We live in Germany but preordered the UK retail edition on amazon.co.uk (saved about 30%!). Now there are numerous people telling that most games from the UK can be activated in Germany on Steam. The only restrictions are with illegal games (because of Nazi History, too much gore etc.) games, but usually not because of age rating or region. But some gamers say that they couldnt activate their UK retail game with steam and a german IP. So the only logical conclusion is, that Bethesda (the publisher of the game) has ordered Steam to do so.

If this ist the case, we will have to send back the UK retail version and get our money back, because we are not willing to just burn 60€ to be f*****ed by steam (yeah i am a bit pissed by this steam activation regional restriction nonsense).

A definite word from an official source (or some lucky german who has already activated a UK retail version of the game) would be nice, so we dont have to buy the game twice (or is this the bigger plan?? ).

I've got the US version and it works fine. I don't see a reason why the UK version should make any trouble.

P.S. I just read that there is a serious problem with the activation of the UK version. No matter if you are in Germany or elsewhere. Read http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/05/13/brink-disappears-from-european-steam-store-customers-unable-to-activate-retail-copies/?ns_campaign=article-feed&ns_mchannel=ref&ns_source=steam&ns_linkname=0&ns_fee=0

Got Brink yesterday and i couldnt help myself and just tried it with the german steam account. worked like a charm and up to now i have had no problems.