Valve Locking Out Gamers Who Buy Orange Box Internationally 665
Via Opposable Thumbs, a post on the Consumerist site notes that some enterprising gamers who bought the Orange Box in a territory different than the one they lived (to save a few bucks) have now found themselves unable to play the game. "One user, Todd, explains that thousands of crafty North American gamers looking for a deal have 'bought the product (and hence, the serial numbers) at well known international game stores' at a significant markdown. Activation of the purchased titles went off without a hitch. However, Valve apparently has taken issue with the region-specificity of some international versions and has begun locking out accounts of those living in North America, but owning international serial numbers with the message that the purchased game is in the 'incorrect territory.'" Worse, folks who tried to 'make it right' by buying a local copy have found they're basically SOL. I've been a big fan of the Steam concept since it launched, but this is the sort of thing you need to communicate to your users before you sting them.
Silly users (Score:5, Insightful)
Probably a requirement (Score:5, Insightful)
Reading some of the various "deal" forums it amazes me what people will go through to save a few dollars, yet turn around and brag about their $300 cases, water cooling, and thousand dollars worth of video cards.
Re:Probably a requirement (Score:4, Insightful)
F Globalization! (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm an American, currently working in Mexico for 2 months. I recently bought a brand new laptop with a 8600M GT 512MB video card, and I've been looking for games to buy and play, since I haven't played many games since BF1942 and Counter-Strike.
I've been seriously considering purchasing the Orange Box, and even signed up with Steam (they can check this fact against my unobscured email). I even watch some forum threads about TF2 and Portal, and played the Portal flash game. But, with a possible disconnection, they've just lost a sale unless they can absolutely prove otherwise. Ya hear that Valve? LOST SALE RIGHT HERE BUDDY.
Re:F Globalization! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:F Globalization! (Score:5, Funny)
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Man, you ain't playing on-line? right?
Try playing with the dual-analogue thing against anybody with keyboard and mouse (even against me!) - you'd be literally wiped floor with. Classical controller
Re:Probably a requirement (Score:5, Informative)
I don't follow your argument. If you want an overclocking, nuclear-powered, death dealing gamer rig, that doesn't mean you still can't be frugal. Frugal is not the same thing as being cheap. If a person wants the functionality of a $1000 video card, has the means to procure it, but it aware they can do it for less money, they usually will. If a game is $50 in their local market and $30 online overseas, why is it so terrible of them to do that?
You as the end consumer are NOT bound by agreements between other people. The place where you bought it from may have sold something to you in contravention of their contracts with THEIR partners, but that's not your problem... or it SHOULDN'T be your problem... and if law and/or reality contradict that, then the law and/or reality is in error and needs fixing.
Re:Probably a requirement (Score:5, Interesting)
Wish it had worked that way with me and VMware. Last year, I bought a shrinkwrapped copy of Workstation 5.5 from an Amazon vendor, registered with VMware, etc., and life was good for a while. It's a great piece of software, and probably the single most useful package I own. Fast forward a bit to the 6.0 release. I participated in the pre-release beta, and was really looking forward to picking up the retail package. VMware offered 6.0 as a $100 upgrade from 5.x, so of course I jumped at that. However, I found I was unable to register on the site with my 5.x key and when I contacted VMware about it, they said they'd had some kind of issue with the vendor, and had invalidated all of his licenses instead of pursuing whatever direct legal action would have been appropriate. They refused to work with me *at all* on the upgrade pricing, even though I had a legitimate shrink-wrapped package and by their own admission, a legitimate license key. To add insult to injury, they insinuated that the problem was my fault because I didn't check the VMware web site before purchasing to make sure the vendor was a VMware Authorized Reseller.
It'll be a cold day in hell before I do business with VMware again, and I've recommended Xen to more than a couple of folks since then.
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Re:Probably a requirement (Score:5, Interesting)
protect
protect
Once again, near obsolete middlemen decide it's far easier to shit on everyone else's rights rather than face the fact that there's no more room in this world for brick and mortar retail of "digital" goods. Certainly not at the prices THEY want to charge.
Protectionism usually works AGAINST the masses, in favor of a small group. Why should I care about a retailer who wants to charge me $5 more for something I can buy on the internet, have flown halfway around the world and delivered to my door? Not to mention the fuel to drive to his store, the lack of parking, etc. Why should we protect WASTEFUL businesses? Either the retailer drops his price, or goes out of business. Period.
I also find it amazing that in the UK software (and other computer stuff) will retail for the same price as in the US - only in POUNDS. So it's double the price nowadays. Sheesh, I guess CD's are really really expensive to burn in the UK! There's no excuse for this, it's just greed. Valve should not be protecting greed. But then again, it's a racket. Just like the music industry.
Re:Probably a requirement (Score:5, Insightful)
Considering that this whole situation is because Valve IS adjusting their prices for the local markets, you really have no idea what you're talking about.
They have retail distributions agreements in Russia and Thailand to sell boxed products at competitive local prices, rather than trying to get people who might earn $300 USD a month to shell out $50 USD for a game. In order to stop people from buying Russian copies en masse for, say, $10 USD a piece and selling the keys online for $20 USD each, they lock the keys to the geographic region in which they're sold. I can't say I've seen the boxes myself since I live in the US, but I've read that they SAY on the box that they won't play outside of country X. Of course, they export the keys anyways and sell them to stupid people who think they're getting a great deal, and that's why we have this retarded article claiming that Orange Box is region locked everywhere.
Don't give me that shit about "I didn't know it was imported" either. If it seems too good to be true, it PROBABLY IS. The only fault I have with Valve for this is that they should let people unregister so they can register the copies they bought afterwards.
Re:Probably a requirement (Score:5, Insightful)
It all amounts to the same thing, and if it is allowed in one context, it should be allowed in the other. Conversely, if companies insist on being able to do price fixing like this, it shouldn't be legal for them to go over to China and pay somebody 10 dollars a day to do the work when there are Americans over here willing to do it (although the American will of course want a higher wage).
Re:Probably a requirement (Score:5, Insightful)
"region coding" of any sort is not legitimate in a free market economy. The entire *point* of a free market is to benefit society by improving efficiency, efficiency improves since buyers will choose the best supplier for their need, and suppliers will have to make competitive offers, or else not sell anything.
Transporting something from a place where it's cheap, and to a place where it's worth more and sell it there is a fundamental function of trade. We'd all be a lot worse off if that wasn't possible.
Frankly, I don't see why the US govt or the EU hasn't cracked down on this bullshit a long time ago (at the very least when the DVD-standard was launched with artificial barriers to trade baked-in)
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Because companies have pushed to be able to have this privilege, while end-buyers (aka consumers) have not banded together to get law changed in their favour.
Re:Probably a requirement (Score:4, Insightful)
His point is that, in the UK, prices are significantly higher, even though incomes are not drastically different than those in the US.
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That equates to around 25 quid. The retail box, in high street shops, has a "recommended retail price" (RRP) of £35 (US$70), but almost all shops, and even Amazon UK, have got it discounted to £24.99 . Given that I'll get a shiny box to put on my O'Reilly Wall, plus hopefully some manuals, I'll get the real box as opposed to the virtual one (I don't imagine I'll ever actu
Re:Probably a requirement (Score:5, Insightful)
By selling the product at $10USD in a foreign market, it is shown that the product still generates profit (or they wouldn't sell it that low).
So the issue becomes that of "How much can they rape the local market for?"
Violating Regional Licensing or whatever cannot possibly "hurt" a company, if the company would lose money selling it in the US at $10 a copy, there is no way they are going to sell it for $10 a copy in Russia. At worst the company won't make as much profit as they want. Either way they still make some profit.
Re:Probably a requirement (Score:4, Informative)
I have no intention of defending this company for shutting off users who bought their product from an international dealer, because that is what "international" means. They can sell internationally.
However, your statement isn't in general true. There are, for many products, tariffs and import duties that make it more expensive to sell in certain markets, and likewise less expensive in others. I was once almost charged $25 per case for "camera cases" by an over-zealous customs agent because they were aluminum, and that is the import duty for "aluminum camera cases". It was an incredible hour out of my life, hearing that "cardboard" cases were duty free (so he wouldn't charge me duty on the boxes that the cameras themselves were shipped in). I finally got through to him that these were not "camera cases" as in "put my expensive Nikon camera in a carrying case", but "metal housings" for the OEM camera circuit boards that were in the same shipment. Sheesh.
Also, the distributor's costs in another country may be lower (lower wages for the wage slaves, etc.) so the distributor may mark the wholesale price up less.
And finally, the differing regulations regarding radio emissions (as one example) may make it much more costly to certify a piece of equipment in the US than in some other country, and the other country may get a slightly different, less expensive version of a product because it doesn't have to be as well shielded. Or it may have different/limited features due to differing laws.
Violating Regional Licensing or whatever cannot possibly "hurt" a company, if the company would lose money selling it in the US at $10 a copy, there is no way they are going to sell it for $10 a copy in Russia. At worst the company won't make as much profit as they want.
It would hurt the local distributor, who may have had to purchase in lots of 100 to get his discount, when an overseas dealer who signed a contract to sell only in Europe undercuts his price in the US. Or a foreign (to the US) dealer sells radio equipment that has different features, and the user expects the US repair facilities to be able to fix it when it breaks, under warranty. And in the latter case, the manufacturer may have legal issues even though his dealer is the one importing non-FCC type-accepted products.
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The reason for higher prices in Britain is sales tax. You pay 17.5% VAT on a game in Britain but in the US sales tax normally isn't included in the prices as it varies from state to state. Now you could argue that sales tax in the UK is too high but that is another discussion altogether.
Re:Probably a requirement (Score:5, Insightful)
Your basic position is that not making A LOT of profit and instead making LESS THAN A LOT of profit is the equivalent of "losing money."
Never mind the fact that by regionally isolating a product you can bypass normal Supply & Demand dynamic.
Re:Probably a requirement (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Probably a requirement (Score:5, Insightful)
Valve wants to make a game, it costs $100 million to make.
That means they have to sell 2 000 000 copies at $50 to break even. If they only sell at $50 then in countries with lower wages they won't sell any copies.
According to their market studies, if the global market is 20 million players 75 percent of which have a low income ($400/month) they will likely only make marginal sales in the low income part of the market because for most of these potential players the price is just too high(let's say they stille make 10 000), and they will have to make the bulk of their sales in the high income part of the market which is only 5 million people. Their market study says they will only be able to sell 1.3 million copies in this market, because of piracy, second hand sales, other games etc. 1.3million * $50 is only $65 million and they loose money, so they don't make the game.
Ok so $50 is too high, let's tap the low income market and price everywhere at $10 :
they will sell 7 million in the low income market and maybe 3 million in the high income market that's 10 million sales for only $100 million dollars revenue. as much as valve love it's gamers it doesn't want to make a game to only break even it wants to make money
Now their marketing officer checks out to see what happens if they have two pricing policies : say $10 for low income segment and $50 for high income segment. Suddenly the market study indicates they will be able to make a huge amount of sales in the low income segment say 7 million out of the 15 million people and they will sell 1.1 million copies in the high income segment (because the game is more widespread in countries that don't have as strong copyright laws there will be more piracy, they are still able to prevent high income gamers from buying at low income prices since they have this nifty activation system).
7 000 000 * $10 is $70 million !
1 100 000 * $50 is $55 million !
Total sales : $125 million suddenly they make $25 million! instead of loosing money, they almost make twice as much money as they did with the first scheme and %25 more than the second scheme!
Now which option would you choose ? Sure my numbers are completely made up so that the sum work out in the end, but don't doubt a second that it is exactly the kind of reasoning that went behind the creation of the regional lockout and the different pricing schemes.
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Protectionism or free market? (Score:4, Insightful)
Are free market and globalisation only for the big players, or should they be for everyone? Suppose a company is looking for labour, and they can buy it here for $50 an hour or overseas for $10 an hour. They think they can save some money by importing labour from abroad (or having their work done there), but when they import the goods, the government suddenly says: "since you didn't buy your labour in the local market, you can't sell those goods here." That's basically what's happening here. It's a kind of protectionism.
Re:Probably a requirement (Score:4, Insightful)
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Bullshit. Utter and complete bullshit. They may make less of a profit, but they're damn sure making a profit. You know why they're making less of a profit? Because, as you noted, the economy there can't sustain a 50 dollar per game rate.
But as many have pointed out, this is a global market. You know what happens to laborers in nations that demand more pay then overseas? They have to either adjust their pay expectations to a degree w
Re:Probably a requirement (Score:4, Insightful)
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However, the producer, in this case Valve,
Re:Probably a requirement (Score:5, Insightful)
They want it both ways: they can buy stuff on the global market at the lowest achievable price. Then they come around and mandate that humans can not do that. Why? What makes a company more important than you or me? Companies scream around that regulation is bad, everything must be totally deregulated - except their customers, who must be heavily regulated to guarantee profit to the company and preferably executed if they do not comply.
Once I read in old book, that a long, lo9ng time ago there was this crazy idea that we elect governments and give them certain powers in order to make *our* lives better. We also allow the government to give certain rights to non-living entities, such as corporations, *as long as* it helps the government's primary goal: to make our lives better. What a silly, pinko-commie sentiment! Fortunately, we know it better: it must be the other way around. Corporations are the ruling class and they give power to the government to control us so that our behaviour furthers the corporations' wellbeing. We call it democracy, which is some ancient word for the power over the people!
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Close, but not quite. After the initial investment to create the game, producing the media and bandwidth to download/play is close to zero. As long as they sell any games at any amount over a couple bucks, they're making more money than they would be otherwise. It's the same reason airlines will often offer really cheap seats on flights with a lot of empty space. They may not make the full ticket price, but it's better than not making anything at all off those seats.
Translating a game to a different
Re:Probably a requirement (Score:5, Insightful)
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So it's not okay to ban my account when I go back home becauase:
a) When I was there that's all I could afford
b) I was living there not shipping it to another country.
Over 25 Million foreigners live in Tha
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This is once again the old argument of the "strong" vs. the "weak". The strong will do what they can, while the weak will suffer what they must.
The ONLY reason Valve is doing this is because they CAN. There's no law against it. They write the program and they can make your computer do what they w
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So why should I go to the store if I can get a game delivered to me cheaper? Yes, it's "small scale globalisation", but at least if someone tries to cut that supply line, I can sue.
Re:Probably a requirement (Score:5, Insightful)
And yes, what's wrong with buying abroad to save money and spend that money on something else? That's like saying that companies do something wrong when they produce dirt cheap in the far east and brag that they had another record profit year and could seriously increase the benefits for their shareholders.
You want to know why it's legal for them, not you? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Probably a requirement (Score:4, Insightful)
WRONG! The company in question has to, at the very least, disclose those licensing restrictions! And even then, since they're selling (not "licensing," regardless of their BS claims), such restrictions aren't legal anyway!
Imagine if you bought a shirt while you were on vacation in another country. Then you try to wear the shirt after returning home, and the manufacturer comes and rips it off your back and refuses to let you wear it because he thinks you should have paid more by buying it locally. Is that wrong? Fuck yes, it is! AND VALVE IS DOING EXACTLY THE SAME THING!
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If they chose to license their games, I eagerly await them having customers *sign* a contract in front of them, at the store (pre-payment) with witnesses. Otherwise, it's a sale and I'll treat it like one.
Have you ever been at a company that negotiated a volume license with Microsoft? You *know* you've licensed software, as you sign a contract that says it. When you buy Windows or Half-Life at Costco you buy in with other commodities, and the *sal
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<sarcasm>
Silly you. People don't travel, only pirates and cheap-asses do.
</sarcasm>
Seriously, I am no longer going to buy HL2 (I have a legal version of HL1), because I am currently working in France for the moment and fear that if I buy a copy they will lock me out as soon as I get back to the states. Steam is a
Re:Silly users (Score:4, Funny)
And this... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:And this... (Score:4, Insightful)
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I occasionally use a certain closed-source GIS application that has constant version compatibility problems. The company line is "Upgrade." "Buy more." Isn't that about contr
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Hell, I have the same amount of control over the features in open-source software, because I'm usually pretty uninclined to add something in myself, so again, I'm at the mercy of someone else to put in a feature I want... e
EULAs are unenforceable (Score:3, Insightful)
1) Contracts must happen before the deal. Contracts cannot be ex post facto. This is why you sign contracts before you buy a house or car, and why people talk about prenuptial agreements. If it doesn't happen before the exchange, it isn't valid. All terms must be agreed upon up front by both parties, you can't tack them on later. Since EULAs don't come up until after you bought the software, they aren't enforceable.
2) Along those lines contracts must involve an
Why Mod parent troll? (Score:3, Informative)
They have no right (Score:2, Insightful)
They also have no right to require an active Internet connection in order for users to play offline, single player games.
They also have no right to make the game "phone home" every time the user wants to play.
They also have no right to force-push updates to single player offline games every time the user wants to play.
But that hasn't stopped them.
It has just stopped me from buying their games.
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How do I install and play a steam game?
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Can't say people are protected, unless taiwan has these kind of laws..and if they did they'd likely not be $20 cheaper.
They have the right to just as you have the right to go elsewhere. Personally I find the practice annoying, but I don't buy many SP games so I'm not really effected.
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When I buy a game over steam, I do not consider myself to have been buying a service, "renting" the game for an infinite period (unless banned of course), as seems to be such a popular definition for online services related to entertainment content. I consider myself to have the moral right to access the games I buy, and in the case that I am ever locked out I will simply make a new account for buying games, and torren
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But you're right about single player.
Way to burn goodwill (Score:4, Insightful)
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Methinks Zonk needs to work on his woriding... (Score:5, Informative)
"Basically?" I've been following this on the CAG forums and if you try to enter another serial after you've been locked out, Steam won't accept it because you "already own the game." Since there's no way to remove the other serial, it means that you're not basically SOL...you're just SOL, plain and simple.
Re:Methinks Zonk needs to work on his woriding... (Score:4, Insightful)
I would describe myself as more of a casual gamer, but crap like this (and what happened with Bioshock) makes me want to completely avoid PC gaming entirely and stick just with consoles. My Gamecube will happily play any game I stick into it, without requiring an internet connection.
I recently re-played my old copy of Fallout (great game, BTW). I would have been completely pissed if I couldn't play it because of some sort of hare-braned activation scheme. What happens if you want to pull out your copy of Orange Box and play it ten years from now? Will you be able to?
Re:Methinks Zonk needs to work on his woriding... (Score:5, Informative)
What? Not only will the game cube not play any game purchased outside your "region", Nintendo was the first video game manufacturer [wikipedia.org] to include such technology. Games purchased in one of the four regions (Asia, North America, Europe and Oceania, China) can't be used outside that region. Of course, you know this in advance (or should, at least) and they can't remotely kill your game, so it's better than Steam, but not by much...
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Let's see... Microsoft (PC and X-box) has X-box Live, which they make you pay extra for services Steam offers for free... and they can ban you for being bad, cutting off your online gaming. Or so they say you're being bad. That guy that got a leaked Halo 3 got banned. You can buy and download games, like Steam users can.
Sony has their Playstation online stuff... Home and all. I don't know too much about that but I bet they're going for similar capabilities as Xbox Live.
Nintendo is going online with
Re:Methinks Zonk needs to work on his woriding... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Methinks Zonk needs to work on his woriding... (Score:5, Funny)
I think Germany got the better version.
Re:Methinks Zonk needs to work on his woriding... (Score:5, Insightful)
We have a word for products that "don't work" out of the box. It's BROKEN. Nonrefundable doesn't apply if you sell me a retail product that is broken. I wonder what EU and German common contract law have to say about this...
Game portability (Score:5, Interesting)
"In Russia, we don't have American Express. We have Russian Express: `Don't Leave Home'." -- Yakov Smirnov
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You've screwed, remotely, after the purchase, with no easy option to fix it other than reinstalling and futzing around with registry settings.
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Are they supposed to change that stuff for each disc?
I solved that problem by getting a DVD player that is region free, doesn't do disabled user operations, upscales over HDMI without HDCP,
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The H4000 is similar, but goes up to 1080p, whereas the H2000 goes to 1080i/720p. I have a 720p screen, so I chose the H2000.
They don't have a presence in the US, instead shipping stuff in from Canada. I think that is to get around DVD licenscing issues.
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If you connect via wifi your IP will report you being in X country and will this prevent you from playing overnight in the hotels?
This stinks, if the account is valid, why the fuck are people buying it again - I know I wouldn't.
Two words: charge back (Score:5, Insightful)
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I'm really disappointed in Valve here, but then I guess I shouldn't be surprised.
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Re:Two words: charge back (Score:4, Informative)
As for the other guy who said "this is exactly what Valve wants, to make you pay more", well suck it up
Like I said, I think Valve sell some brilliant games for cheap, but I won't let them (or any other software vendor) take away what I've paid for without a fight.
Will this encourage software piracy? (Score:2)
It just encourages people to pirate the software. No more steam!
Xbox (Score:2)
Re:Xbox (Score:5, Funny)
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Misconceptions running rampant (Score:5, Informative)
1) Orange Box purchased through Steam (online) is NOT REGION LOCKED IN ANY WAY.
2) Codes from retail boxes in America, the EU and most other places are NOT REGION LOCKED.
3) Codes from Thailand and Russia ARE REGION LOCKED. This is done because Steam games are sold in those countries at a tiny fraction of the US retail cost. The boxes are marked (in the appropriate language) that they keys will not work in other countries.
In other words, people are getting "burned" because they bought keys from companies that buy the Thai/Russian retail boxes, opens them up, and sell you the codes for several times what they paid, which is still cheaper than the rest of the world pays. They companies know that the keys don't work anywhere else, so the people are getting basically scammed by the companies selling them keys, not Valve.
They're not military servicemen living overseas or families on vacation in Europe, they're cheapasses who fall for a scam because they're too eager to get a "great deal".
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Valve is doing the ethically right thing by allowing people living in low wage countries to buy the games at a lower price.
Now of course a libertarian will object to this because "waah waah free market" but if you envy them so much why don't you move to Africa and get a job there so you can live the high life of subsi
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Re:Misconceptions running rampant (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, yes, why not? Wal*Mart can buy shoes from Thailand for $5 and sell them here for $20, when American-made shoes of the same quality and materials would cost $50. That's supposed to be a good thing, at least that's what we tell the Americans when we close down all the shoe factories here because the shoes are cheaper from Thailand.
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And there's nothing new or novel about that. Gray market goods were being imported into the US long before "software" existed. It's never been considered immoral or "ripping off" the company to buy an American product in Hong Kong for a few hundred dollars less and bring it back to the USA.
I'm just trying to figure out why gray market goods have always been considered acceptable, DVD region encoding has always be
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So the fuck what? Chinese labor costs a tiny fraction of the money that you would have to pay a US worker. That doesn't stop anyone from buying manual labor where it's cheap and selling products at insane markups at home. If you put that genie back into the bottle, we can talk about not buying your products where we want and using them somewhere else. Can't have it both ways.
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Unless you try to buy an out of region version, then it prevents you buying it. Specifically, steam will only allow you to buy games with a card with an address that your IP is in. so, if I'm from the UK, and decide to buy the US version of steam games because it's cheaper, or released earlier, I'm denied for not having a US credit card even if my machine and I are physically in the US at the time. This wasn't needed for the oran
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Really? The article I read said they bought the game for the price Valve asked for.
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Valve was selling a product for a price, and a lot of people bought it for that price. If Valve wanted more money, they should have charged more money. You can't be "ripped off" if people are paying the retail price for your goods.
Re:Misconceptions running rampant (Score:5, Insightful)
The scam was that they didn't tell you that the keys were region-locked, which is stated ON THE BOX in those regions. It's possible that they didn't even bother to look at the box, but in that case they're just idiots, not scammers.
Valve Reality Distortion Field (Score:5, Insightful)
It doesn't matter how evil the DRM, when Valve does it, it's OK!
More than a decade after MPAA invented region-coded DVDs explicitly to protect deals with distributors, it's still an affront to us. But when Valve does it, hey, it's "just something they put something in to protect deals with distributors".
Product activation and phone-homeware is just as bad an idea when it's called "Steam" as when it's called "Windows Genuine Advantage".
Cozy deals to fuck over the consumers in favor of artificial segregation of distribution channels are just as defective by design whether they're called "Steam" as when they were called "Region-coded DVDs".
The Steam may be delicious and moist, but it's still a lie.
Steam is no triumph.
I'm making a note here - EPIC FAIL.
It's hard to overstate dissatisfaction...
Valve's DRM scheme,
It does what it must, because it can.
For the good of none of us, (except the ones who wear suits.)
But there's no use crying over software that breaks
You just keep on paying 'till you run out of cake
And the damage gets done, and the DRM's won
For the people who are selling lies.
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Yeah it is.
No, Steam (not it's DRM) gives you more convenience than you have otherwise. Convenience != rights.
We'll assume for the purposes of this discussion that this is true (although I disagree), but even so, that's despite the DRM, not because of it!
Note
GLaDOS says: (Score:3, Funny)
Paid more (Score:2, Interesting)
And now it starts. (Score:5, Interesting)
This is why I play games on the consoles, you buy the game, you play the game. I want imported games, buy imported console, hook up to TV, play games. No one can come into my house and take my games away from me. The reason I stopped playing PC games was I was always treated like a darned criminal, especially when I paid for the game. The cracked games don't have the nagging that the retail versions do. Now, they are playing this game. This is just lovely. When did I stop being the person who put food on your table and became just another game citizen to keep on taxing with no accountability to? I stopped playing Valve games after steam came out. You could see the writing on the wall, this was going to end badly, just a matter of time.
I read the title wrong (Score:3, Funny)
This is also being discussed here,.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Whirpool is an aussie forum for discussing all kinds of things over here.
Anyhow an online store 'just over the pond' in Thailand called Zest has been selling a lot of games lately, they often open the product, give you the CDkey via email and dispose of the rest, or you can pay to have the whole lot shipped.
Sounds shady but well apparently it works and very few cases of people having CD key issues.
It's hard to know where to stand on this, I can certainly see why Valve have done it. In order to stop piracy in dodgy countries like China and Thailand they simply drop the price, way way low, if I recall Microsoft were thinking (or did?) the same thing with Windows at one point..?
Technically it's still a valid key, however it was intended for that country.
All that being said Organge box (stupid bloody name) is cheap as chips right now. Despite being a tightass consumer, when you think about 45$ US for the preorder is like 55$ AUD, that's fantastic value in my mind. (yes, I purchased on steam)
However! other companies besides Valve like EA are also blocking these online sales and they DON'T release with nice prices like Valve. You want Crysis? 100$ AUD (or 91$ US) and we speak the same damn language, it's not like they need to re-author it (color/colour jokes aside) or make a 220V power supply (software here, not hardware)
I don't agree with those prices at all.
I frequent US-centric forums all the time and it kills me to hear of the bargains you guys get as consumers.
Price match this, rebate that, sale this, 2 for one on that.
I mean you get a brand new game, sure it's 50 or 60$ US but within 2 weeks a smart consumer can have it for 30$ US (40$ AUD)
Over here, the new stuff starts at 120/110/100$ AUD (109/100/91$ US!) and may drop if we're lucky to 70$ US in a month or two - what the fuck people what the fuck.
So ultimately, this isn't cool for some tightasses but really go complain to EA about blocking regional games from Thailand, because those cockhats DON'T offer a cheap good download service like Valve yet they are doing the same thing.
What about military members? (Score:3, Informative)
What about guys who deploy elsewhere?
Region dependency is just as stupid as most other DRM restrictions. Maybe even worse, since they're explicitly disallowing people from using legit originals. That sucks. Bad move.
I was going to buy the orange box but I'm in the military and might have to move or deploy before Valve fixes their rectal-cranium inversion on this issue. No way in hell will I buy something that could be disabled just because I move.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)