Rumours suggest Valve has added extra restrictions to Steam gifting

The clampdown on cross-region gifting in Steam appear to have been tightened further.

Late last year a number of restrictions were put in place to limit users in countries where games are cheaper – such as Russia – from selling keys to consumers in countries such as the UK, where games are sold for considerably more.

These rules previously restricted the regions in which affected titles could be activated. Now Reddit users claim to have discovered that the scheme has been extended to also restrict the regions in which these titles can even be played.

This means that even if a game was purchased and activated in a region such as Russia, a user who then visits or moves to another country will not be able to access their entire library. And there are claims this applies to all content, gifted or otherwise.

Steam also warns that using an IP proxy or other methods to disguise the place of your residence… may result in restrictions on this Steam account”.

Note that the restrictions are not universal and operate on a per-title basis.