Yesterday, we ran a story about that imported copies of the Orange Box are being deactivated by Steam due to territory violation. Today, Shacknews got some comments from Valve’s Doug Lombardi about the situation and here’s what he said.
"Valve uses Steam for territory control to make sure products authorized for use in certain territories are not being distributed and used outside of those territories."
"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."
People living in countries with strict game-rating laws or a cheaper price are the main reasons why people import games from other countries. Thailand is a big example where the piracy world is rampant and many gamers turn there to get a cheap game or two. But Valve is laying down the law in this case and Lombardi recommends purchasing a legal copy from a local store to keep playing.
Does this seem fair?
