Games priced on Steam will vary from country to country to help match local currencies. This means that there are some countries in which games are technically cheaper if you were to convert it and measure it against USD or another currency. Well it seems that some gamers have been rather enterprising and have been gifting games bought cheaper in other countries to their friends.
Safe to say that Valve isn’t too pleased by this and has recently changed its policy in which it will now prevent gamers from gifting games bought in another country to gamers of a different country. For example if you were to buy a game from Russia, you can only gift it to your friends in Russia and not those living stateside or elsewhere.
In fact Russia is one of those markets where games are priced relatively cheaper than those found in North America or Europe, especially when you consider the state of the ruble which has forced companies such as Apple to suspend online sales due to the extreme fluctuations of the country’s currency.
For those who are wondering which countries in which region-locking has been confirmed, the folks at Reddit have managed to compile a master list so if you were thinking of gifting a game cross-country anytime soon, you’ll want to check it out lest you end up wasting your money.
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