Valve explains Orange box deactivations

[Harv]

Developer defends right to territorial control

Consumers based in the US who bought Orange Box product keys from an online retailer in Thailand are having their copies of the game deactivated.

Orange Box developer and Steam operator Valve issued a statement late last week defending its behaviour. "Valve uses Steam for territory control to make sure products authorised for use in certain territories are not being distributed and used outside of those territories," the company said.
"In this case, a Thai website was selling retail box product keys for Thailand to people outside of Thailand. Since those keys are only for use in Thailand, people who purchased product keys from the Thai website are not able to use those product keys in other territories."

Consumers who have since bought a new domestic copy of the game but could still not get the new Orange Box to work, have been told to contact Steam directly.

"Some of these users have subsequently purchased a legal copy after realising the issue and were having difficulty removing the illegitimate keys from their Steam accounts," the statement continues. "Anyone having this problem should contact Steam Support to have the Thai key removed from their Steam account."

So now even the games devs are cashing in on selling at different prices to different regions. Will never happen but i wonder if everyone refused to buy any games for a few months unless they dropped the price to a standard global price they would listen. Pffff who am I trying to kid as much chance of that as an xbox 360 not scratching a disc if moved while switched on

[Cintaria]

I like how they use not-xbox360 in portal to cook food on
notice the "consoles" with saucepans and tins of beans everywhere?

[Harv]

This also brings up further issues. If I move regions after buying games legitimately do they seriously expect me to have to re-buy all my region locked games.

If we took this to extremes and i went out and bought big brand clothes from abroad at cut throat prices would the companies come over to my house and demand i burn them and buy a new set if I want to wear them in the UK?

They have a get out wit hardware in that you have different power requirements and up until HD different Viewing capabilities ( PAL and NTSC as examples ) but software ?

Why should we be made to pay more than other countries for exactly the same bit of code on exactly the same bit of media ?

I play MMORPGS on servers in America and I don't pay a different rate to anyone else in the world? Why do I have to pay more for a private network? Surly if it is connecting via Thailand then I get a slower game rate because of the server it uses and that is my compromise if I am using a lesser spec server over there to play?

This is just monopolising the industry, making money off people because they feel they can sting us for more and then moaning because some few people don't want to pay the extra money.

Shame on Valve for trying it on and especially so for not offering to update the "culprits" keys for the difference in money after not pointing out that they would disable their accounts.