I think you both miss each other's points. A-Pock is talking about circumventing regional pricing, and cogadh is talking about circumventing regional availability. Whether Steam would remove a game bought in a different pricing zone, if used in a zone where the game was available but sold at a different price, I don't know, although I think they might. But that's the issue.

No, Cogadh is right, even if he is off topic, steam would remove a game bought in a different pricing zone, for example people who bought the orange box overseas, then moved to america and activated it well after release, even after it was cheaper to buy the orange box in the u.s.

I think what you are both talking about might apply if the game one buys overseas is not available on the country he or she is going to use it, the price difference is irrelevant and you won't lose your games due to that. And I know this because I go to Europe about twice a year and none of my US bought games ever stopped working during the time I was there. And I usually buy steam games as a gift for one of my cousins who lives in Europe precisely because they are cheaper in the US, and as far as he tells me they never stopped working either..
Like I said, the only country related problems I'm aware are from games bought on either russia or vietnam but meant to be played somewhere else, other than that I think you should be fine.

No, you're wrong. Steam deactivates any key that is bought outside your "home" nation.
No, he is correct. They only disable retail copies that were intended for a specific market (Russia/Thailand), if you bought the Orange box retail in the US then try to play it in the UK, it will still work. As stated in the very article you linked to:
Response (DougV) 10/22/2007 05:06 PM
Games purchased in Thailand or Russia can only be played from those countries. If you purchased a game from Thailand or Russia and you do not live in one of those countries, you need to contact the seller for a refund.
The confusion comes from online retailers such as PlayAsia which were picking up cheap versions of the games and then selling them to Australia/the US.
Go to google.com, search for ultrasurf, download, go to store.steampowered.com, buy games paying in USD. Problem Solved :).
And have you actually tried that? As the last time I tested a few proxies, I noticed that Valve had implemented checks on the actual credit card/paypal verification process which then refuses sales if your location does not match that of the card/paypal account.

i sent gog a feedback email praising the way they have been conducting business and warning them that my interest and use of their site depends upon their business strategy remaining that way. i think you should let them know if you feel the same, hearing it directly from the community will ensure that they know it is an important issue.

After reading all the posts in this thread I have seen valid points and opinions regarding GOG's service as well as its future. So far, the few games I have bought have worked well, I havent bought any of the older late last decade games, so that might be why, nonetheless. The only problem i have come across is when running the unreal editor for unreal torunament goty, it crashes before starting. Speaking of which, has the problem with messiah been straightened out by now?
Im not that worried about GOG becoming too big for its own good, and declining its service quality like steam did. First of all, they belong to a bigger company already, dont they? CD Projekt is their owner, and thus that gives them some leverage and keeps them from having to worry too much about quarterly results. My concern, is that they eventually will max out their offerings. GOGs, being Good old games, are a finite resource. There are only so many "good" older era games, and the number of those that can be actually obtained because they aren't in license/rights limbo/hell are shorter than that. I worry that eventually they will reach the maximum of older classic titles that are possible to get, and that might force them change their business direction. It's not like Steam, where they will keep adding the next wave of titles coming up, GOG's a limited supply.

You forget, every day good new(er) games are becoming good old games. Long before GOG has exhausted the supply of games from the 90's, games from the 00's will be old and some of them will still be good.

ditto. some gog games like painkiller and spellforce and prince of persia really aren't that old, in a few years games that are current now will be viable for release on gog.
plus there are thousands of old games and many hundreds of them are good enough to be released on gog. they could easily triple the size of their catalogue right now if no new games came out and still maintain quality.

Yes, but GOG sells Good Old games who were popular too, and thats very important. From interviews they've done about their business model, when asked if they would consider venturing into indy games, they said that those games need a completely different business approach, and more investment in actually advertising them. In their current model, the games offered in GOG need no advertising, since their fame preceedes them already, they just have to annouce the title name on the release annoucement and the game sells itself. I know there are many nineties era good games, but out of those, what's the number of them that's actually more or less household names? There are only so many games called fallout , baldurs gate or chrono trigger.
For example, theres an old adventure game called Dark Seed, made like in 1995-6. Would that count as a good game? It's definitely old, but was it good, as well as more or less popular enough, to market itself? Apparently the devs of that game thought so, at least enough to make a sequel for it. But would that game generate enough buzz on its own and the help of the feedback from the community to fit GOG's current business model?

bansama is right. If I want to buy games for US prices, I need US credit/debit card AND I have to be in USA (or have US IP address). If it was that easy (use proxy), then the whole 5000+ posts thread on Steam forums where outraged Europeans blame Valve for raising prices would be pointless.

Man, I will not be debating you forever on something I know I'm right about. Tell you what, next time steam offers a crappy game for 5€ or less, buy it using my method. If it works, you'll know it does and can buy your games that way from then on, if it doesn't, you lose 5€. And for the last time, the regional blocks are only for games bought on specific markets and activated elsewhere.
I have, and the cousin I mentioned early uses that as well when he can't reach me so I can buy it for him. I believe the last game he bought was world of goo on the weekend deal.

Half the problem is the publishers who still base their distribution models on physical shipping and retailing of goods across the globe. They still don't realise that with the internet, most of the issues with it go away. Unfortunately Valve has decided to cater to their misguided whims.
The availability issue is the one that really annoys me- when a deal is only for 'residents of the USA and Canada'. I want your game. Even though it's free a a torrent, I want to give you money for it. Where's the problem?
That's the reason I joined the Rest of World Steam community group.

Also neither Atari nor Lucasarts have reached agreement with GOG to offer their games here.

I should certainly hope so, because it's precisely that kind of game that's the main reason I am here. There's nothing that makes me more excited than a GOG-release I haven't heard of before, especially in genres that I like.
Remember that GOG does not need to sell hundreds of thousands of copies of each game in order to make a profit. As long as a game is good, and handled properly, it can generate enough buzz and sales to be profitable in the long run.
In fact, I think pushing more obscure games may be an advantage for GOG. It will help make their service unique, and that brings customers. There are always people who are after something a little different.
So my advice to GOG would be: Bring us more old games, from the eighties even, and don't skip the more obscure ones. And if you give us Dark Seed, I would buy it - it always looked interesting to me, but I never got around to playing it.