Question about steam ?

R

ronaldo7777

Disciple
Well i have a cousin brother who lives in the US.
Since PC games are cheaper in India if i buy Mafia 2 and Civilization 5 here in India and
pm him the steam activation codes and he activates it on his USA steam account will there be any problems.
Your suggestions will be welcome.
 
Mafia 2 costs Rs. 499 here, $49 there. And it's a Steam game.

You could just buy it here and gift it to him. People do it for games which are not available in their region. Or sending the CD-keys would work too.
 
Yes, the DVD at game shops. It requires Steam to play, so the DVD is superfluous. You just need the CD-Key to activate and download it from Steam.
 
I am not sure, but games (Even PC games) certainly has regions mentioned behind the case, and steam activation will work accordingly. You wont be able to activate the game purchased from here, on US IP IMO. Or else, lot of dudes will take advantages of this. you may find a better answer on steam forums.
 
Yes, that's the question to be asked. Some months ago there was a game on sale in Steam but was not available in India. I used a Aussie proxy to buy it from Steam Australia. Worked fine no problem. There are only a handful of games that requires Steam to play and are also sold on retail in India. I can only think of Mafia 2, Orange Box, Half Life Game of the year Edition, CS: Source, CS Anthology and Half Life. Except Mafia 2 the rest of the games are quite cheap on Steam, so I don't think there is much to be taken advantage of.

But yes, the Steam forum might be a better place to find answers, although I think the question will not be entertained by the mods.
 
crossbow said:
I am not sure, but games (Even PC games) certainly has regions mentioned behind the case, and steam activation will work accordingly. You wont be able to activate the game purchased from here, on US IP IMO. Or else, lot of dudes will take advantages of this. you may find a better answer on steam forums.
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you are right sir, 100% it will be, you think Americans are foolish??? :p

You can't just buy a game here and activate in EU or US region, it's written behind the box - For South East Asia/Asia Pacific only!
 
Surprisingly, I could not find that part behind my box, or in the CD-Key pamphlet, or in the DVD. Is your copy different? I think Steam games have region specific availability, but once procured they should be playable from any location. If not then some one moving to US from India with his Steam backup would find all his legally purchased games unplayable in US just because he bought them in India.

-- Disclaimer : Unverified personal opinion only, I may be wrong in all accounts :D
 
I'm pretty sure this works. Lots of people take advantage of this too. There is even a data smuggling ring :p in the RPS forums where they do just this. Mostly Aussies requesting UK or Americans to buy games for them and then gifting it.

What I have a doubt about is, suppose a game like Fallout NV. This game is not even visible from India in Steam. Yet, it is a Steamworks game. So, suppose I buy the key from some other store like GG or D2D, then will I be able to register it on steam? I even raised a support ticket on this. No reply. Will bug them again today.
 
jc36lect3r said:
-- Disclaimer : Unverified personal opinion only, I may be wrong in all accounts :D
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yep, you are.

what the op is suggesting will not work. like someone else said, the americans aren't foolish. if this worked, everyone would import 10$ copies from india and use the keys there instead of buying 50$ games. steam takes region locking very seriously... do you want know the full extent of it? if you buy mafia 2 in india, and activate on an indian steam account, it will work fine. now if you go to europe, and you login to your steam account there, you will not be able to play mafia 2 from there, on your own steam account, where the game used to work when you were in india. you will have to contact steam support to get them to unlock the game for you. there are ways to bypass all this of course... i suppose using a vpn everytime might work but it's seriously not worth the hassle, especially when games get discounted so quickly and so often. mafia 2 is currently selling for 12.5$ on the amazon digital download service, your cousin can buy it from there and activate the key on steam. no hera-pheri involved.

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pretttt said:
What I have a doubt about is, suppose a game like Fallout NV. This game is not even visible from India in Steam. Yet, it is a Steamworks game. So, suppose I buy the key from some other store like GG or D2D, then will I be able to register it on steam? I even raised a support ticket on this. No reply. Will bug them again today.
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yes it will work. however, gamersgate does not sell fallout new vegas, and d2d only sells to a few restricted countries which excludes india. so you won't be able to buy it from those places anyway, but if you were, then it would work.
 
^Thanks for clarifying that!

But I'm surprised by the reluctance of Steam support to answer my questions. Two different tickets and yet they always try to run around the issue. Never answering the question, instead only pointing to the same FAQ, which btw doesnt answer this question.

My other question has also been answered by you above. But this is very strange. Suppose I buy a game like GTA 4 while I'm in US, you mean to say I cannot play that once I'm in India?? That absolutely sucks! Will this also happen with the boxed version? I cannot play my Indian retail copy from US?
 
OK, DigitalDude's post clarifies one part of my question. Thanks!

I'm fine with region limits for activation. BUT, are the region limits also applicable while PLAYING a game for which you have already paid and is in your account? Steam support doesnt want to answer this.

But, I dont think this actually happens. Someone who has actually tried this can clarify.
 
pretttt said:
My other question has also been answered by you above. But this is very strange. Suppose I buy a game like GTA 4 while I'm in US, you mean to say I cannot play that once I'm in India?? That absolutely sucks! Will this also happen with the boxed version? I cannot play my Indian retail copy from US?
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retail steamworks games bought in other countries will work here. but games bought here (for cheap) will not work in other countries. that's just the way it is.

speaking specifically of gta4, the distributor/2k/rockstar actually setup authentication servers in india. that's why they sold the game so cheap here, because indian keys would go only to the indian authentication server. meaning it will not work outside india. that's not true for all games though... you could buy a copy of cod4 here and then take it anywhere in the world to play it. but steam allows publishers the opportunity to region lock their content, and a lot of them do. valve, 2k, thq games bought here and linked to steam will not work outside.

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pretttt said:
I'm fine with region limits for activation. BUT, are the region limits also applicable while PLAYING a game for which you have already paid and is in your account? Steam support doesnt want to answer this.

But, I dont think this actually happens. Someone who has actually tried this can clarify.
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it does happen. many people who bought the orange box here years ago went abroad for further studies or something and found that their tf2 was unplayable. they had to contact valve support to unlock the games for them. a friend of mine travels regularly to the middle east and he has mentioned that games like dawn of war 2 which were bought in india cannot be played while he's there. keep in mind, this region locking restriction only applies to retail games, not those bought from steam. meaning if you buy dow2 retail, you can not play it outside the country. if you buy dow2 from steam, then you can play it anywhere in the world.
 
^Wow! Thanks for all the info dude. All my doubts cleared and I'm making a bookmark of your comment :) This is exactly what I was asking Steam support and they were not ready answer!
 
spindoctor said:
it does happen. many people who bought the orange box here years ago went abroad for further studies or something and found that their tf2 was unplayable. they had to contact valve support to unlock the games for them. a friend of mine travels regularly to the middle east and he has mentioned that games like dawn of war 2 which were bought in india cannot be played while he's there. keep in mind, this region locking restriction only applies to retail games, not those bought from steam. meaning if you buy dow2 retail, you can not play it outside the country. if you buy dow2 from steam, then you can play it anywhere in the world.
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I'm using an India purchased version of TF2. never had any issues.
 
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