Player in Germany: Buy Steam Codes form UK/USA?

[Diosama]

Hi, can i buy british Steam Codes from ebay.co.uk and use them in my german steam account? Will the games be low violence or uncensored? (because german games are mostly censored -_-). Thx for helping out :)

[Hextravert]

Of course not .

You don't even use the same currency in Germany!

[Alpha]

I don't know how Steam determines your location, maybe when you signed up, or your IP address. Maybe you can look into that.

[Satoru]

NEVER EVER by codes from ebay/auctions/unautorized resellers. There is zero guarantee you will receive a valid code.ebay DOES NOT protect you from 'cd-keys' because no actual physical item gets transfered

[Hextravert]

I am so sorry. I was under the impression that you were looking to buy (foreign) Steam Wallet Codes—hence the currency!

[BlacKFlashJr]

ghhhhhh

[Diosama]

Nah, i was wondering if i could buy the cd key for COD4 from ebay.co.uk for example and then the game won't be censored like german versions ;)

[kinghfb]

Originally posted by Diosama:

Nah, i was wondering if i could buy the cd key for COD4 from ebay.co.uk for example and then the game won't be censored like german versions ;)

Circumventing the region lock is apparently a bannable offense. It's not worth it. I'm in Berlin, so I have to deal with the censored Wolf3D, but that's better than having my account banned.

[Kargor]

For most games, the international keys work just fine. EBay is dangerous, as always, but reliable shops such as Greenmangaming or Humble will give you proper keys, and they will be uncensored.

There are a few exceptions, though. The uncensored "Wolfenstein: The New Order" cannot be played in Germany, no matter what. That game has the most brutal censoring that Steam has to offer.
The same probably applies to the Southpark game, although I haven't looked into that one.

In contrast, most of the censored games on the german Steam are merely a matter of the german shop selling you a censored version. You can activate and play a non-censored one just fine, you just can't buy it in the german store (and Steam doesn't quite do "internet" yet, so you can't buy it in other Steam stores either. They simply don't want our money).

Do note that censored vs. non-censored isn't a matter of where you play it, but where you buy it. It's the keys themselves that give you a censored or uncensored version; buying a censored game in germany and gifting it to the US will give that player a censored game, just like buying an uncensored game in the US and gifting it to germany will give you an uncensored game. Even Wolfenstein or Southpark aren't going to magically change -- they simply can't be activated if they are not censored.

This applies to games that aren't available in germany as well. "Dead Island", for example, has additional legal restrictions for shops selling it in germany, so it's not available on the german Steam store at all. However, getting it from somewhere else (Humblebundle, in my case) is just fine as the keys themselves are not restricted.

[Diosama]

@ Kargor. Thank you for the detailed answer. @Kinghfb: I don't wanna buy Wolfenstein. I see why Wolfenstein is an exception, because the content had to be altered because of the Nazi symbols and so on.... But other than that Steam is just to lazy to implement an age verfification system and those british steam cd keys are perfectly legal. They are just 18+ in Germany, which i obv. am, because otherwise i could not buy them from ebay.co.uk also. So @Kargor: Do you think Steam will really BAN accounts with all games on it, when you use a british cd key of COD4 for example? Or will they just block the game, if they don't like it. Or will they tolerate it (again not buying games like Wolfenstein). Of course i don't want my acc banned ;)