To cut the long story short - I was not satisfied with the quality of the localised versions of Morrowind and Oblivion, which were the only ones available to get legally. Skyrim has the same problem - it's will not be available as an original English version. Again the distributor is "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1C_Company", also known as "1 Ass", so the localisation (Blind idiot translation) will most definitely svck, will not be compartible with official patches, won't accept mods like OBSE, et cetera.

Screw. That.

But thanks to Steam I can purchase the game that was not butchered by idiots online, right? WRONG! The game is http://img508.imageshack.us/img508/9581/fdsfdssdaf.jpg. UK had a similar problem before, but at least they could view the store page and the problem resolved not so long ago.

I'm willing to pay three times the price of the game (Steam version is supposed to be $60 versus local retail DVD price of $20), I'm willing to play by the rules and get the game legally, despite it being an uncommon practice here and a reason for mockery, but certain developers go to incredible lengths to stop me from doing it. This leads to two simple questions:

• When will the block be lifted, if at all?
  
• Why was it placed there in the first place and by whom?

P.S. Postal service is out of question, I can't ask somebody to buy the disc and ship it to me. Last year I had to recieve several packages from Canada via Avia Mail and they took more than half a year to arrive and were literaly in pieces.

Fly to America and buy the game.

If I buy from Amazon (US) the original edition in English, can I activate and play it in Russia? Thanks. I mean retail collector's edition box.

There are online services that will provide credit cards for you without the need of an address (without an adress you can make purchases no matter your region)

from there it's just a matter of using a VPN to "appear" somewhere else. As long as you use the service to pay for the game and not just lie about your credit card's location then you can't have your account closed over fraud.


this is all just theoretical thinking of-course..

well tell an american friend to buy it and send u the cd key and u can activate it through steam and download it.

I am truly amazed by the ingenuity of your solution and humbly accept that I still have to learn a lot.


I don't want to make half assed attempts of cheating the system via fake credit cards while the rest of the world just clicks "add to cart". If I have to - I'm afraid I'll more likely resort to the other certain way of obtaining the game.


This plan is great, but has two major flaws: I don't trust the person in question enough to send money in advance and I don't have a credit card.

There is nothing fake about anything, you are literally using a credit card company that doesn't require you attach an address to the prepaid card they assign you specifically to avoid regional locks. You are using your real money.

I have also heard cases of people getting their friend from the states to just gift them the game.

Ask Bethesda why they blocked it in your region.

Most games are region locked so a specific localized version goes to the specific region. It's less "we want to piss off a region by not letting them buy from another" and more of just a better way to handle distribution and shipping.

Steam however is a slightly different story.

I would assume it has to do with his government. The same reason may games are censored and unavailable in Germany.

You are right! What was I thinking asking this question to Bethesda on Bethesda forums? :facepalm:



This has nothing to do with government, Russia is one of the least censored countries in the world. A teen can buy Manhunt 1/2 with no problem.

Region lock /=/ Censorship. Distributors like Bethesda Softworks which is the management, publishing and obviously distributing arm with BGS under it and Zenimax Media towering over them all. And Valve's Steam. They control region locking.

Also seeing as it's a Federal Republic now vs. Lenninism Marxism and very leniant on things like game ratings there's no argument there.

Can't you use a proxy or Tor to obtain it?

How so? I'm still trying to find a reason why Bethesda (or anyone else) would choose to block a region.

I'm sorry but where exactly do Bethesda policies state that I should use half-assed borderline illegal ways that can get my steam account banned to get the game because I don't live in the US of A?

Enjoy your region block then. I wouldn't expect them to lift it just because of a post in their forums.

I asked if the block will be lifted and when, nothing more, nothing less. If worse comes to worst - I'll just go back to P2P with a humble acceptance of the fact that I tried to play nice and legal but the devs themselves stopped me.

They don't want my money? I'm fine with that.

Sounds like a terrible experience and I feel for you, but openly admitting you're going to pirate it isn't going to get you anywhere...

Openly screwing up your customers won't get you anywhere either <_<

In my experience it get's you a forum ban, even if it's semi understandable like in this case.

I have never heard off a region lock on a PC dvd though. I know I can't play wii games I buy over ebay from the US. But a PC operating system is a PC operating system. If you can get you're hands on a disc you should be fine.

Localization should always be optional. I would hate it to have a game in Dutch. I have been playing (and learning english because of this) games since I was 6 years old. Localization keeps people ignorant and lazy in my opinion.

It's probably a matter of they don't want 10,000 idiots ordering the English version by accident and then wanting to return it for a Russian version. It's doing damage control.

It's not a region lock, it's a region block. I can't buy the game, not "I can't play it". I can buy a retail DVD when it appears in the shops, but it will be a crappy localised version only. That's the point of trying to use Steam in the first place.



English version is $60, Russian is $20. One would have to be a moron to make a mistake.

A moderator has asked for clarification on this as we don't know the answer either. In the meantime lay off the piracy talk otherwise you will not have access to this forum to find out the answer - OK?

I know how you feel, this has happened to me before in a different game. The people here have been exposing their dissatisfaction to both the company and the distributor, and still, all that they sell is 3 year old expansions whilst we are blocked from getting the new ones because we are only supposed to buy from the distributor. So it was really a matter of doing it in a "borderline illegal" way or not getting the recent content at all.I got Tor, they got my money, I got the digital download, I don't really feel guilty about anything at all. These contracts last a good while, and they may well be renewed. It svcks, because you want to pay, they want the money, but it really can't be done. The other company never really informed us anything, but maybe it will be different here, who knows?

Yes, Rohugh. Thanks.