Buying digitally downloadable game titles from Amazon store when you are not in US

Few days ago, D4R (that’s his nickname btw), a guy I know from Gamer.lk and Facebook posted on Facebook about an Amazon deal for Max Payne 3. The game was on sale for just $14.99. We all know that Max Payne 3 came out only a few months ago and $15 price tag was too good to be true. The regular price is $39.99 on Steam.

I don't like 3rd person shooters that much, so naturally I didn't have much interested in buying this particular game. But there was an interesting thing about this post. Both D4 and I don't live in the US. Amazon don't sell these outside of US either. But he was telling me that if I used a US postal address as the billing address, I would be fine.

I wanted to try it out, you know, because it might come in handy some day. For example, Crysis 3 is being sold for a really high price here in Japan, and if I can grab it off Amazon (especially off a deal), I believe the price will be much reasonable. I was planning to preorder it when I visited Sri Lanka last December, but unfortunately EA does not let people pre-order AAA titles on the Indian EA Store anymore because the pricing is about 1/3 compared to US pricing.

Anyways, back on the topic. I had an Amazon account that I had made few years back but it didn’t have an address nor a credit card. First, I made my password (much) stronger, because I was going to add sensitive information. Then I added my Japanese VISA credit card and then I added a US address. Well, it is not exactly a US address. It’s part Japanese and part US. They only check for the state and the zip code. I made the mistake of adding a New York address. That would add a consumption tax to your grand total.

Basically skip the following states: CA (California), KS (Kansas), KY (Kentucky), ND (North Dakota), NY (New York), PA (Pennsylvania), TX (Texas) and WA (Washington).

This is the title I bought. I am posting a screenshot in case the link doesn’t work.

I bought the Steam version so that I can add it to Steam and download it anytime I want even without an Amazon account. When I tried to pay, there was a $1.33 or so sales tax added to the price.

This s the email I received from Amazon.

You can get the product code to redeem from Steam by visiting the link “You Games and Software Library” in that email.

After redeeming the game through Steam (Games→Activate a Product on Steam), Max Payne 3 is in my library. =)

Want to know about the hot game deals at Amazon? Click HERE.

However, I would only buy games that can be activated via Steam.

So you see, thanks to the internet and digital downloads, now you can enjoy the great deals you would get if you were in the US, from elsewhere in the world. Happy gaming fellas.