[Boudica]

Valve and five other PC game publishers were fined $9.5 million by the European Commission because they geo-blocked cross-border game sales in the European Economic Area. This broke EU laws around their Single Digital Market.

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The European Commission says the geo-blocking was to prevent games being activated outside Czechia, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Geo-blocking prevents gamers living in EU countries with higher average incomes from being able to save money buying them in EU states where they’re cheaper and then activating them on Steam. Activation keys were geo-blocked between 2010 and 2015, the European Commission said.

Source

[Dismas]

Now we just need them to lift the geo-block on Russian keys, haha.

[Boudica]

Now we just need them to lift the geo-block on Russian keys, haha.

Wouldn't that be a dream! It frustrates me how much they mess with game pricing.

[Dismas]

Now we just need them to lift the geo-block on Russian keys, haha.

Wouldn't that be a dream! It frustrates me how much they mess with game pricing.

It makes sense. The value of currencies across countries differs, as does the purchasing power. The average Russian citizen does not want to pay $60 USD for a game that is just released, so games are offered at a lower price. Steam tries to limit the abuse of such things, but EU wants to stop them.

[Boudica]

Now we just need them to lift the geo-block on Russian keys, haha.

Wouldn't that be a dream! It frustrates me how much they mess with game pricing.

It makes sense. The value of currencies across countries differs, as does the purchasing power. The average Russian citizen does not want to pay $60 USD for a game that is just released, so games are offered at a lower price. Steam tries to limit the abuse of such things, but EU wants to stop them.

It does make sense, of course it does. However, you can't help but have the "grass is greener" lens on at times. The EU has a valid reason for stopping them, though. EU single market = the economy of everything in it. It doesn't make sense to break an agreement for just some products, and not others. That could be problematic in the long run. I think they are operating on the basis that staying strict on this, could save them concerns later on if they let too much slide.