Previously they stated, that any game (gift) which was bought in Steam Store will not have any regional restrictions to add to the library and play (it is well known that CD keys usually have various restrictions on activation and playing). Actually steam support still claims that gifts will not be region locked, but it is not true, there were several solid confirmations that restrictions exist.

Right now you should be aware of following gifts.

Max payne 3 Pre order 1 (CIS) – sub id 14524 The gift has following parameter in its cdr record:

onlyallowrunincountries = AM AZ BY GE KZ KG MD RU TJ TM UZ UA LV LT EE

which means it can not be runned outside CIS countries

Max payne 3 Pre order 1 (RU) – sub id 14623 with parameter

onlyallowrunincountries = RU

which means that it will be playable only inside Russia.

Also note, that there is another gift with the same name (Max payne 3 Pre order 1 (RU)), but different subscription id ([4] 14100). It is not locked, but Max Payne 1 & 2 form this gift will contain russian language pack ONLY. It was available to purchase in Russia till 12 of May. From this moment only restricted version (sub 14524) is available for Russians.

Other region locked gifts:

• Confrontation Russian (sub id 13915) (playable only in Russia)
• Ridge Racer Unbounded (RU) (sub id 13946) (playable only in Russia and CIS countries)
• The Witcher 2 (RU) (sub id 13944) (playable only in Russia and CIS countries). Note, that there is another gift with the same name and different sub id without any restrictions. It was available to buy in Russia and CIS till 27 of March.

Source: reddit

NOT cool Valve/publishers.

No pre-loading? Not a problem anymore. Queue up your game at work and play when you get home. Same goes for being out of town for lets say future Steam holiday sales.

Here’s a screenshot of the remote installation progress:

And another quote here:

@michaellarabel
#valve does have Linux games coming plus other very positive Linux plans… I’ll briefly post some screenshots and such tonight.

And even more info here.

I can’t believe they finally did it. A lot of gamers were questioning why it wasn’t possible to access games in offline mode in Steam while an account was suspended or banned, but the real news is that you already can, Valve just never told anyone.

What’s more? Your games aren’t limited to offline mode.

While Valve doesn’t have a lot of legal lingo surrounding the use of their digital distribution service, they do make it known in the subscriber agreement consent form…

“Valve may terminate your Account or a particular Subscription for any conduct or activity that Valve believes is illegal, constitutes a Cheat, or which otherwise negatively affects the enjoyment of Steam by other Subscribers.”

One user put that clause to the test and was banned, however, he later found out that he wasn’t completely blocked out of accessing his games because of a recent policy update in Steam for account access, which has now been deemed as "account locking" instead of "account banning". According to a Steam volunteer moderator, he makes it clear that…

“Steam support stopped disabling Steam accounts a bit more than two months ago. This has been replaced with "account locking": you still have access to your games, but some restrictions are applied to your account (no trading, no cd key activation, no purchase allowed, etc.).”

He provides proof of this with screenshots of an account being banned but still having access to games in offline or online mode:

This means that gamers who have been banned either for fraudulent or nefarious purposes with the intent to use their Steam account for other activities other than gaming like an upstanding member of the interactive entertainment community, can still access the games they paid for.

There are simply restrictions added to the account but the content you paid for is content you still have access to.

Valve actually offers quite a bit of leeway in using their service, so getting banned is not something that’s particularly easy to do so long as you follow the rules. There are, however, some rare exceptions where tertiary license agreements are put into place for Steam games, particularly, EA’s games on Steam, where an EA EULA for a [now absent] product on Steam basically outlines the same sort of restrictions you would find on Origin. Of course, since it’s Steam, there’s no worries about "losing entitlements" or having third-party software scan your PC for you.

Valve’s head honcho, Gabe Newell, recently spoke out against these sort of practices that EA is using for Origin, saying that as the service stands right now it’s just not up to par to where it should be for consumers and gamers, and it’s just not doing anything super-well at the moment. It’s kind of hard to argue against that point.

At least gamers who went off the deep end and managed to get banned can still play their games and access the content on both Steam and Origin. So, in that regards, it’s a win-win situation for gamers no matter which digital distribution service you use.

However Steam’s official support representative has stated that:

“Games registered to suspended accounts will no longer be accessible; even in offline mode."

Of course, the support didn’t clarify if this applies retroactively for suspended accounts or the distinction between a suspended account or a locked account, so we’re awaiting official word from Valve on the matter.

Source: Cinemablend

YES! Finally Valve Software has decided that soon all Steam users will be able to sell or give away their own “used” games off their Steam accounts. Here is what Gabe Newell said:

“We are happy to announce that soon (May 1st) all Steam users who bought at least one game using Steam will be able to give away or resell their own Steam games to their friends. All of the funds gathered from their sales will either directly show on their credit card balance or Steam Wallet, so right now you don’t have to worry about buying a shitty game as you can simply sell it to someone else.” – Gabe Newell said.

Additionally Newell mentioned the new, improved refund policy:

“We really like how Google Play (former Android Market) handles refunds so we’re about to introduce a similar refund policy. You’ll have 12 hours to return any game whether you played it, liked it or hated it. Simple as that.”

Here are some leaked screenshots of the upcoming feature:

The idea, it seemed, was to take the console approach and provide a set list of hardware that developers could rely on from multiple manufacturers. There’s no indication that Valve was looking to create a single console to compete with the current and next-generation crops, but rather to have a standardized PC platform that lasts for up to four years at the most. There’s even talk that the Alienware X51 rig was built based on an early Steam Box spec.

According to a November 2 tweet by Valve employee Greg Coomer, a hand-built prototype consisted of a quad-core Intel i7 CPU, 8 GB of RAM, and a Zotac Z68 mini-ITX motherboard with an on-board Nvidia mobile GPU. According to Zotac’s website, the Z68-ITX WiFi Supreme supports socket LGA1155 2nd generation Intel Core processors and features the Intel Z68 Express chipset, Nvidia’s GeForce GT 430 GPU with 1 GB of DDR3 VRAM, 802.11n and Ethernet connectivity and more.

Coomer said his prototype ran Portal 2 FAST.

Still, regardless what seems to be going on with Steam Box, Valve marketing director Doug Lombardi claims the company is currently focused on prepping and shipping the Steam Big Picture Mode UI. He even admitted that Valve is building boxes to test the new Steam interface only. This new UI will reportedly make the online gaming service easier to use for people who want to play Steam games on a PC that’s connected to their TV.

“We’re also doing a bunch of different experiments with biometric feedback and stuff like that, which we’ve talked about a fair amount,” he admitted. “All of that is stuff that we’re working on, but it’s a long way from Valve shipping any sort of hardware.”

Yet hardware is not out of the question, as even Valve bossman Gabe Newell recently said that Valve will sell hardware if it becomes a necessity to keep the doors open.

On top of that, Lombardi didn’t actually refuse to say that Valve isn’t working on a hardware platform. Instead, he agreed that there’s definitely nothing coming any time soon, nothing at GDC or E3. Like Newell said, there’s a possibility that maybe some day Valve will make hardware, but Lombardi made it clear that (a) Valve partnering with hardware manufacturers and/or (b) Valve building its own hardware will not be happening anytime soon. End of story.

As for the prototype seen back in November, Lombardi said that Coomer is one of the guys leading the Big Picture effort. “The idea is that you can take Steam to any display,” he said. “What we’re trying to do is say, ‘here’s a box that we’re going to use for testing that’s common for Big Picture mode and get performance at a base level.’”

“We’re always putting boxes together,” he added. “Going all the way back to the Half-Life 1 days, we built special boxes to test our software render… it’s just part of development.”

Sound like he just nuked any speculation that Coomer’s rig was a Steam Box prototype

.

Source: Tom’s Hardware m.tomshardware.com/news/Valve-Steam-Box-Zotac-Alienware-Big-Picture,14959.html#xtor=RSS-993

Forbes editors have decided to estimate Gabe Newell’s fortune recently. As you realize there’s a list with the richest people in the world on which Gabe turned out to be… 854. This may sound not that great right? But as it turns out, if he wanted to sell his shares to someone else, he would be richer by $ 1.5 billion.

Just imagine how much does he earn by month… congrats Gabe I guess? Now make your service (Steam) better…

Recently there’s been chatter that Valve — the company behind the massively popular gaming service Steam — has been considering getting into the hardware business. Specifically, there have been rumors that the company has been toying with the idea of creating a proper set-top console which could potentially pose a threat to the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Valve co-founder Gabe Newell even recently told Penny Arcade: “Well, if we have to sell hardware we will.”

At a glance that would simply be interesting fodder for a gaming forum debate, but we’ve uncovered information that suggests that not only has Valve been secretly working on gaming hardware for the living room, but that the company is actively pursuing a strategy which would place Steam at the center of an open gaming universe that mirrors what Google has done with Android. Backing up that concept, in the same interview we quote above, Newell says that Valve doesn’t really want to do hardware on its own, stating, “We’d rather hardware people that are good at manufacturing and distributing hardware do [hardware]. We think it’s important enough that if that’s what we end up having to do, then that’s what we end up having to do.”

That jibes pretty well with this rumored arrangement.

According to sources, the company has been working on a hardware spec and associated software which would make up the backbone of a “Steam Box.” The actual devices may be made by a variety of partners, and the software would be readily available to any company that wants to get in the game.

Adding fuel to that fire is a rumor that the Alienware X51 may have been designed with an early spec of the system in mind, and will be retroactively upgradable to the software.

Apparently meetings were held during CES to demo a hand-built version of the device to potential partners. We’re told that the basic specs of the Steam Box include a Core i7 CPU, 8GB of RAM, and an NVIDIA GPU. The devices will be able to run any standard PC titles, and will also allow for rival gaming services (like EA’s Origin) to be loaded up.

Part of the goal of establishing a baseline for hardware, we’re told, is that it will give developers a clear lifecycle for their products, with changes possibly coming every three to four years. Additionally, there won’t be a required devkit, and there will be no licensing fees to create software for the platform.

We’re hearing that a wide variety of USB peripherals will be compatible with the boxes, though it will likely ship with a proprietary controller. It’s possible that the controller will even allow for swappable components, meaning that it can be reconfigured depending on the type of game you’re playing. Think that sounds odd? Well Valve filed a patent for such a device last year.

Additionally, we’re told that the kind of biometrics Valve uses in game testing will somehow be incorporated into these devices. Sources of ours say that the realtime biometric feedback in games will be a sea-change for users. To put it more succinctly, the sentiment we’ve heard is: “You won’t ever look back.” These biometric devices could come in the form of a bracelet, or be part of the standard controller.

The consoles will also take advantage of Steam’s “Big Picture” mode, a feature Valve touted last year at GDC, but has yet to release to the public. According to the company’s press release in 2011 “With big picture mode, gaming opportunities for Steam partners and customers become possible via PCs and Macs on any TV or computer display in the house.”

The most interesting piece of this puzzle may be related to that statement. According to sources, the Steam Box isn’t intended to just clash with current gaming consoles. Rather, Valve wants to take Apple and its forthcoming new Apple TV products head-on. Newell has clear questions about Apple’s strategy, telling the The Seattle Times “On the platform side, it’s sort of ominous that the world seems to be moving away from open platforms,” adding that “They build a shiny sparkling thing that attracts users and then they control people’s access to those things.”

The Steam Box could be unveiled at GDC, though we’re also hearing that the company may wait until E3 this year to show off what it’s been working on.

One thing is for sure, however: if these rumors turn out to be correct, there could be a whole new kind of battle for control of your living room happening in the near future. Of course, much of this is pieced together from a variety of sources, and there could be moving parts which we can’t see. Some of this information could change.

We’ve reached out to Valve for comment, and will update the post with any new information we receive.

Source: The Verge

Remedy is very pleased with the performance of the PC version of Alan Wake. It turns out that they made back the money they invested on the PC version of Alan Wake in just 48 hours.

“I wanted to chime in here. We are very happy with the sales and hitting #1 on Steam at launch was nothing short of amazing,” Aki ‘AJ’ Järvilehto, Remedy’s executive vice president wrote on the developer’s forum.

“We recouped our development and marketing expenses during the first 48 hours. And yes, we’re certainly very excited about PC.”

Mikko Rautalahti, who is the game’s writer was plased as well and said: “We’re pretty happy with how things have been going this far.”

Source: GamingBolt

Also, learn Ubisoft, just learn and shut up.

Dear Steam Users and Steam Forum Users

We continue our investigation of last year’s intrusion with the help of outside security experts. In my last note about this, I described how intruders had accessed our Steam database but we found no evidence that the intruders took information from that database. That is still the case.

 

Recently we learned that it is probable that the intruders obtained a copy of a backup file with information about Steam transactions between 2004 and 2008. This backup file contained user names, email addresses, encrypted billing addresses and encrypted credit card information. It did not include Steam passwords.

 

We do not have any evidence that the encrypted credit card numbers or billing addresses have been compromised. However as I said in November it’s a good idea to watch your credit card activity and statements. And of course keeping Steam Guard on is a good idea as well.

 

We are still investigating and working with law enforcement authorities. Some state laws require a more formal notice of this incident so some of you will get that notice, but we wanted to update everyone with this new information now.

 

Gabe

This popped up on Steam yesterday. Again, if you have any concerns about your card data being stolen simply cancel it and if your Steam forums password was similar to your Steam account password you should’ve changed it right away.

This Saturday the 28,000 members of this Steam group are planning to play Half-Life 2 together.

The group hopes that the massive play session will shoot Half-Life 2 up the Steam most-played list and let Valve know how many people are still waiting for Half-Life 2: Episode 3. Valve certainly know this already, and probably receive dozens of emails but the group hopes to deliver the message in a more appreciative way.

“Instead of focusing efforts in a negative and disrespectful way, we have decided to gain Valve’s attention by delivering a basic message: Your oldest and longest running fanbase would like better communication,” they say on the Steam group page.

Event is set to kick off at 7PM GMT / 11AM PST this Saturday.

Update #1:

First invite went to LTChaosLT. Congrats! Round two coming very soon…

Update #2:

We want you to make up a short story, leave a comment below or send us a direct message on our Twitter. We’ll pick the best story and post it here for everyone to read. GO!

Second winner is: Cake for this short story.

Gabe Newell said that it’s going to be a great addition and was a result of many direct requests from their customers.

“The Steam app comes from many direct requests from our customers,” he said

“Seeing which of your friends are online and playing a game, sending quick messages, looking at screenshots for an upcoming game, or catching a sale – these are all features customers have requested. Mobile is changing way people interact, play games and consume media, and the Steam app is part of our commitment to meet customer demands and expand the service functionality of Steam to make it richer and more accessible for everyone” Newell added.

We’ll be giving away 3 Steam Mobile invites later today!