Recently, I decided to go and purchase Age of Empires 2 DE. I went to the Humble store, bought a key, and tried to activate from the Humble store page. It could not activate, says the product is not available in my region (UAE). I tried to activate directly on steam using the code from Humble store, same issue.
I made a ticket with Steam and they confirmed that:
"Looks like this game is not available in Steam right now for your region.
This information is all we have right now, and we can’t tell when the game might be made available in your country. You may consider getting in touch with the game’s publisher to ask more details about the release."
SO HERE I AM, trying to get in touch with the publisher. I already went ahead and got a refund from Humble Store. I think it is complete non-sense that the game is not available in this region. And do you know why I think that?
Because AoE 2 HD (2013) IS available on steam for purchase with all it’s DLCs. Why is the remaster blocked but the old game isn’t? It’s the same game, except for new content + constant developments + upgraded visuals etc. It is better in every way, yet we are limited to the version of the EXACT SAME GAME that is not the remaster, like being stuck on an older un-patched version.
Can you sort this problem out please? Like what possible reason could there be for doing this? I literally want to give money to you people to play your game (which I have very fond memories of playing when I was young, really love your continued development on it). I’m not even FROM the UAE, just staying here. Do I really have to switch marketplaces, use a VPN and risk the banning of my 10 year old steam account just to play this game? Please help me out.
No one knows for sure, but it is believed it is because you play as the Crusaders, in the new expansion, in both the Britons and Sicilians campaigns.
To be honest, I find it more than a bit weak.
African Kingdoms was not banned in Spain or Portugal, just because of the Berbers campaign, and they commited far more atrocities.
This can be sorted out and some compromise can be reached, surely. They had no issue with Saladin being portrayed in the AoE 2 campaign for Saracens. But now the shoe is on the other foot and they don’t like it. It’s not like history is being subverted or anything. Also, why not just ban the DLC only and leave the base game alone?
I don’t know bro, I am honestly agaimnst banning anything based on History, that is actually based on facts, even if unpleasant.
There is the issue with making things deliberately unpleasant, but that is not the case with the Crusades, unless one is truly so sensitive that it merits disregard,
i doubt the game is not blocked in other arabic or islamic contires because of it and by far it’s the only country to ban DE according to steamdb, i honestly still find the banned very weird
Definitely not the same thing. Apples and Winnie the Pooh shaped Bowling balls. China and their “shtick” of doing China things is just that, only for China. If only we could get the real reason.
“It is believed” you don’t actually know why there’s a ban, almost everything u guys r saying is based on this assumption that might not be true, also I find this such a terrible analogy, Cristian countries like Spain and Portugal didn’t ban the game even though you can play as the Berbers but these guys ban it cuz you play as the crusades(assumption), ur comparing apples to oranges here, Europe has become super liberal and the overzealousness for religion really has faded, like Christians wouldn’t go on another crusade in the name of Christ to liberate the holy land, these guys would still form jihad on, they’re still zealous regarding their religion, that’s why Christians wouldn’t care but Muslims would if your assumption is true. in the Barbarossa campaign, u play against the Muslims in 2 scenarios, there’s the Charles martel one, so there could be a different reason.
really guys is there any other way to buy the game, i tried VPN i even purchased the game via G2A, Microsoft gift global key, and it didn’t work, the HD edition (2013) is avalible on steam.