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I live outside of US and we have only localized versions of games in stores. Most of the time I would rater enjoy a non-translated version of a game, though. I sure can simply torrent it but I also want to have a legal copy. Can someone give me a good advice on how to purchase an original non-localized versions of games?

I mostly talk about PC-games, but if you have tips regarding console or mobile games, please share as well.

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3 Answers

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You should buy them online.

Steam is great, easy to use, and keeps all your games updated with latest patches automatically. Here is an article explaining how to buy games through Steam

You need a credit card, a PayPal or ClickandBuy.

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a paypal account works too. – alexanderpas Jul 16 '10 at 1:50
Doesn't Steam know where you're living and for some games enforce the localized version? – Zommuter Jul 16 '10 at 9:11
@Tob, I live in a spanish speaking country and it never downloaded anything in spanish (at least without asking me) – jmfsg♦ Jul 16 '10 at 12:47
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I had to set Portal manually to English, resulting in another file download. And I read (somewhere in the internet...) that if a game is illegal in your country (in Germany some FPS may not be advertised openly and therefore might not be found on Steam) you can't buy it. – Zommuter Jul 16 '10 at 15:13
...and just a few days ago we have entire CIS forcibly changed all their preorders of Borderlands to 2 to Russian-only version. So, no, Steam is not an answer. – Oleg V. Volkov Sep 17 '12 at 11:31
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www.playasia.com is probably your best bet, at least for Japanese games. lik sang got shut down unfortunately. Depending on the console you might need modifications or special tools to play un-localized games.

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I buy most of my games at a certain shop we have over here. They are unofficially known to track down alternative versions of games if you ask them nicely. I suggest you ask various shops in your country. Shops of big chains don't do their own buying, they just get what their chain orders - so they probably can't help you. But smaller or independent shops might be able and willing to accommodate your request.

As for steam. The few games I did buy there haven't forced any localization on me. I got them all in English even though some had alternate languages available in the steam options menu.

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