Thoughts on region locks and "unobtainable" games?

[jbtuck]

One solution that you may not have tried is to contact the game company, many times they have a version that is not region locked that they can sell to you for the same price that the other market has it available for.

The other benefit of this is that you show that there is interest in a foreign market for players. If enough people do this, then game companies become more open to the idea to release the game outside their current markets. OR they make it more easily obtainable in your market.

Piracy, however, for any reason doesn't actually communicate anything to the company except that their current protections aren't enough. Which encourages companies propegating DRM type solutions... which hurt everyone.

So please, either contact the company and try to get a copy here for you, or get a game system that is for the other region.

[TheEaterofSouls]

One solution that you may not have tried is to contact the game company, many times they have a version that is not region locked that they can sell to you for the same price that the other market has it available for.

The other benefit of this is that you show that there is interest in a foreign market for players. If enough people do this, then game companies become more open to the idea to release the game outside their current markets. OR they make it more easily obtainable in your market.

Piracy, however, for any reason doesn't actually communicate anything to the company except that their current protections aren't enough. Which encourages companies propegating DRM type solutions... which hurt everyone.

So please, either contact the company and try to get a copy here for you, or get a game system that is for the other region.

Do companies really do this? Could I call Namco or Cyber connect and get the next .Hack or a region free Tales of X?

I would totally do this. And I hope it's possible. Because there is a game series that may garner a sequel and I fear the low sales will prevent it's US release.

[Grraarrgghh]

Maybe they released the 1st few games here but then made the next one "Only in Japan" I wanna see what happens next but I can't.

I am a fan of the Tales of series by Namco so I have it bad with regions. :/


As for my path I really want to buy these games but if I can't what else do I do? If there is a way I coul;d give a company money for an import I would but I can't

No game should be restricted from anyone that has the money for it imo.

The advocate for changes to international copyright laws, start a letter writing campaign for a company to release their game in your country, hype up the previous entries in the series and increase their post-release sales so the company contemplates re-releasing old titles in a new market with increased sales volume etc.

Also a big hurdle (as Edge mentioned above) for Japanese games release in other markets is translation. If a series just isn't profitable enough to justify translation costs along with all the other costs of importing a title, companies don't bother. Perfect example for me is Fatal Frame 4 (Wii), would love to play it, but the only options are a) japanese Wii with japanese language game, or b) "enjoy" buggy crappy fan-subbed illegal means. It's just not worth the effort.

[TheEaterofSouls]

The advocate for changes to international copyright laws, start a letter writing campaign for a company to release their game in your country, hype up the previous entries in the series and increase their post-release sales so the company contemplates re-releasing old titles in a new market with increased sales volume etc.

Also a big hurdle (as Edge mentioned above) for Japanese games release in other markets is translation. If a series just isn't profitable enough to justify translation costs along with all the other costs of importing a title, companies don't bother. Perfect example for me is Fatal Frame 4 (Wii), would love to play it, but the only options are a) japanese Wii with japanese language game, or b) "enjoy" buggy crappy fan-subbed illegal means. It's just not worth the effort.

It could work? it worked once. http://operationrainfall.com/

We even got a limited edition of TLS

[Lily Crowley]

Region locking is some immensely stupid shit.

Okay fair enough, you won't release [GAME] in Europe, but we should be able to buy it from America or Japan and then play it on an European console if we like.
Obscure games and movies have fans everywhere!
Make consoles and DVD-players international.

[TheEaterofSouls]

Region locking is some immensely stupid shit.

Okay fair enough, you won't release [GAME] in Europe, but we should be able to buy it from America or Japan and then play it on an European console if we like.
Obscure games and movies have fans everywhere!
Make consoles and DVD-players international.

Why does it exist anyway?
Why lock people out of a game they want to import? There are probably other ways to combat piracy if thats what they want to do. In fact what I said at the start encourages it. So Region locking can in fact encourage piracy in some ways.

And as for why I said xenophobic it's mostly due to the fact that I don't quite get this and to me RL's make you feel like your being kicked out because you don't live in X country.

Also when Xenoblade was given an English dub it was sent to the EU region with NO plans for the US had RainFall not been created.