Steam, banning players for being generous?
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That's not a legal backing for regional lock-outs. Ever hear of systems without regional lock-outs? Top-loaders for the NES/SNES for one. The DS, it's got no regional lock-out. It's also legal to import systems and games from other regions.The_root_of_all_evil said:
Regional lock-outs don't exist for censorship reasons, or (mostly) to enable companies to price based on region. The main reason was actually for the convenience of distributors.
So you have heard of them. Why do you insist they didn't exist then? The world's moved on since the NES generation.Chibz said:
Only if the importer bought them from the same company, but in china and chinese currency.Blue_vision said:
They lost exactly the same amount of money as if the 20 people buying the games would be american.
Its just prevending them from ripping of the rest of the world. Its not that long range digital distribution cost them anything. There is no reason for different prices, except that the dollar is weaker than the Euro so the europeans are used to pay more.
Its like me selling a self programmed game at 20$ if your first name starts with A-H and 40$ if it starts with I-Z.
Doesn't matter. There's enough industry protective laws to make an industry standard equal to a legal standard; and a whole bagful of lawyers willing to make that happen.Chibz said:
Or perhaps you want to overturn the "degradation of drinking water/increase in bottled water" standard, the "Best Before Date < Edible Before Date" standard or any of the other industry standards that are prevalent?
Or simply the manufacturers saying that it's Piracy to copy their materials? Same TOS, Same industry standard.
I see a lot of people making these claims that Valve is cheating you. Could you provide some numbers?Fetzenfisch said:
i.e.:
Typical cost for a new game on Steam vs typical cost for a new game at a big name store (Note: Big name store. Not some small seller that manages to get awesome prices, but the standard new price)
ok i see what i can do.Jaded Scribe said:
Steam (europe-germany)
Dragon Age II 49,90 EUR (67,43$)
Dungeons 44,99 EUR (60,79$)
Left 4 Dead II 19,99EUR (27$)
Shop (Saturn, big chain)
Actually the same.But L4D2 is 5 bucks more.
Fetzenfisch said:
So.... It seems that Steam is the exact same price as buying retail, and in the case of L4D2, Steam is actually cheaper?
How does this equate to being cheated?
By selling making different prices in digital distribution, where i wont have a dvd or box. And they have no cost of import at all. They are just using the convienience of higher prices,without extra service. Alone charging the same for a digital copy then a real one is an insult.Jaded Scribe said:
What?! No! He didn't pay VAT. I didn't pay VAT when I gifted something to MrLS. That's the problem with the whole thing. Where the heck do you get all these ridiculous ideas in your head? Holy cripes. I'm done arguing over this if you're just going to be a fool about all of this.Chibz said:
When one sends a gift to Canada from the US, no import fees are applied. Same thing happens when gifting to the EU. Exploiting this is against the law. Period.
For Valve, there are three possible outcomes here. One is nothing happens, the EU doesn't notice, and things are peachy. Two, they notice someone exploiting a loophole in their laws, Valve gets in trouble for assisting it. Three, the man breaks the law, and Valve is again in trouble for assisting it.
For the last time, Valve was simply covering their own asses to protect themselves from any potential legal issues. They are also protecting the publisher's interest as well. Valve does not want to lose any publishers from their service. It doesn't make sense for them to allow this either way, so stop arguing.
Trade regulations maybe? Agreement with your local retailers to keep them from being run out of business?Fetzenfisch said:
It is perfectly fair. You pay the price that is set by the economics in your region. It works this way for just about everything.
Self-entitled much?
Oh what the hell, they made an example of this guy, and now people will probably think twice before they do it. There was no way they could have known whether he profited from those "gifts". Personally I think Valve overreacted a bit and that simple warning would have sufficed. I don't like paying more than American gamers, but it's still cheaper than retail. In most cases that is.....if the game is on sale....um, yeah.
He paid all applicable taxes in the country where the product was purchased. He then gave the product away for $0.Zer_ said:
How is it illegal to send something to someone for free, given that we have laws that explicitly allow this? This isn't a loophole either, it's the explicitly intended purpose of such laws and agreements.
But you are right on one thing, Valve is protecting the publishers' ability to price gouge people from the EU. They're also protecting themselves from the publishers getting angry at them for allowing people to obtain products from a fair price, and from reasonable competition.
Considering it's just a bunch of 1's and 0's going over some tubes that some people have to pay per gigabit, it's really dickish to overprice the games.
Ha no. The very moment his european clients send him money throught paypal to receive the game, a purchase was made, in Europe, so the taxman wants to see VAT.Chibz said:
Simply calling it a "gift" doesn't fool anyone. It would have been a gift only if the europeans hadn't send him any money for the game.
He admitted to receiving the money for the purchase. That's the damn problem. Cripes what's so hard to understand? Also, who in their right minds would send 20+ "gifts" to people in Europe you've never actually met. It's highly suspect at least.Chibz said:
And again, as a seller, Valve can easily find out from PayPal whether or not the user received the money from someone else prior to making the purchase. You see Valve makes the request. PayPal says "we'll check into it." They find out that this man indeed received money for the so called "gifts". PayPal realizes that it would be in their own best interest to forward this information to Valve, lest they avoid any trouble in doing so. Valve has their proof, they ban the user for breaking the TOS and breaking the law.
It's simple... It's illegal to sell goods cross-border and labeling as "gifts" to avoid taxes and import fees. Repeat that last sentence as many times as you need to get it through to you that what Valve did was to protect their own business.
There's a reason why sellers like ThinkGeek won't ever label their packages as gifts, because that would be ILLEGAL!
Valve was not wrong at all. Valve is in the legal and moral right by compying with the law.
If you have an issue, bring it up with the governments that enforce it.
Zer: The problem is not giving someone a gift, the problem is giving someone a 'gift' and then accepting its purchase value in return in order to avoid paying tax.
Also, just so you know, the reason it's called an import tax is that it's a tax. A revenue builder for the Government. Valve doesn't pocket the bloody tax.
If you have an issue, bring it up with the governments that enforce it.
Zer: The problem is not giving someone a gift, the problem is giving someone a 'gift' and then accepting its purchase value in return in order to avoid paying tax.
Also, just so you know, the reason it's called an import tax is that it's a tax. A revenue builder for the Government. Valve doesn't pocket the bloody tax.
The question is, how can you really be said to be importing a non-physical product? Also, realistically, they should be charging import taxes to any product sold outside the US by this logic. But they aren't.Trolldor said:
At this point it's all arbitrary nonsense, so fudge the import tax element. It makes no logical sense.