Is it legal to have a friend gift me a region locked game that I can't purchase in my country?

[Neonetik]

Or is it against some sort of Steam subscriber agreement thing. I know that buying keys online is dangerous, as is using a VPN and that sort of stuff, but is there anything wrong with friends simply gifting stuff?

Just curious, thanks.

[B-o-B]

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=6262-QXCN-0755&l

[Neonetik]

I've seen that, but it doesn't really answer my question.

[Neonetik]

From what I understand, there's nothing wrong with gifting. Being able to play the game is another issue, and yeah, disguising your region would be a dangerous move. However, as long as you don't do this, from what I understand, simply getting the gift is fine.

I wanted to be certain though, so I asked here.

[John]

Originally posted by NeonAbomination:

From what I understand, there's nothing wrong with gifting. Being able to play the game is another issue, and yeah, disguising your region would be a dangerous move. However, as long as you don't do this, from what I understand, simply getting the gift is fine.

I wanted to be certain though, so I asked here.

As long as you have a VPN then it's fine. Steam doesn't let you gift region locked games (I don't think) if they figured out you had been gifted (and are playing) a region locked game via a friend then they'd probably ban you or something. (Not too sure this is a question you should email steam)

[999999999]

Do not use a VPN to bypass anything.

[Neonetik]

I've heard very differently. I don't plan on doing anything "shifty" and using a VPN certainly is. The way I see it, if gifting a game to people in other regions was illegal, steam wouldn't allow people to do it, but people can and do, I've seen it happen plenty of times. It seems fine, but I'm wondering if it actually was.

[999999999]

It is not illegal.

[MancSoulja]

Originally posted by NeonAbomination:

I've heard very differently. I don't plan on doing anything "shifty" and using a VPN certainly is. The way I see it, if gifting a game to people in other regions was illegal, steam wouldn't allow people to do it, but people can and do, I've seen it happen plenty of times. It seems fine, but I'm wondering if it actually was.

The bottom line is this: If your friend can gift you the game via Steam and you can accept and activate it, there's absolutely nothing wrong and you're breaking no rules.

[Neonetik]

Yeah. I assumed that was about right, but you never know. I mean, I recall some people got in trouble for buying keys from (INSERT CENSORED WEBSITES NAME) and stuff, even though Steam allows them to be activated, so it's always better to be safe rather than sorry.

[MancSoulja]

Originally posted by NeonAbomination:

Yeah. I assumed that was about right, but you never know. I mean, I recall some people got in trouble for buying keys from G2A and stuff, even though Steam allows them to be activated, so it's always better to be safe rather than sorry.

Steam allows retail keys to be activated, but a lot of the keys on those grey market sites are bought with stolen credit cards and ultimately revoked. That's the issue, not that they were buying the keys from any particular site.

That's one of the reasons you should stay within the Steam eco-system when buying games and trading, you can't really go wrong.