Better method to change country stores

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Colonel Panik 20 Jul @ 12:47am

Having just moved internationally I find I cannot share my steam library with my child who just created an account, without switch my store to a different country.

This is fine - I've moved. But I cannot do this without purchasing something.

Why I cannot just 'do a transaction' - so many banks or financial institutions have done something like this, to charge you 1 cent to verify ownership without requiring a full purchase.

Yet Valve is asking me to purchase *an entire game* I do not want or need. I have been a steam customer since nearly launch date in 2004. I have purchased hundreds of games. Why should I have to purchase an entire game I do not want or need?

1) This is a burden to paying, long time customers.
2) you are financially 'punishing' paying, upstanding customers from the bad behavior of a few
3) Do not tell me this is for my protection when its most definitely for your own legal team
4) I figured contacting support would be enough but it appears to be either AI generated or purely script driven.

Why can you not have a 1 cent 'move my country' purchase item? You already don't allow to change back for months at a time so if someone is trying to game a system its already time delayed.

Annoyed and venting here since I have thousands of dollars worth of games I've collected over the decades and now I want to share with a child, who lives in the same house. I mean I could delete the child account, and recreate it in the country I created mine in, but then we'd be in the same situation the next time I *did* want to buy a game, and then I'd have to buy *two* - one for mine, and one for my child.

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Anonymous Helper 20 Jul @ 3:00am

One reason is that every transaction costs more than one cent. This is why Valve forces minimum price for games to be 0.49$ (technically it's 0.99$ full price, 0,49$ on sale no matter the discount percentage) to very least cover the cost of the transaction. Same reason Humble change the minimum price of their pay what you want bundles to 1$. Every 0.01$ cost them money and that adds up when there are tens or hundreds of thousands of transactions.

Another reason for requiring transaction using local payment method is to verify you are actually living in another country as that payment method needs to be issued bu that country financial institution and have verified local home address tied to the payment method. You also generally have to prove your identity to the financial institution to be issued a payment method.

Steam Support is handled by commissioned 3rd party company who isn't allowed to change your store location.

Your account age, number of games and amount spend or any other factors are irrelevant. All accounts are treated the same whether it's a freshly created account or account created the day Steam was released and which you have spend millions of dollars on.

Check the sales page on SteamDB and buy cheapest thing (0.49$ or your region equivalent) available. The amount spend does not matter, just that you make transaction using your new country's payment method accepted by Steam.

https://steamdb.info/sales/

Last edited by Anonymous Helper; 20 Jul @ 3:06am

rawWwRrr 20 Jul @ 3:15am

Originally posted by Colonel Panik:
Having just moved internationally I find I cannot share my steam library with my child who just created an account, without switch my store to a different country.

This is fine - I've moved. But I cannot do this without purchasing something.

Why I cannot just 'do a transaction' - so many banks or financial institutions have done something like this, to charge you 1 cent to verify ownership without requiring a full purchase.

Yet Valve is asking me to purchase *an entire game* I do not want or need. I have been a steam customer since nearly launch date in 2004. I have purchased hundreds of games. Why should I have to purchase an entire game I do not want or need?

1) This is a burden to paying, long time customers.
2) you are financially 'punishing' paying, upstanding customers from the bad behavior of a few
3) Do not tell me this is for my protection when its most definitely for your own legal team
4) I figured contacting support would be enough but it appears to be either AI generated or purely script driven.

Why can you not have a 1 cent 'move my country' purchase item? You already don't allow to change back for months at a time so if someone is trying to game a system its already time delayed.

Annoyed and venting here since I have thousands of dollars worth of games I've collected over the decades and now I want to share with a child, who lives in the same house. I mean I could delete the child account, and recreate it in the country I created mine in, but then we'd be in the same situation the next time I *did* want to buy a game, and then I'd have to buy *two* - one for mine, and one for my child.

So buy a $1 game and be done with it. Don't want it? Refund it.

Why make this more complicated than it already is?

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All Discussions > Steam Forums > Suggestions / Ideas > Topic Details

Date Posted: 20 Jul @ 12:47am

Posts: 2

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