PC giant Valve has added restrictions to its Steam service to stop people from buying games for cheaper prices in different countries.

As spotted by SteamDB on Twitter, the firm has implemented a limit on how many times a user can change the region associated with their account. Consumers can only switch countries once every three months. Furthermore, purchases can only be made using a payment method specifically from the country your account is registered to.

"In a further crack down on people buying games in cheaper regions, Valve added a limit on how often you can change your Steam account's country," SteamDB wrote.

Country may not be updated more than once every 3 months. Purchases can be completed using a payment method from your current region."

This comes in the wake of Valve being fined €1,624,000 ($1.97 million) by the European Commission in January of this year over its geo-blocking of game keys.

At the start of 2021, Steam hit a new record of 25 million concurrent players.