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Steam is now region-locking games, most likely in an attempt to prevent users from exploiting the low value of foreign currencies, reports suggest. According to the NeoGAF thread that first caught wind of the locks, this seems to only be affecting Russia, its neighboring regions, Indonesia, and Brazil, Engadget reports Region locking is a DRM measure used to prevent people from, among other things, cheaply purchasing a product in one territory and then using it in another, where the same product is more expensive.Due to the plummeting value of the Russian ruble compared to the American dollar, for instance, someone in the United States could score a $60 game for only a few dollars through the platform's Russian storefront. A transaction like this could happen via Steam gifting, or other workarounds, which a feature like region-locking actively fights.There's no official word from Valve yet on the newly introduced region-locking. IGN has reached out to them for comment and will report back with any additional information. Valve also made some recent changes to the way Steam gift trading works , which IGN covered last month.

Chloi Rad is a freelance writer for IGN. You can follow her on Twitter at @_chloi