Are gift cards region locked?

[Chiela]

So I was trying to buy some games for my sister, namely Dragon Age II and Inquisition and (even though there was no notification on the store page) it's apparently region locked. My sister is in the US, I'm in NZ. Can I give her a gift card or will that fail at her end? Will she be able to spend the gift card on any game, or will some be locked to the same games that are locked for me gifting to her?

Also how recent is this - I normally buy her the FFXIV expacs since she started playing while living in NZ and she can't put a US key on her FFXIV game account, given I've not had this issue in any previous years (and the lack of clarity on the region lock on the respective DA store pages) I'm worried this is a new thing and when she is ready to continue the story she will be locked out because I can't actually purchase it anymore for her.

[miamew3]

If you get a digital gift card through steam it will convert it to your friends currency.
https://store.steampowered.com/digitalgiftcards/selectgiftcard

If you get a store brought one then, no as those are currency locked.

[rawWwRrr]

Originally posted by Chiela:

So I was trying to buy some games for my sister, namely Dragon Age II and Inquisition and (even though there was no notification on the store page) it's apparently region locked. My sister is in the US, I'm in NZ.

Dragon Age II has a price difference of 33.35% between the US and NZ. Dragon Age Inquisition's price difference is 42.27%.

Game gifts where the price difference exceeds 10% is not allowed. Your error message should have states something about regional price differences. This is why.

Originally posted by Chiela:

Can I give her a gift card or will that fail at her end? Will she be able to spend the gift card on any game, or will some be locked to the same games that are locked for me gifting to her?

A digital gift card won't be restricted. When your sister claims it, it will convert into US dollars and then she can buy those games on her own with those funds.
https://store.steampowered.com/digitalgiftcards/selectgiftcard

Originally posted by Chiela:

Also how recent is this

The regional price difference restriction has been in place for some time now.

Originally posted by Chiela:

- I normally buy her the FFXIV expacs since she started playing while living in NZ and she can't put a US key on her FFXIV game account, given I've not had this issue in any previous years (and the lack of clarity on the region lock on the respective DA store pages) I'm worried this is a new thing and when she is ready to continue the story she will be locked out because I can't actually purchase it anymore for her.

As long as those expansions remain under the 10% threshold, then you should be fine. Or you just perform the digital gift card process.

[Hi Im Swat]

No

[Chiela]

Originally posted by rawWwRrr:

Originally posted by Chiela:

- I normally buy her the FFXIV expacs since she started playing while living in NZ and she can't put a US key on her FFXIV game account, given I've not had this issue in any previous years (and the lack of clarity on the region lock on the respective DA store pages) I'm worried this is a new thing and when she is ready to continue the story she will be locked out because I can't actually purchase it anymore for her.

As long as those expansions remain under the 10% threshold, then you should be fine. Or you just perform the digital gift card process.

Yeah unfortunately a gift card won't work as FFXIV has region locked AND platform locked keys that you have to register to your SE account. Since her SE account is "EU" (which is functionally everywhere but NA and JP) and it's Steam the only way for her to get a key which is compatible with her SE account is to be gifted it by someone with an "EU designated" Steam account. (And you cannot put both "PC" and "Steam" keys on the one account - even though you can stack all other platforms on the same account.) I will just need to hope then that the price is not regional, or my sister will lose access to her whole account and the character she has played for 10 years either by needing to start over completely on an NA designated SE account or by not being able to progress through anymore of the story.

The Steam Store really needs to do a better job of indicating this - the help page states there should be something on the store page as to whether or not regional pricing applies but I could see nothing there for both DA games I was trying to gift and it made me got through the whole process of trying to buy the gift before it told me that it couldn't do it - it should have told me right at the start when I assigned the gifts to her account that it wasn't allowed but it didn't error till after I had input payment details.