Valve Updates Steam’s Pricing Restrictions to Stamp Out VPN Exploits

Regional pricing is not uncommon within the gaming market. Different regions of the world use different currencies, have varying levels of expendable income and place different values on items like video games. Add exchange rates into the mix, and you should see why some gamers use VPNs to purchase games cheaply while pretending to be in a different country. 

In some cases, the price difference between games in your home region and elsewhere are huge, and Valve doesn’t want its users to take advantage of that situation. From Valve’s perspective, it feels that the prices that game publishers set are final and that gamer shouldn’t be exploiting VPNs to take advantage of the economics of foreign nations. 

Now, Valve has added a hurdle which should stop gamers from exploiting VPNs to purchase games more affordably, requiring users to utilise a payment method that’s registered to the country that they are purchasing from. If you don’t have a payment method from these cheaper nations, you will be unable to purchase Steam games there. 

This change was first spotted by SteamDB, who recently drew attention to the price difference between different regions for Sony’s Horizon: Zero Dawn. In the US, the game cost $39.99, while in Argentina, the game originally sold for ARS$539,99 ($7,47). After VPN users exploited this lower price, the cost of the game increased to ARS$2100 ($29,06).
 

  
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