Buying US Steam games in the UK

[kalniel]

This may be a silly question but since we seem to have a different database of games at sometimes different prices (Bioshock was at $19 apparently at US) why don't we just get prices in £/Euros?

Cheaper/more consistant for Valve to deal in dollars - that way the user pays for all the exchange expense/currency variation.

Not sure the EU would be all that happy with it if they looked into it proper - Steam is set up as a european/UK store hence why you have to pay VAT and how they can have different products and different prices, but I don't know you are allowed to advertise the price without VAT or charge in dollars if you're a UK/EU store. All a bit murky if you ask me, but then it's a relatively new model so I'm not surprised EU law hasn't caught up with it yet.

[Steven.Michael]

Steam are good. I had a rradeon card once and they let u have 2 free games!!!

[finlay666]

Steam are good. I had a rradeon card once and they let u have 2 free games!!!

Let me guess, lost coast and HL2: Deathmatch

Nvidia give you peggle extreme aswell lol

[neoboy]

Cheaper/more consistant for Valve to deal in dollars - that way the user pays for all the exchange expense/currency variation.

Not sure the EU would be all that happy with it if they looked into it proper - Steam is set up as a european/UK store hence why you have to pay VAT and how they can have different products and different prices, but I don't know you are allowed to advertise the price without VAT or charge in dollars if you're a UK/EU store. All a bit murky if you ask me, but then it's a relatively new model so I'm not surprised EU law hasn't caught up with it yet.

I'm just a bit cheesed off as my bank charges me extra £1.50 whenever I buy something off steam, which I presume because it has to exchange the £s into $s.

[hyenwo]

using a US proxy it's possible for us (and rest of europe) to buy games off steam only available in the US, however it's against the steam subscriber agreement and you risk losing your account altogether if the publishers chase you up on it. i havn't heard of this happening for non-valve games so far, but it's possible it can happen:

Some consumers who purchased Valve's Orange Box from vendors located outside of their home country--mainly in an attempt to save on cheaper products--have recently reported that their otherwise legally-obtained games have since been deactivated by Valve's Steam software for territory violation. Talking with Shacknews, Valve's Doug Lombardi now says that the Steam software is merely carrying out this function by design. "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," said Lombardi.

http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/49656

in the past i've used http://socksify.com/ to do just what you're asking, they give you a US based SOCKS/http SSL proxy server which you put into your internet explorer settings, steam will use this to connect to the servers and let you buy US games (without UK VAT). since the orange box fiasco though i've been more careful with territory violation

[kalniel]

I'm just a bit cheesed off as my bank charges me extra £1.50 whenever I buy something off steam, which I presume because it has to exchange the £s into $s.

Pay using paypal then and tell paypal to take the payment from your bank in GBP. Then your bank gets nothing and you just have to pay paypal the exchange commision instead. Personally I check the T&C and see which ends up with the cheapest commission and just use that. For all its evils Paypal does sometimes have a good role to play

[poozle]

Or get a current account with Nationwide (among others) 0% fees on currency conversion, works well for buying from steam

[theuncharmed]

using a US proxy it's possible for us (and rest of Europe) to buy games off steam only available in the US, however it's against the steam subscriber agreement and you risk losing your account altogether if the publishers chase you up on it. i haven't heard of this happening for non-valve games so far, but it's possible it can happen: ...

I wouldn't like to risk it in honesty. Don't want Lombardi on my case - I've spent silly money on my Steam account [paying over the odds on many games] so I think I'll just have to accept I can't get the games I want ...

[Merson]

Wish they would add an option to have tax included on the price before you purchased it, its annoying to buy something then get instantly hit by tax.

[theuncharmed]

Wish they would add an option to have tax included on the price before you purchased it, its annoying to buy something then get instantly hit by tax.

Agreed. I bought COD4 from there the other night and thinking I'd be spending £35, ended up £41. Still bought it, but it's very annoying.