Steam region switching has been restricted to stop you getting cheaper games

Valve has made some massive changes to region switching, combating gamers who used the feature to nab sweet deals for every major release. 

Revealed through a blog post onSteam Database, Valve now requires users to purchase games through a payment method that’s native to the country they’re changing their region too before allowing users to buy games in that country.

For example, if you were to purchase a game by region switching to Russia, you’d have to make a purchase using a Russian debit or credit card first.

“If you have moved to a new country, or are living abroad for an extended period of time, you can update your Steam country setting when you complete your first purchase using a payment method from that country,” reads the updated region switching policy.

“If your location differs from your current Steam account store country setting you’ll have an option to change your store region while you view your cart or as you complete your purchase.”

Valve has recently made changing your store country more strict, which requires completing a purchase using a payment method from that country.

This should hinder the ability of using VPNs to buy games cheaper. pic.twitter.com/IozwoO6gsi

— SteamDB (@SteamDB) July 29, 2020

Before this change, many Steam gamers would use a VPN to make it appear that they were in a country where games were either in a deal or cheaper due to regional price differences. This new policy will make this a lot harder for Steam users to nab cheaper games.