What about Fallout? Everything by Bethesda and Id is not available here at all, because some idiot signed exclusive distribution with one ass (1C). I'll be trading for it myself most likely using the shitload of stuff I've accumulated at GG.

So it's similar to how it is in Poland. We can't buy Skyrim directly on steam...

We can't either, so I'm guessing it's for most of Eastern Europe.

Yes. 1C has very long fingers, unfortunately.

But why would they do this? I mean, who benefits from not allowing us to buy certain games?

Nobody. I dug around in this because of New Vegas and its inexplicably delayed DLC, and it's all a bit of a mystery. Bethesda, Valve and 1C keep pointing fingers at each other, and all swear they would amend the situation in an instant if it weren't for the other parties.

The exclusive distribution contract between 1C and Bethesda probably wasn't entirely kosher, that's what it seems to boil down to. Who knows what's actually in it.

Lithuania can't get Skyrim from Steam either, but it's all over the retail stores, so I guess that's the people who win.

It probably is a combination of "exclusivity deals" a publishing deal can be sold a lot bigger if you are the "only one". That is what 1C got for eastern Europe/Russia (which was, until Steam cracked it, a very undesirable market anyway. So most bigger pubs were probably happy to see at least some money from there). Now 1C on the otherhand probably has a few distribution deals that infer with digital releases. I don't know if there are any big electronic retail chains in Russia, but they probably had a clause somewhere that said "no digital releases" to protect electronic retailers. Which from my experience really doesn't make sense either, because for the most time "retail" in Russia meant pirated games. But my trips to Russia were "stopovers" at best, so I don't really know the local market structure.

But those contracts will probably run out soon anyway, and with Steams success, 1C dominance with probably crumble.
Ah, ninja confirmed! Thanks!

Well, this is pretty weird in this case. I just hope this will get resolved at some point, because it's really annoying. :|

I suspect it will only get resolved when the contract expires. If there's a clause preventing Zenimax/Bethesda from selling digital copies of their games in the territories covered by 1C and its subsidiaries, there isn't a whole lot anyone can do about that.

(Though it's probably much more complicated than that – I can buy New Vegas here, for example, even though only in the Eastern European version, and the Id catalogue is actually fully available in the Czech Republic, unlike in Russia. In other words, it's a mess.)

Guys, Lithuania isn't Russia. :<

Oh, and about the retail only Skyrim - I'm pretty sure we still have to activate the thing on Steam, as it comes with a code. Maybe they don't value Steam as a good money maker in eastern Europe (pretty much what Simon said with the whole exclusivity selling better) though, they seem to value it only as a DRM for those blocked out games.

The pirates.
What? You don't want my money? Ok... free suits me just fine thank you!

Pirates win :P

I won't buy a retail game for 140 PLN , when I could have bought it for less on Steam, but the publisher wouldn't let me. Screw them both - I will pirate that game.

Well, I don't, because I am not interested in Skyrim enough to download dozen gigabytes of data, unpack it, burn it, crack it, etc. But you know the point.

I see what you did there :))

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