User blog comment:Komodo Saurian/The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim/@comment-10363089-20111106203436/@comment-1403643-20111106211634

They were and possibly still are, although I highly doubt it. I managed to dig up some info in the past months though: Steam recently (August 2011) added Russian ruble currency transactions. This lead to current predicament: Steam says "Sell shit at retail prices in Russia" ($20-30 instead of $50-60), developers say "Fvck no!". A shitload of games are basically impossible to purchase through steam.

And that would be okay, really, since the local distributor sells the game in question in retail. Except I'll be forced to use a localised version, as in Russian only. Voiceovers and subtitles, all Russian. I don't like localisations as a rule of thumb and I dealt with 1C products before, fuck them, I'm not going to support their crappy localisation.

I don't care that fatcats can't decide how much money they want from me. I have no qualms with pirating a game (After all, Russia is traditionally a pirate rich country and a licensed copy of a program is a reason for mockery here), and I only wanted to get the game legally as a sign or respect to Bethesda. They had three months till release to fix that. They didn't - they are not getting my money.