Buying the game for a friend in another country.

[MorpheusKajiir]

Trying to buy this game for a friend in the USA but Steam won't let me buy any game for someone in another country. How are people getting around this?

[Fox]

VPN?

[Roland]

You could buy it from Humble Bundle which gives you a key. Then send the key to your friend in an email. They can enter it into steam and activate the game.

[hotpoon]

Even Humblebundle keys are often region locked.  This is to prevent people getting around regional pricing.  Generally developers offer games at lower prices to low earning countries (like South Africa where I live) because they would rather make some money, than none, which is what would happen if the price was too high. 

 

Minimum wage is 21 ZAR ($1.44), so we get games at lower prices usually, with some exceptions like Battlefield 2042 which was significantly more expensive for South Africans for some reason. 

 

Devs are being kind to us by letting us buy the games at a lower rate but we shouldn't abuse that by buying games for American and European friends at a fraction of the price, when they can afford full price.  Assuming that is not what you're trying to do, and you're just being kind to a friend - you could just send your friend a Steam voucher for whatever it's going to cost on their side.

[NukemDed]

sorry but i doubt its kindness  

i would say its business 

[Fanatical_Meat]

I doubt 7D2D is region blocked. 

I agree with above purchase from the humble store and email the game key. Humble is like steam they are super easy about returns if it cannot be redeemed they will certainly give a refund.

Also as mentioned the receiver could use nearly any vpn to change their ip address to whatever region they want 

[Roland]

6 hours ago, hotpoon said:

Even Humblebundle keys are often region locked.  This is to prevent people getting around regional pricing.  Generally developers offer games at lower prices to low earning countries (like South Africa where I live) because they would rather make some money, than none, which is what would happen if the price was too high. 

 

Minimum wage is 21 ZAR ($1.44), so we get games at lower prices usually, with some exceptions like Battlefield 2042 which was significantly more expensive for South Africans for some reason. 

 

Devs are being kind to us by letting us buy the games at a lower rate but we shouldn't abuse that by buying games for American and European friends at a fraction of the price, when they can afford full price.  Assuming that is not what you're trying to do, and you're just being kind to a friend - you could just send your friend a Steam voucher for whatever it's going to cost on their side.

 

That's really interesting. Sometimes I get emails begging for the game for free or for a huge discount from people claiming that they live in poor countries or countries currently being ravaged by war. I never gave much credence to those.

 

In our game's case I don't think the keys are region blocked. I've generated keys for streamers who reside all over the world and I didn't need to know where they were living before generating the keys to make sure they would work for them. 

 

 

[pApA^LeGBa]

Can´t you buy credit for others on steam? Not sure tough.

[Fanatical_Meat]

34 minutes ago, pApA^LeGBa said:

Can´t you buy credit for others on steam? Not sure tough.

That can be tricky when it is a different country. I think it can do with taxation of transferring the steam credit/gift card.

I certainly am not an expert.

[Roland]

3 minutes ago, Fanatical_Meat said:

I certainly am not an expert.

 

Which is it? No international friends or plain stingy?

[BFT2020]

Why not just do a digital steam gift card?

[BFT2020]

For legal purposes

 

https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/58D3-B80D-2943-3CC6#gifts

 

You can have restrictions placed on your account if you attempt to purchase the game in one region for another, including VPN or Humble Bundle.  If you can't gift via steam, it is because of the price differences of the areas (buying it cheaper in one area for someone else in another higher price area).  Steam will take this as violating the TOS.

[Fanatical_Meat]

1 hour ago, Roland said:

 

Which is it? No international friends or plain stingy?

Both

[Maharin]

17 hours ago, BFT2020 said:

For legal purposes

 

https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/58D3-B80D-2943-3CC6#gifts

 

You can have restrictions placed on your account if you attempt to purchase the game in one region for another, including VPN or Humble Bundle.  If you can't gift via steam, it is because of the price differences of the areas (buying it cheaper in one area for someone else in another higher price area).  Steam will take this as violating the TOS.

 

Which is a shame considering they could just allow you to pay the amount the other account would pay if they bought it themselves, including local taxes.  Problem solved.

[BFT2020]

2 hours ago, Maharin said:

 

Which is a shame considering they could just allow you to pay the amount the other account would pay if they bought it themselves, including local taxes.  Problem solved.

Sounds easy, but there are tax considerations to take into account along with currency transfer rates.  With one transaction and one account, not much of a problem; but it spread it over a large group of accounts and multiple transactions, the work adds up.  It also would increase the liability that Valve would have to incorporate such a system.  This becomes a higher accounting / legal / tracking burden for them to undertake when they have a simple solution already in place - Digital gift cards

 

You buy it, gift it to your friend, and it will autmatically convert into their currency.  Why add another system when they already have one that works?

[Vampirenostra]

Aha, nice idea by steam. So buying games in country of my residence - Ukraine means that I count be able to play them during travel as I didn't buy them in Germany or US for example... Great...

[Maharin]

On 10/19/2021 at 11:34 AM, BFT2020 said:

Sounds easy, but there are tax considerations to take into account along with currency transfer rates.  With one transaction and one account, not much of a problem; but it spread it over a large group of accounts and multiple transactions, the work adds up.  It also would increase the liability that Valve would have to incorporate such a system.  This becomes a higher accounting / legal / tracking burden for them to undertake when they have a simple solution already in place - Digital gift cards

 

You buy it, gift it to your friend, and it will autmatically convert into their currency.  Why add another system when they already have one that works?

 

That's still an easy solution for a developer like Valve.  PayPal manages transactions like this and so does every major credit card (automatically converting currencies).  If Steam already sells a game in country A then they already know all about the tax codes in country A.  So anyone else buying a game for someone in country A wouldn't exactly create an extra burden for Steam.  They can easily figure out the total amount the person in A would pay and then could charge the person in country B that amount.

 

The only time it gets complicated is if there are tariffs or other trade restrictions between countries.  There are plenty of financial services out there that can handle all of the intricacies for a fee, which Valve could just pass on to the purchaser.  Point is that it is very possible so long as Valve wants to solve the problem and developers are on board with the process.

[BFT2020]

4 minutes ago, Maharin said:

Point is that it is very possible so long as Valve wants to solve the problem and developers are on board with the process.

Point is though, Valve already has a solution for it (DIGITAL GIFT CARDS in case you missed my previous posts).  You can simply buy a $5, $10, $25, $50, or $100 gift, send it to your friend, and it will automatically go into their Steam wallet and converted into their currency (I am based in US so for me it goes $ to foreign currency).

 

Why would Valve want to create another seperate process to do the exact same thing that their current system (digital gift cards) can already do?  Companies and businesses are very reluctant to create two seperate processes if one process already handles both situations well.  While your idea might seem simple, it adds complexity to their processes when they already have a process in place to handle those situations.

 

https://store.steampowered.com/digitalgiftcards/selectgiftcard

 

 

Quote

 

What can my friend buy with their digital gift card?

Their digital gift card will be delivered into their Steam Wallet to use right away once your friend accepts their gift. That means your friend can purchase games, or micro-transactions. If your friend's account is not limited, they can even purchase items from the Steam Community Market.

Can I still buy games for my friends?

Of course! Everyone loves getting personalized gifts. If you know which game your friend already wants then you can buy that game as a gift from the Steam store. However, if you aren't quite sure what your friend might want for, say their birthday or holiday, then a Steam gift card can be a great gift. Digital gift cards can also help you contribute to a friend's game purchase or to help them buy a micro-transaction item.

What happens if my friend lives in another country?

The digital gift card you purchased will automatically be converted into your friend's currency.

 

 

[Jost Amman]

On 10/21/2021 at 3:48 PM, Vampirenostra said:

Aha, nice idea by steam. So buying games in country of my residence - Ukraine means that I count be able to play them during travel as I didn't buy them in Germany or US for example... Great...

I don't think it works that way... if you log in from Germany into your own Steam account, and you already bought the game, you should be able to download it and play it anyway you want. Am I right? 

 

The only thing you can't do is buying in Germany a game with your account created in Ukraine.

[Roland]

I still want to point out that when you buy or receive a Steam game key, there is absolutely no difference between keys. A key can be used by anyone no matter where they live as long as they can connect to Steam. If someone buys a key from TFP or from humble bundle those keys will be able to be used ANYWHERE.  If someone purchases a key in Ukraine and then activates it in Germany......the key will work.

 

Only when buying the game from the Steam store is this an issue. When you buy from the steam store you don't get a key. The game simply becomes available to your friend for them to activate. So simply purchasing a key from a source other than Steam gets around the restrictions that Steam imposes within its own store. Period. End of Story.

 

There will be five keys that will be given away tonight. They will work for the first person who activates them wherever they might be accessing the internet.

 

Humble Bundle is selling the game for $7.49 for the next 4 days. Buy it and get the key and send that key to anyone you want on planet Earth and they will be able to activate the game in their region with that key.

[meganoth]

6 hours ago, Roland said:

I still want to point out that when you buy or receive a Steam game key, there is absolutely no difference between keys. A key can be used by anyone no matter where they live as long as they can connect to Steam. If someone buys a key from TFP or from humble bundle those keys will be able to be used ANYWHERE.  If someone purchases a key in Ukraine and then activates it in Germany......the key will work.

 

Only when buying the game from the Steam store is this an issue. When you buy from the steam store you don't get a key. The game simply becomes available to your friend for them to activate. So simply purchasing a key from a source other than Steam gets around the restrictions that Steam imposes within its own store. Period. End of Story.

 

There will be five keys that will be given away tonight. They will work for the first person who activates them wherever they might be accessing the internet.

 

Humble Bundle is selling the game for $7.49 for the next 4 days. Buy it and get the key and send that key to anyone you want on planet Earth and they will be able to activate the game in their region with that key.

 

Send it to one of the indigenous people in Papua New Guinea and they could actually not be able to activate the game 😉

 

 

[Roland]

I’ve seen satellite dishes attached to those mud huts!!!

[Gamida]

25 minutes ago, Roland said:

I’ve seen satellite dishes attached to those mud huts!!!

Some of those are probably underground bases...you know like players use to be able to build before zombies could dig

[meganoth]

I think I read that last year another tribe was discovered there that had not been in contact with "civilization" before. If they have a dish now it must mean they got the super saver deal with premium credit (payed with organ donations or the souls of descendants). I hope they didn't accept the blankets edition "smallpox deluxe"

 

[Jost Amman]

3 hours ago, meganoth said:

I think I read that last year another tribe was discovered there that had not been in contact with "civilization" before. If they have a dish now it must mean they got the super saver deal with premium credit (payed with organ donations or the souls of descendants). I hope they didn't accept the blankets edition "smallpox deluxe"

My gosh! They have NO IDEA what crazy world they're being forced into! 

5 hours ago, Roland said:

I’ve seen satellite dishes attached to those mud huts!!!

Yeah, they're probably playing 7D2D and thinking... "That's NOT how you craft a stone axe!!"