you can gifts too. Valve will adept it if the revenue loss is too noticable. the majority of people buy for their own library or for people they personally know(same country). so this whole thing is a minority issue

putting a list on every store page of which countries you can/can't gift to would be too confusing and also too dynamic, currency conversion fluctuate every day. one day you can gift something, the other you can't. that would indulge way too much negative feedback.

Originally posted by BloodyAstartes:

In fact... it raises an even more important question. Why the hell are devs setting different prices for different regions.

because that is how Steam operates since the beginning. the content owner sets the prices for his products.

[BloodyAstartes]

You don't need it on the store page. You simply put it in a little list right under the item in your cart. It only triggers when it adds to the cart. That way I know that this way won't work for sending it to my friend in vietnam.

It's not really a minority issue when Canada can't send stuff to the states. That would be a major issue. Do you have any idea how much cross over there is? OR between Canada and OZ? Trust me it's not a minority issue. In fact i would say a decent portion of my gamer friends who i actually do know in person... i would say most of them have never met their longest or best gaming friends. That's how it works. You end up on some russian server and make friends with a russian dude and then he becomes your guild master and questing and blah blah blah and now you've been slaying with him for ten years. IF anything the gaming community is the most cross cultural community of any online group.

So not a minor issue.

Dude forget about confusing. It's a list of letters under the item in your cart. That's all. Almost every major game retailer has it when a game is region locked. Well steam invented a new thing called gift locking. So tell me what it affects.

too dynamic? Look even if the devs are constantly updating every currency amount they want... They still have to tell the system. Even if they do it every day. There is still a new list that is generated so steam can say NO.

show me.

If it was too dynamic and hard to keep track of... how do they know? They wouldn't

Oh so because dev have been allowed to from the beginning that's the way it is?

Sounds like lots of other stupid rules that are no longer rules because they were stupid.

I understand what you mean... But this is a billion dollar company. Designed by the man who practically invented PC gaming and is responsible for a good portion of Windows and is working on making Linux a truly viable gaming platform.



There is no such thing as too hard or complicated. ♥♥♥♥ Steam invented an entire economy around imaginary playing cards and keys that open imaginary crates and give you pretty coloured imaginary guns. I'm pretty sure they can figure out an auto updating list of letters that gets set when the dev set price.

The system has the information. Share it. Or standardize it so it doesn't need to be shared.

[吃定你q]

不知道哎，兄弟

[BloodyAstartes]

我也是

[BLANK]

It's because the canadian Dollar is weaker than the USD. I have friends in america who can't gift me stuff cause the Euro is stronger than USD. Kinda sucks, but that's how it is.