Who is going to use VPN to unlock the game early?

[FooTooAy]

I'm in California, and the game unlocks at 9:00 p.m. on the 20th.

But it unlocks in Australia at 3:00 a.m. AEDT on the 21st, which is 9:00 a.m. on the 20th in California. In other words, the game will be unlocked 12 HOURS EARLIER for Australians than for Californians.

I heard about using s Virtual Private Network service to log into Steam to fool it into thinking you're in Australia so the game will be unlocked earlier.

Anyone going to try this? Obviously, I already bought it and preloaded it and have no intention of buying anything from outside my area, just unlocking it.

 

[dexters]

Are they still allowing that? WHAT'S Firaxis and 2Ks position? Last time I had a preloaded game, the game unlocked early AM instead of midnight to avoid the PST advantage.

 

[ExemplarVoss]

It has nothing to do with firaxis or 2k. Its a steam thing, and I believe technically its a violation of the terms of service.
Whether they actually care is a different matter.

 

[FooTooAy]

Allow it? How can they stop it? I'm no expert, though, and I've never done it. But people say you just log on to steam after you activate your VPN and tell the VPN to use an Australian server.

 

[dexters]

I mean the last game I preloaded unlocked 7am the next day instead of midnight by design. I'm not sure if it's a new steam policy or a publisher to publisher thing.
.I don't preload that many games.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

Sounds like cheating. It won't kill you to wait a few more hours to play the game with everybody else.

 

[anandus]

Using a VPN is against Steam's Terms of Service and can get you account banned.

You agree that you will not use IP proxying or other methods to disguise the place of your residence, whether to circumvent geographical restrictions on game content, to purchase at pricing not applicable to your geography, or for any other purpose. If you do this, we may terminate your access to your Account.

 

[Katakanja]

I've done this twice before and suffered no consequences from steam. Strictly speaking as others have said it's against Valve's ToS to use a VPN but they don't seem to enforce it too strictly when its just for unlocking a game early, its more to stop people purchasing games in currencies other than their own when that might work out cheaper. If you're super paranoid, just log in long enough to decrypt the game after it launches then put steam into offline mode until its 'really' released in your region

 

[treadwin]

On Steam it used to be almost encouraged, as you just essentially logged onto a different server. Depending on the timing some of the servers round the world are under-used, and on occasion it was in steam's interest to have people download from servers further away to save loads on the local servers.

I don't know the situation now, but if one of their servers fail the backup is to go to another server outside your region.

I don't know if it is against the TOS - It would be hard to prove. What if i buy the game in the US and I visit Australia on holiday that week, am I not allowed to use the game early?

You can change the server you log into without changing your address on steam, all you have to do is change your download region in settings.

 

[ExemplarVoss]

I mean the last game I preloaded unlocked 7am the next day instead of midnight by design. I'm not sure if it's a new steam policy or a publisher to publisher thing.
.I don't preload that many games.

It isn't new, and firaxis in particular has done it this way several times.

For all that a minority of people get worked up that other countries are getting it 'earlier' than they are, publishers seem to feel that it causes fewer problems than a simultaneous release, at least for AAA titles.

 

[DJ_Tanner]

I've done this twice before and suffered no consequences from steam. Strictly speaking as others have said it's against Valve's ToS to use a VPN but they don't seem to enforce it too strictly when its just for unlocking a game early, its more to stop people purchasing games in currencies other than their own when that might work out cheaper. If you're super paranoid, just log in long enough to decrypt the game after it launches then put steam into offline mode until its 'really' released in your region

It is also used to cross county borders where games are not allowed. As such, I heard rumblings that Valve ran into some threats of legal action and as such have upped their crackdown on VPN usage. It 100% is against the TOS and they can lock your entire account because of it. Again, its only rumor about the increased vigilance, but you only get a few hours head start and could cost you all the games in your Steam library. For me, that is a no go.

 

[FooTooAy]

Sounds like cheating. It won't kill you to wait a few more hours to play the game with everybody else.

When they find my cold dead body, and the coroner says "He died from adrenalin backup due to inability to play Civ 6 as soon as available," then you'll be sorry. You'll all be sorry!

 

[Lord Shadow]

I'm eager to play Civ6, but I wouldn't risk my large Steam library to play it a little while earlier. Chances are nothing will happen, but I wouldn't discard the possibility.

 

[Browd]

Moderator Action: The question has been answered (it is violation of the Steam Subscriber Agreement, as quoted above), so this thread is closed.