Valve explains international Orange Box deactivations

Gamers based in the USA who bought Orange Box product keys from an online retailer in Thailand are having their copies of the game deactivated, and they're not happy about it.

Orange Box developer and Steam operator Valve issued a statement late last week defending its behaviour. "Valve uses Steam for territory control to make sure products authorised for use in certain territories are not being distributed and used outside of those territories," the company said.

"In this case, a Thai website was selling retail box product keys for Thailand to people outside of Thailand. Since those keys are only for use in Thailand, people who purchased product keys from the Thai website are not able to use those product keys in other territories."

More annoying for people who thought they had sneakily saved a bit of cash was the discovery that subsequently purchased domestic copies of Orange Box wouldn't work either. Fortunately Valve is happy to sort that out.

"Some of these users have subsequently purchased a legal copy after realising the issue and were having difficulty removing the illegitimate keys from their Steam accounts," the statement continues. "Anyone having this problem should contact Steam Support to have the Thai key removed from their Steam account."

For more on The Orange Box, check out our PC and Xbox 360 gamepages.