Leroux: So, to be sure I understood correctly - this means now even people from EU and US can't trade anymore because of price differences, but it would still be possible to gift games from EU or Austria to Germany, if they have the same pricing? And how will it affect keys from Humble bundles or ShinyLoot?
EU/UK & US can still trade. Quite visible in /r/steamgameswap, where people from the Philippines and Russia used to dominate, now it's savvy people from the US exploiting the pricing situation in EU/UK.
It's actually kind of an odd situation though, as publishers (when I refer to publishers I refer to self-published devs to, whomever had access to the steam backend of a title) already had full control over the trading situation. There's been no official word to the public as far as I know, just a few words to the publishers that it a sort of emergency response due to the falling ruble (which has a stabilized a little for now). The rest seems to be just hysteria and drawing conclusions.
Because publishers had full control, I never saw it as a "gray" market as a lot like to hype it up as. If a publisher didn't care enough to tradelock a region, then it seemed fair game to me. It also allowed people with lower wages to get games and such, especially though giftofgame and such.
The trio of TF2key limited tradelock + Gift limited tradelock + russia-inspired gift tradelock has made the one vibrant trading scene rather inconvenient now. Others from the US will come and cheer though because now they don't have to compete with anyone, such is the internets.
iphgix: From a consumer's point of view:
I have to pay full price now? Fuck that, I want to use my Western salary to buy all the games at Eastern prices. It is not fair that in countries where the economy is tanking, the poor people get to buy cheap games with their little to nothing expendable income. Fuck steam and their greediness! Those bastards are the scum of the earth and I bet they gave Sidney Crosby the mumps...fuckers! Selling all those those game keys to people 99% of which are not available on GOG, so they really are not hurting us here at all. They found out that tone of of are getting their $30 games for $10 or less worth of TF2 keys...and their clients, the game devs are getting screwed out of millions of dollars, so I bet they asked steam to do something about it.
From a game Developers point of view:
Fuck those filthy American bastards who are buying the game that I sell on the US market for $30 off of Russian or Brazilian Traders for $10 or less...that is $20 I lose every time someone does that...Steam needs to stop allowing this, it has been getting worse and worse since regional pricing was introduced. I was cool with a little trading, and even understood that a little exploitation would occur, but the fuckers are telling their friends and soon no one will pay full price to buy the keys which after I pay the coders and the testers the peanuts that they get, I will not have enough profits to go on trips to the moon, and my stock prices will not go up so that I can dump all of my options for millions when I retire. Fucking cheapass gamers!!
From Gabe's point of view:
Fuck, no matter if I side with the gamers or the producers, I am fucked. Well I hope enough of the gamers are all Gabe is God crazy, to keep my image ok after this...*Shakes Magic 8Ball* Ok then no more trading...
Publishers have full price control, and full control over region tradelocking. Steam SUGGESTS price points, and has a popular tool to do so that a lot (sadly most) publishers just use to get default prices for other regions XD.