Steam: A Travellers Worst Nightmare

I love Steam

Even if there are people that go on about it being DRM or whatever, there are enough positives about Steam to keep me coming back.  But if you are the kind of person who enjoys travelling or if you happen to move country then Steam is going to make your life very hard sometimes.

Let me first remind you about my life situation a little bit.  I am a British man, whose family moved to Sweden but is currently living in Japan.  However before we get into why that complicated mess of countries is causing problems, let me tell you about an issue I had in 2011.

In 2011 I was forced to live in Paris for 3 months, it was the worst time of my life and it's a period I'd rather forget (mostly).  During that time, my Steam store flipped into Euros to suit my location, which made sense except when I would try to buy things with my card it didn't work.  I had to put in a ticket and the issue was resolved rather swiftly but me moving to Paris should not have caused the problems it did.

But since 2011 Steam has evolved quite a bit and the thing that is now the bane of my existence is the Steam wallet.  I like to buy things with my Steam wallet because it's something I can essentially fill up for free.  I enjoy playing DotA2 and I'm not interested in cosmetics, so when I get a rare item I can throw it up on the store and get some spare change for a discount on my next purchase.  Great right?

Well no, because let's have a think about what I said before.  I'm a British man and my Steam account was first created there, so my Steam wallet funds are in Great British Pounds.  However, my family moved to Sweden, so that means my store likes to be in Euros to reflect the country where I reside.

This means that I'm locked out of my Steam wallet because steam wallet funds do NOT change to suit your location, they just stay in whatever currency you made the account with or whatever. This is really annoying and stupid because me moving to different countries should NOT make my life this hard.  Not to mention that because I live in Japan the store sometimes likes to just randomly change to dollars and that's just as much of a pain.

So if you are the kind of person who enjoys travelling or if you happen to go abroad for whatever reason, expect Steam to give you some hassle.  What a load of shit.