Tag: Steam

Economic Trouble Leads To Steam Trade Restrictions


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As the Ruble continues to plummet in value, tech giants are taking notice. In a notice released to the public by Steam Database, Valve has region locked all new purchases made by Steam accounts made by Russian players. While the games may be gifted or traded to players in the same region, they will not be able to transfer the games to those outside of Russia. The region locking is a common response by Valve to prevent people from taking advantage of economic turmoil to buy games at a lower price, and currently includes Russia, the Commonwealth of Independent States, South America, Turkey, and Southeast Asia.

Apple recently announced that they will be halting online sales in Russia.

(Source: SteamDB)

Steam Holiday Auction Exploited, Temporarily Suspended


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The Steam Holiday Auction is a temporary event encouraging players to recycle their unused items for gems, which can then be used to bid on games and other Steam goodies. As it turns out, players almost immediately figured out a way to farm gems at no cost to themselves, vastly deflating the value of the gems and causing hyperinflation on the price of even the cheapest games. As a result, Valve has shut down the auction for the time being.

Sorry, but there have been some issues with Gems and the Steam Holiday Auction has been temporarily closed. The elves are working franctically to get the issues sorted out, and the auction will start again as soon as they’re done.

More information will follow as it becomes available.

(Source: Steam)

Valve Changes Trade Policy To Reduce Fraud


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Valve has updated their policy on game trading in Steam, requiring a one month wait period before giftable games can be traded.

All new games purchased as a gift and placed in the purchaser’s inventory will be untradable for 30 days. The gift may still be gifted at any time. The only change is to trading.

The move is part of an ongoing effort to clamp down on steam key resellers using fraudulent credit cards to buy and quickly distribute keys. Games can still be gifted normally.

(Source: Steam)

Final Fantasy XIV Steam Trial And Free Weekend


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Square Enix has announced that hopeful gamers can now try out Final Fantasy XIV through Steam. Head on over to the Steam website, or through your Steam client, go to the Final Fantasy XIV store page, and click on the “try demo” button located on the side-bar. The trial is good for 14 days and includes certain restrictions on player activity. Further, the game has been discounted 50% on Steam down to $12 until November 12th.

Secondly, Square Enix has invited previous players back into the world of Eorzea to check out update 2.4. Users who have previously purchased the game client, or who were grandfathered in from FFXIV 1.0, will be able to log in starting November 7th and running through November 10th. Download the client and patch up today.

(Source: Final Fantasy XIV)

Valve Pulls Game After Developer Tweets Threat


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Social media has brought many great things to the gaming community, chief among which being a much closer and more personal connection with the people who make our games. Unfortunately, it has also had the effect of giving faces to the otherwise faceless, a voice to those who for the sake of the company’s public image, perhaps shouldn’t be given an open microphone.

Paranautical Activity has been removed from Steam and Valve has terminated its contract with the developer after Mike Maulbeck posted a profanity-laced rant on Twitter. In his tweets, Maulbeck called Valve “incompetent,” lamented the company’s monopoly, and expressed his hopes that the platform would no longer be a monopoly by the time his next game released. Maulbeck posted another tweet that has since been deleted, stating “I am going to kill gabe newell. He is going to die.”

Whether or not the “threat” was genuine is irrelevant to what transpired. At the end of the day, video games are a business and companies like Valve expect a certain amount of professional conduct from their partners. Business issues should be dealt with professionally via email, not through vitriolic rants on Twitter.

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Line of Defense Momentarily Made Free On Steam


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Line of Defense went into early access last week and while the idea was that players would need to purchase one of the game’s founder’s packs to gain access, a mistake in the game’s Steam listing caused the title to be made available for free to anyone, buyer or not. The mistake was fixed by Valve, but not before several thousand players had managed to start the client download. Since the players had not purchased the game, however, they were still unable to access the servers and were thus unable to play. Several of those players then took to Steam’s review system to show their anger.

In a news piece on the Line of Defense website, Derek Smart responded to complaints, noting that while the game will eventually be free to play, the current box price is to weed out players simply looking for something new and free to toy around with.

We know that a lot of you are excited about the game; but the whole purpose of pricing this Early Access tiers this way is so that we can attract a specific dedicated crowd during the next three to four months of testing. It is a very large and involved open-world game. We’re a small indie team. For those reasons and aside from the fact that we do not have the resources, we simply don’t want to be distracted by large numbers of players who – for the most part – won’t contribute any meaningful feedback to the game.

Line of Defense is currently in early access on a heavily staggered release system.

(Source: Line of Defense)

MMOrning Shots: Wakfu Steam Release


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Today’s MMOrning Shot comes to us from Wakfu, which the more observant of you will know is now available on Steam. Players who join up through the Steam service will be able to enjoy the revamped tutorial, with all beta testers receiving the Paravortal decoration item.

Check out MMOrning Shots every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Mostly.

Hellgate On Steam Greenlight


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For a game that has been in maintenance mode since 2012, Hellgate Global is a very fun title and completely free now that the full game and Tokyo expansion are available for free. In an effort to expand the game’s audience to those who have never heard of it or assumed that the game was still offline under Flagship Studios, T3Fun has put Hellgate Global on bid for Steam Greenlight. You can head on over to the game’s Greenlight page (linked below) to vote on bringing the title to Steam.

Or you can just go over to the official website and play it now.

(Source: Greenlight)

Elder Scrolls Online Now On Steam


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Zenimax Studios has announced via Twitter that Elder Scrolls Online will be launching on Steam today (July 7th). Zenimax Online Studios will be at QuakeCon where they will give a presentation titled “The Future of The Elder Scrolls Online,” this Friday at 6pm EST.

Not Massive: Sniper Elite V2 Free On Steam


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Rebellion has announced that Sniper Elite is on Steam for free for the next 24 hours. The promotion lasts until Thursday June 5th at exactly 10am PST/6pm BST. To get your hands on the game, all you have to do is open the page in Steam and click download. After that, the game is free forever.

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