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I will move to Germany this Tuesday and live there for one year. But I have bought all of my Steam games in Russia (where I currently live), and some of the copies are likely region-restricted. Will I be able to play them? If not, is it possible to "upgrade" the game to the full, not region-restricted version?

I tried to search for and words like "abroad", "region", but didn't find anything.

I would prefer answers from other Russians who have been to Germany, but if you back your answer up with official answers from Valve, that is also OK.

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    There is a Steam support page on region restrictions, which seems like it only matters where the game was bought unless the game page states differently. However, it doesn't cover moving to a different country, only travelling. You can read through it here: support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=1266-QFZC-2141
    – DGarvanski
    Commented Jun 16, 2017 at 11:51
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    According to Reddit you can get locked out of some games, but if you can provide your ID and stuff you can ask the Steam support to unlock them.
    – dly
    Commented Jun 16, 2017 at 11:53
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    @dly Could you pls link to that Reddit post?
    – R.I.P.30.12.21Baskakov_Dmitriy
    Commented Jun 16, 2017 at 12:12
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    To be save you could contact the steam-support now and warn them. If you have trouble with steam while being in germany just contact them again. If you warn them now it doesn't look like a petty excuse.
    – user168635
    Commented Jun 16, 2017 at 14:20
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    @SargeBorsch VPN is a direct road to suspension.
    – R.I.P.30.12.21Baskakov_Dmitriy
    Commented Jun 17, 2017 at 14:29

4 Answers 4

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According to Reddit you can get locked out, but you can contact Steam support to get your games back:

Hello fellow Russian.

I've moved to the EU several years years ago and had some games which were locked-out. Here's what I've done: I wrote to the steam support and asked what can I do about it. I got asked the following scans: ID, Address Card and a paid bill for this address. After this my locked games became available to me.

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    Of course, some titles might actually be unsanctioned for sale in some places due to trade or licensing restrictions. I don't use Steam, so I don't know how they handle such situations.
    – can-ned_food
    Commented Jun 16, 2017 at 17:00
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I've moved from Russia to US and I have no problems playing my games or buying new ones.

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    Did you check all of your games before and after moving? Also, I can guarantee you that there are differences between the Russian and US Steam stores.
    – Amani Kilumanga
    Commented Jun 18, 2017 at 2:53
  • @AmaniKilumanga There are more than 1000, so I did not check them all. I have never noticed a single change. And I think that my store is still Russian.
    – Ark-kun
    Commented Jun 18, 2017 at 6:31
  • The store contents are different depending on what region you are in. You can change the language settings, but you can't normally buy games that are not available in your region. Then again, the US might have more games available than Russia, meaning you didn't miss out on any content because you moved in the right direction (as far as game availability goes).
    – Amani Kilumanga
    Commented Jun 18, 2017 at 6:47
  • I did not change the region manually and it has not changed automatically yet (more than a year). There are very few games not available in Russia (I cannot name any myself), so I'm not pressed to change it.
    – Ark-kun
    Commented Jun 18, 2017 at 8:03
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    I was using my old card at first, but then I've switched it to US-issued one. Maybe, I'm just lucky... Or maybe I forgot to change the address. This happens.
    – Ark-kun
    Commented Jun 18, 2017 at 8:09
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Well, I have to accept an answer that "worked for me", so I have to write my own: not a single problem I have seen, even though I had a RU/CIS version of, for example, Bioshock Infinite. I can still install it (the button is active, the download starts) and likely also play it (I don't want to download 40 GB to test it now).

Probably because Steam didn't receive a single German payment from me yet, probably because the game was bought pretty long ago (summer 2016). But I will watch what happens later and check if it still works.

What is also interesting: when I open Steam Store, at first it shows me the price in Euro, but after ~1 second the page refreshes and I start to see it in Russian rouble.

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TL;DR: definitely don't worry about it. Even if some tiny minority of games get blocked you can always use VPN to pretend you're still in Russia.

Some games are region-specific and might get you geo-locked out of them. But most games are totally fine to play globally. I bought all my games in the China store, which has the same much lowered price as those in the Russian store, but I'm playing it in HK and in Germany. The only game that got geo-blocked was Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Director's Cut (which I think was specifically listed as region-exclusive). Steam wouldn't let me install the game, and even if I installed it, I couldn't launch it without a VPN pretending that I'm in Asia-Pacific.

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    That's gonna get you banned
    – aytimothy
    Commented Jun 29, 2017 at 0:08
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    @aytimothy Any reference for that? Especially when you're playing a single player game? Why do they even ban you if you're playing on your own.
    – xji
    Commented Jun 29, 2017 at 6:57

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