There was a theory that the purchase restrictions were put in place by Valve, not Sony (because those countries couldn’t make an account without violating TOS). If so, Valve might shortly remove the restrictions.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 6 months ago (4 children)

Would the publisher not have to request the game not be sold in those countries before Valve restricts the sale of it?

I believe that Valve may be the ones who do it, but just doing it without permission sounds... Illegal and out of their jurisdiction.

I know Valve controls their storefront and can absolutely pull games down, just looking for some clarification on whether this could be true or not.

[–] Katana314 27 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Valve can remove games from sale for any reason they like - it's been a point of consumer contention when they are accused of censorship for certain risque anime games, too.

They can completely remove a game from sale if it turns out to be bricking people's computers or function terribly. (Sony did this with Cyberpunk on PSN, without CDPR's approval)
There may be suspicion the game is not legitimate for sale, for instance it illegally uses someone else's work.
Going country-specific, if a game is revealed to be slightly less than universally positive to the perfectly infallible, totally-not-genocidal Chinese Communist Party, they may want to stop sales in China.

If a game lets you buy it in Tanzania, download it in Tanzania, and then to play, has you sign an agreement that says "I truthfully state that I do not live in Tanzania", then that bone-headed agreement reflects poorly on Valve, so they have almost a legal need to take it out of sale in that country.

Basically, each country has its own laws of sale. Having those switches to turn off sales in certain places is important for the store's own safety. While 60% of the blame for selling a faulty product goes to the manufacturer, 40% still goes to the storefront that chose to stock and sell that faulty good. In this case, the fault was specific to the country of play.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago

That's right, I have heard of some of these cases, but thank you very much for the info! I definitely didn't want Sony to have any ground to stand on here, so happy that Valve is able to step up to protect consumers however they can.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I wish they'd remove some of the PS2 to PC ports on their store that don't actually run anymore. Prince of Persia, Saints Row 2, etc.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 6 months ago (2 children)

I hope Valve never does this. Tons of games on Steam only work with community fixes, it sets a bad precedent if they pull them because they don’t work in their official state.

It’s better to have them then not, I would just force a disclaimer during sale for abandoned titles that most players have reported that the game does not function without community patches.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago

Well the guy who made GotR to get saints row working died a few years back and AFAIK the game is effectively nonfunctional for the majority of people who buy it. Those people paid for a product that they cannot use. They could go emulate the game for free and it would run better.

Plus, the owners of the title have a functioning PC version sold elsewhere than Steam. They could easily remedy this if Steam took away their listing.

[–] andros_rex 2 points 6 months ago

Is there one for Sims 3 Medieval? A warning that it wasn’t playable on modern OSes would have sufficed.

[–] AProfessional 3 points 6 months ago (1 children)

We don’t know their personal contract, but calling it illegal is ridiculous, I’m sure Valve explicitly allows for this.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

That's why I said I wasn't sure and that I was asking for clarification?

[–] Badeendje 2 points 6 months ago

Illegal and out of their jurisdiction

Illegal means against the law.. so no.
Out of their jurisdiction, Steam is Valve's platform, so no again.

Valve is the seller in this case, who will be liable for the agreement they have with their customers. If one of their sold product is going to end up massively refunded, who do you think will be processing these? Then Valve has to turn around and get the money from Sony.. guess how Valve estimates that will go.

So step 1 for Valve is limit exposure by stopping sales where you expect issues.
Step 2 is analyzing the potential for refunds in other countries and limiting there as well if deemed to big a risk.

I can only imagine that feedback from Valve to Sony played a role in the decision to not push forward. As large corporations only speak money.. the cost benefit made at Sony must have missed some things to have it now skew the other way.

I'll believe the account requirement will be totally in the past IF the sales to the non PSN countries are reinstated. Cause why limit your customers to countries if that is not necessary.