News video games 24 June 2021, 11:28

Steam Will Make Cheap Purchases via VPN Even Harder

Valve has introduced a new restriction on Steam related to country settings. Thus, the platform continues to fight against the abuse of VPNs to buy games at lower, regional prices.

Valve continues to fight against the abuse of regional pricing on Steam. As reported by SteamDB, the platform has introduced a restriction on changing the country in the settings. From now on, players can update their location no more than once every three months.

It's been a year since Valve made it mandatory to complete transactions on Steam via a country-specific payment method after setting a different region. Both changes are most likely related to the practice of using VPNs to buy games at lower prices reserved for residents of selected countries (for example, in less affluent markets). Formally, the method has long been incompatible with Steam's terms of service, so using it can have unpleasant consequences for the user. Not that this deterred bargain hunters, if Valve decides to introduce more restrictions.

Jacob Blazewicz

Graduated with a master's degree in Polish Studies from the University of Warsaw with a thesis dedicated to this very subject. Started his adventure with GRYOnline.pl in 2015, writing in the Newsroom and later also in the film and technology sections (also contributed to the Encyclopedia). Interested in video games (and not only video games) for years. He began with platform games and, to this day, remains a big fan of them (including Metroidvania). Also shows interest in card games (including paper), fighting games, soulslikes, and basically everything about games as such. Marvels at pixelated characters from games dating back to the time of the Game Boy (if not older).

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