Hello,

you've already covered a similar story on Company of Heroes in August, so I hope you will publish this, too, because fellow German and Russian gamers need to know this…

Let's start with the small fact that even if you buy a retail version of the game in the local shop, you still REQUIRE Steam to install on your PC. If that weren't outrageous enough, Big Brother Steam now wants to decide for us, what language we want to play our games in. IF you register the game in Steam from a German IP, it automatically locks ALL other language options. The language tab does not appear in the game properties at all (as it should, and does for the rest of the world — I hear the Poles got an atrocious translation, but at least they have an option to play it in original English) in the single-player campaign (see screenshot). The tab DOES appear in the MP version properties but it doesn't do anything, the game gets launched in German, regardless of what language you choose.

No explanation except the same feeble whining about German Federal Authorities has been given. Steam ignores any queries as to which exactly German laws does selling English games in Germany violate, and in the meantime publishes other games in English without further qualms. I've talked with IW and Steam German support via phone and they have denied any knowledge of what's going on.

There is, apparently, a bug in the German version downloaded via Steam in the first place that makes the game install in English but renders it unlaunchable if you do as much as try to change languages (see the story here), which the German IW support acknowledges as a problem, by the way. To be completely honest, I envy such players.

Now, to the Russians. It has been now officially confirmed by Valve that Russians can only play the game in Russian, so the game crashes even if you set you Steam interface language to anything else. But at least, they acknowledge this, we Germans are still subhuman beings who deserve no comment in their eyes.

See more on the story here. So far, nobody has found a workaround AFAIK.

Pure speculation begins now. It is my personal theory (which you may or may not agree with) that because of certain politically incorrect features in the game (Airport mission, Russians attacking Washington, nukes blowing up, etc.), the Steam executives decided to play it safe and censor the (in their eyes) sensitive moments out of the game. It is no secret, for example, that you CAN'T shoot the civilians in the No Russian mission in the German version of the game, completely missing the point of that level. I would imagine there are more subtle censorships in the foreign language versions, so to avoid investing extra money in consistently censoring all other language versions, Steam simply forbade people who live in a censored region from playing any version other than censored localization. And now they cover up this blatant violation of our customer rights with bleat about evil German authorities. Pure speculation ends now.

Thanks for reading this. I would be very happy if this story appears on the main blog…

OK, I'll try re-downloading the game (takes ages) but it didn't work for people who tried it before, maybe because of the region specific codes you mention, so my hopes are not very high on that issue.

But even if it works, it'll be a good workaround but it alters nothing on the fact that German gamers are not INFORMED in any way that such problems should be expected BEFORE they pay the 60 euros.

stranded said:

From my own experience I know that buying any game that requires Steam = downloading it directly from Steam. I never use the disks because they are probably localized, unpatched etc.

MW2 is the first game that I played that absolutely requires Steam. I've managed to avoid that… thing thus far. Also, if Steam is gonna download my patches anyway, I'd prefer to avoid downloading 12 GB games if I have them on discs already. I'm still downloading that MW2 from Steam right now, by the way.

Also, from what I gather, it's not a problem for people in other countries to download extra languages. What outrages me (and not only me) is that Steam FORBIDS Germans in particular to do just that. The technical possibility is there, but Big Brother's consent is not.

I'd rather wait a little longer then have fucked up game. Although it might be a cdkey region problem as well.

Yeah, well, normally I'd wait, too, but not in this case, sadly. Hopefully, IW releases a non-Steam version of MW2 at some point…

stranded said:

Valve does not offer any other form of support. I really feel sorry for you man. And I don't like how the support is talking:

[quote]Steam users with German IP addresses or billing addresses may only purchase the German version of this game via Steam

But your copy is from the store, a retail copy. This doesn't make sense.[/quote]

Indeed. I've checked the discs, it seems that the discs do not contain any language files other than German, too. And I can't download any English files via Steam because, well, it ain't allowed, as you've pointed out. So there, we Germans are screwed.

Dragoon said:

Strange story.
I read the German retail has a little bug when installed on Steam with language set to English.
It will install the Game from the first disc, but when asked to insert the second disc Steam will crash and maybe the whole computer too. The reason is that on the second disc are the language files but only the German files. After restart Steam will continue the installation and download the files from the internet.
I got this story from here.
There a German editor of the PC Magazine explain the Steam installation process.
http://www.gamestar.de/index.c………arfare 2
Well I bought the UK retail and I have a Language Tab, when language switched Steam will start downloading the localized package.

BTW: Did you really paid €60? Because the only place I saw that actually really takes €59.99 is Steam store.
Since the release I have been to several places where retail PC games are sold and the prices where around ~45-50€.

Yeah, I know about that bug and I've mentioned it in my original post. :) And yes, I've paid 60 euros to get the game on the first day after release.

Some guy on the Steam forums apparently discovered a workaround but I have still to confirm that myself. I think he simply replaced the German files with the English ones he leeched of the internet… but that's illegal! Steam is surely gonna sue people for this! People they have provoked into committing illegal acts in the first place, if I may remind…