Valve has seemingly just made it it more difficult for Steam users to buy games on the cheap from other regions.
As highlighted by SteamDB on Twitter, Valve has added a limit on how often users’ can change the region associated with their Steam account, preventing them from embarking upon a never-ending world tour in a bid to find the cheapest games.
Following the change, it’ll only be possible for Steam users to update their country once every three months. Purchases must still be completed using a payment method from whatever region a user is currently associated with an account.
“In a further crack down on people buying games in cheaper regions, Valve added a limit on how often you can change your Steam account’s country,” tweeted SteamDB. “Country may not be updated more than once every 3 months. Purchases can be completed using a payment method from your current region.”
The move comes ahead of the Steam Summer Sale, which according to SteamDB is also due to start this week. At the time of writing, Valve’s official Steam Store Country documentation doesn’t mention the three month switching limit, but reiterates “your store country must be set to the country where you currently reside and you must have a local payment method you can use to make purchases.
