I've been thinking recently, prompted by a post from Kavazovangel, that this whole pricing discrepancy between regions should be easily fixable. We get posts on here quite frequently from people that need a UK or US buyer to obtain a better deal on a game, or from an Aussie buyer wanting to bypass censorship. Usually someone steps up to the plate and buys the game then trades it on. Couldn't we formalise this process?

I've got the week off, and among other activities, I was thinking I could actually start a website that let people bypass these stupid restrictions and pricing rules. The intended format would be one similar to something like ebay or zopa, where a potential reseller signs up, and a potential buyer signs up with an offer. Then the two search each other out. For example, I post that I am willing to trade UK steam games, a guy from russia asks me to buy him Portal 2, I buy the game, he gives me the money, job done (possibly the person buying asks for a small markup).

Technically it's a piece of cake. The complexity comes in that people would abuse such a service. There could be a certain amount of that solved with an escrow style service where each party checks in the money, and the other checks in the product, prior to each receiving the other, but can you validate codes without redeeming them? Transfer of physical goods would lead to even more difficulty.

I'd be interested to hear thoughts, mainly on where it could go wrong, and why I shouldn't do it.

Despite the fact that game publishers would probably hire some ninjas to come after you, it is actually a great idea. Surprised no one came up with something like this.

The idea is good,but neither Valve or the Publishers will let you do this thing. If you make it invites only and try to keep it bellow the radar it might work to be honest.

About the scaming part... the only way to avoid it.. at least for me... not letting people outside this community using it (Yes I have trust in this community so far for things like this.)

Can they stop me (legally)?

Uhm yes they can. I think you will cross a lot of laws this way. Have to research more to be honest.

I know Valve have no issue with russian/ukrainian shops so far. Actually I've bought my LA Noire for 2.50$ with the help of an ukrainian friend.

Not so sure, I'd only be facilitating, not reselling. They can't shut down The Pirate Bay, and that facilitates a clearly illegal act. This would just facilitate a breach of terms and conditions.

Steam have banned at least one Russian user for this before. He did get his games back, but he is no longer allowed to trade or gift in Steam.

I doubt demand would be a problem, if it is, then the problem is solved by shutting it down.

You're right though, and I appreciate the feedback. GOG would make a good beta surface for something like this.

As long as you use Steam Trade system... there is no problem with it ;) Firstly you need to find trustfull people from Ukraine/Russia/Brazil this are the 3 countries with biggest price diffs

Gifting and trading in Steam is monitored and unusual activity is investigated. GG I do not know any problems with, but do not think that Steam Trade is risk free.

That is a very interesting question. If, let's say, a member only does this maybe 12 times a year there is hardly anything they can do. More than that could be seen as commercial usage which would require a different license than the one we can purchase.

The problem is, if you purchase a game (as in "not a gift", eg. Amazon) you only purchase an untradeable end user license. It is different with gifts from Steam/GG.

As for the hoster of the site, he would see some legal action by the original rights holders and by those who hold exclusive trading rights. Eg a german publisher/retailer. The host would need to make sure that no germans can access the site to "purchase" games that the exclusive publisher/retailer has the rights to. (which would negate the site, basically). On top of that you have a bunch other legal problems depending on the country (WW II games being uncensored in Germany might be a huge problem).

That isn't certain, of course. It all depends on how you would be able to sell the site to the courts. A pure "communication" plattform between users (the piratebay argument) or would you actually have an own commercial interest (ebay). Such a site would be dragged before a court if it attracts enough users, for above mentioned reasons. From there on, it could go either way.

That is just on top of my head.

Yes it is monitored. But yet they can't ban you for recieving a game from a friend :)

No, but they can ban the user who send 100 gifts to 'friends' in a short amount of time. It is not a risk for the receiver, but for the sender.

You must be a very tall man with all that on there :).

I was aiming more at an information exchange portal. So there would be no direct knowledge of what the information being exchanged was. This would further complicate things as then the governments could use their anti-terrorism corruption to actually take it down, but at that point the world ends (yes, I have that button).