Possible Steam region lock?

[EuRoKa]

Hi,

just a few quick questions regarding the pre-purchase. I’m currently in China and noticed the game is sold at a cheaper price here on steam. If I pre-purchase it here, will I be able to access it from anywhere else in the world in the future? Does the pre-purchase have any influence on that (for example, I would also have to be in the same region of the purchase, when I activate it on release date)? It’s gonna be a while until I’m back in Europe so I’d appreciate it if I didn’t have to wait.

Thanks a lot!

[The Q]

Yes, it's region-locked. See [PSA] How to check if a game is region-locked?

[cxz7410]

Is there any region lock between USA and Europe?
Or between UK and Europe?

[Geek]

It seems so : https://steamdb.info/sub/74961/
Game is cheaper anywhere outside the eurozone.

[Arkblade]

Region lock? The Japanese will get angry (They are always exposed to unlawful region locks, Recently there are successive cases where legitimate(even if in japan) adult games didn't provide adult scenes to only Japanese.)
in anyway, the case spoken here is regional price, not Region lock.

[PabloRSA]

It would depend on how long you are in china for.. If its more than 1 year then you don't need to worry as ES will release a noSteam.exe which you can use anywhere ofc.

But as someone posted it says not trading or gifting, i am not an expert but it doesn't say anything about region playing locked, see the link below for more info

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_art ... -QFZC-2141

[Travisaggie04]

Interesting... I bought the CE and am taking a vacation for a month and a half in the Philippines (from Canada) and was planning to get some serious gaming time in. I hope this will not impact my ability to play.

[StoneLegionYT]

People trying to get the game cheaper don't try. In the end it will bite you so hard and you will wish you never tried. Just a warning.

[EuRoKa]

Thanks for all the replies. I tried to play XR which I purchased in Europe and it worked in China. However, unlike the above posted X4 link, the message "the Cross region trading and gifting is disabled for this item" is not shown here on the XR info page.

The history in the link says something about changed territory codes in January 2016 for XR. I'm not sure if that means that Egosoft has changed the access limitation after having a similar restriction in place at XR release as they seem to do it now with X4. I guess there is hope that they will also make X4 available for playing everywhere in the world after some time has passed. An official response would be nice.

Apart from that, steam says here that it would inform about a region restriction during the purchase process. So far I haven't seen such a message.

PS: I am now in China for just a while but I will move to Japan for a longer period. The cheaper price in China would have only been a bonus but I'm mainly interested in the region lock itself.

[Axeface]

Region lock? The Japanese will get angry (They are always exposed to unlawful region locks, Recently there are successive cases where legitimate(even if in japan) adult games didn't provide adult scenes to only Japanese.)
in anyway, the case spoken here is regional price, not Region lock.

There are definately region locks, Im english but moved to south america and when I buy a game is says that I can only buy, activate AND play games in that region. It doesnt apply to all games though. I dont know how it works or why, and its very annoying. If I moved back to the uk ide have to rebuy about half of my games.

[EuRoKa]

There are definately region locks, Im english but moved to south america and when I buy a game is says that I can only buy, activate AND play games in that region.

Well, that would mean it's safe to buy as I don't get such a message from steam for X4.

It doesnt apply to all games though. I dont know how it works or why, and its very annoying. If I moved back to the uk ide have to rebuy about half of my games.

I'm currently playing some Cities: Skylines which I bought in Europe. It works without a problem in China. I also bought some DLC's in China and there are no compatibility issues. That is just one more reason why Colossal Order deserves the great reputation it already has. I hope it's gonna be the same with Egosoft.

[Axeface]

You can test it by adding a game to your cart as a gift, some games will give you the warning stating that if you gift them to anyone outisde of your region they wont be able to activate it (it still lets you sernd them it though... laughably, I sent a gift to a friend once and didnt notice the warning).