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[Anteater]

It seems to me that more and more games are being region locked on steam's digital store, while I understand the reason to some region locking are probably licensing issues with music or VA, pricing, and rating, there are still things that don't make much sense to me.

As some of you already know that metal gear rising on Steam is region locked out of Asia regions, which would mean the game isn't actually available there in Japan, Taiwan, and so on, I've also heard Rome 2 (and its cdkey) from Sega is locked also, today for the first time I found out the now 2 years old Sonic Generations is available on steam but also locked on the steam store. Some games are available for purchase from other digital distributors so I guess not many people complained about it, and those who are not a big fan of those games probably don't even notice their existence because those games simply just don't show up on the steam store.

There has to be pressure from another party for them to make this conscious decision, right? I also remember MG Rising ps3 JP demo was deliberately locked and usually it's a rare case.

I don't believe that these companies "hate money" or are doing it for particularly no reason at all, but it appears to me they have no intention to do business in those regions considering some games are already 2 years old, meaning they have taken no effort in getting over whatever hurdles they might be having, my question is why? and what difficulties were they having?

Using Metal Gear Rising as an example, the game is actually out in asia on consoles, just not on steam.

 

[mrkgoo]

Probably largely a licensing and distribution issue.

All the legal things like marketing, trademarks and so on. Each region has its own regulations and deals.

 

[Anteater]

Probably largely a licensing and distribution issue.

All the legal things like marketing, trademarks and so on. Each region has its own regulations and deals.

yeah I understand that, but is it a platform thing? Because Metal Gear Rising is actually available on console but not on the pc for those regions.

 

[gngf123]

It helps enforce pricing discrimination between regions.

 

[zsidane]

Probably largely a licensing and distribution issue.

All the legal things like marketing, trademarks and so on. Each region has its own regulations and deals.

Also, when it comes to consoles and Nintendo, Iwata once justified this by deals with local distributors (read: justify their high prices compared to other markets).

 

[Dr Amazon MD]

I think in the earlier days of gaming it was mostly because of price discrimination.

 

[Cheeky]

Price discrimination, 40 euro is about 14 dollar more then 40 dollar, 60 euro is 21 more then 60 dollar. But both regions are used to those prices.

I would also say its taxing, although most online stores dont apply taxexs afterwards... except Nintendo.

 

[Anteater]

It helps enforce pricing discrimination between regions.

But how is it helping when the game isn't available in one of the regions , for mg rising, sonic generations, and sonic racing transformed, they chose not to release the game in certain regions at all, not to mention asia always had the same price as the west on steam.

Also, why locking the japanese demo on ps3?

 

[StayDead]

But how is it helping when the game isn't available in one of the regions , for mg rising, sonic generations, and sonic racing transformed, they chose not to release the game in certain regions at all, not to mention asia always had the same price as the west on steam.

Also, why locking the japanese demo on ps3?

It's not helping. It's purely an anti-consumer thing so companies can gouge more out of people from certain places.

 

[Cheeky]

But how is it helping when the game isn't available in one of the regions , for mg rising, sonic generations, and sonic racing transformed, they chose not to release the game in certain regions at all, not to mention asia always had the same price as the west on steam.

Also, why locking the japanese demo on ps3?

Let me stop you there. You are trying to apply logic, stop that.

Think money and only money.

 

[Anteater]

Let me stop you there. You are trying to apply logic, stop that.

Think money and only money.

I'm trying :lol but they're not making money in those regions they are not releasing the games in

Wouldn't the logical way to make money was to actually release the games but price them higher and apply a region lock to the keys? It's just not available at all and it seems intentional towards the same regions.

 

[MetroidPrimeRib]

$$$

 

[The_Endgamer]

Controlling prices within each market probably.

A pretty shitty situation too. The prices in Australia are disgusting where America would get a $50-$60 USD game at full retail, we get the prime $100 AUD.

Example: The worst thing was when our dollar was more than the USD and companies were justifying their pricing by saying the shipping it costs to such a small market justifies it.

Well wrong, I can buy a $50 USD / $55 AUD shirt from the US and get FREE SHIPPING.

Same thing with The Games Workshop and their Warhammer products. Australians were buying their products overseas for $25 AUD instead of $50/$60 locally. So what do they do? Lock it down and disable retailers from selling to overseas.

Gaming is just one market that does it. Disgusting, anti-consumer practice though. Little to do with Licenses, more to do with cash i reckon.

 

[toddhunter]

But how is it helping when the game isn't available in one of the regions , for mg rising, sonic generations, and sonic racing transformed, they chose not to release the game in certain regions at all, not to mention asia always had the same price as the west on steam.

There is a difference between not releasing a game and not currently having a plan to release a game.

Take SMT4 for the 3DS, often a sticking point in region locking discussions. Now if it wasn't region locked (the console in this case) you can bet I would have already imported it (I can face the week or so wait to get it delivered over... well years probably).

Even though there seem to be no concrete plans to actually release a PAL version, you can bet that they want to keep the option open to release it "one day".

When and if they do finally release it, they will want to make sure that people a) haven't already purchased it and b) will pay full price for it.

That is why they region lock.

 

[Cheeky]

I'm trying :lol but they're not making money in those regions they are not releasing the games in

Wouldn't the logical way to make money was to actually release the games but price them higher and apply a region lock to the keys? It's just not available at all and it seems intentional towards the same regions.

It would be effort as they would have to pass stuff like ESRB, USK and PEGI. Effort is risk, risk is money.

 

[SMOK3Y]

I think in the earlier days of gaming it was mostly because of price discrimination.

still pricing

 

[Anteater]

It would be effort as they would have to pass stuff like ESRB, USK and PEGI. Effort is risk, risk is money.

but the game I mentioned is already available on other platforms, do they need to pass the same stuff again because it's on steam?

 

[kyser73]

Controlling prices within each market probably.

A pretty shitty situation too. The prices in Australia are disgusting where America would get a $50-$60 USD game at full retail, we get the prime $100 AUD.

Example: The worst thing was when our dollar was more than the USD and companies were justifying their pricing by saying the shipping it costs to such a small market justifies it.

Well wrong, I can buy a $50 USD / $55 AUD shirt from the US and get FREE SHIPPING.

Same thing with The Games Workshop and their Warhammer products. Australians were buying their products overseas for $25 AUD instead of $50/$60 locally. So what do they do? Lock it down and disable retailers from selling to overseas.

Gaming is just one market that does it. Disgusting, anti-consumer practice though. Little to do with Licenses, more to do with cash i reckon.

I remember reading somewhere about the Aussie govt choosing to overlook grey imports to try and encourage price drops in electronics & software as those are famously where Aussies get gouged (I'm interested as I'm (hopefully) moving to Aus soon), and yeah it's all about the cash. The whole 'but it's a small, faraway market' reason doesn't really apply to the main coastal cities, especially on the east/se coasts (maybe not so much Cairns or Perth) and marketing costs are, from what I remember, comparable per head.

 

[kudoboi]

but the game I mentioned is already available on other platforms, do they need to pass the same stuff again because it's on steam?

i doubt that. at least in singapore, it only has to go through that if its a retail release. on why MGR isnt released here or the whole of asia, there isn't really any explanation other than maybe they think we can't understand english or find that it is not worth selling it here( asia makes up a very small % of steam sales). EA did this with DAO as well locking out whole of asia for no apparent reason.

 

[SMOK3Y]

I remember reading somewhere about the Aussie govt choosing to overlook grey imports to try and encourage price drops in electronics & software as those are famously where Aussies get gouged (I'm interested as I'm (hopefully) moving to Aus soon), and yeah it's all about the cash. The whole 'but it's a small, faraway market' reason doesn't really apply to the main coastal cities, especially on the east/se coasts (maybe not so much Cairns or Perth) and marketing costs are, from what I remember, comparable per head.

prices are rediculous here as but postage does come in it on some things like i got a mate in US to buy me a Titan ($850US he got good deal) they were 1100-1300 here... but it cost him 130 or something to post it!!! same as when he bought my CSW Fanatec wheel for me before they released here all up with post $1230 AU when they finally released here $1249 for same as i bought & this was when AU was worth more than US dollar

 

[Opinionatedfish]

I understand it with DVDs because of reverse importation. Japan has a smaller niche audience to sell to at a higher price in comparison to a market in the United States that is used to paying less. In Japan, they are afraid of losing that tiny market.

But with video games, I really wish it didn't exist. Particularly on the 3DS, Wii U, and Wii.

Mainly because I want to import in Another R for the Wii from Europe.

Also, there really is little to nothing to back up that allowing someone in North America to purchase and play a game only released in Japan damages it in anyway. With DVDs and CD sales? Yes. There is visible data, but that data isn't supported in the video game industry.

Actually, it's the worst thing for people stationed overseas. In college, I was in a public speaking course, so I did the right thing and used an assignment to explain Region Locking and Region Coding to a bunch of other military service members and military family members. It was well received and it made people upset about it. Because, when you're in Germany and you buy a DVD Player, you kind of want it to be able to play DVDs you bought in the USA when you come back home. Region Locking is about money first and security second. Actually, there are some regions (DVD 7 & 8) that are only for confidential materials. That's a good use of region locking, but it doesn't apply to games. It really doesn't.

 

[NuclearSpy]

Because of money, OP. That is really what it is.

What some people in Japan or other regions pay for video games are different then in other regions. Generally speaking, the america region isn't likely to yield you the best profits unless its really popular with american westerners.

 

[redlemon]

Price fixing

 

[Anteater]

i doubt that. at least in singapore, it only has to go through that if its a retail release. on why MGR isnt released here or the whole of asia, there isn't really any explanation other than maybe they think we can't understand english or find that it is not worth selling it here( asia makes up a very small % of steam sales). EA did this with DAO as well locking out whole of asia for no apparent reason.

Hmm I'm not sure about Singapore, but for DAO I think only the ultimate edition isn't available on steam (while it is on origin), it would still be weird though because most other games are available especially small indie games, so I was always under the impression that releasing games globally shouldn't take much effort for games that don't required translations and retail release.

 

[Forkball]

I may be totally wrong, but I think the real reason MGR is not available in Asia is a distribution deal with Sony. MGR didn't come out on X360 in Japan either. Kojima states that the userbase is too small to warrant a release, which may be true, but it echoes Square not releasing FFXIII on 360 in Japan because of Sony. Sony makes a big push in Asian markets and would probably like to have some semblance of exclusivity for major franchises. MGR is special since it has some new locks that forbids cross region gifting and trading, so there is literally no way for anybody in Asia to play the game legitimately on PC (not like Sonic Generations where you can just use the serial code from Amazon or get gifted it).

It all really comes down to money. I mean it must cost zero dollars to release Steam games in all regions. It's not like they have to spend time to translate each one. But if a publisher says, "hey don't release it here because we have some special deal" then that trumps all.

 

[Dead Man]

To protect regional monopolies for distributors.

 

[kitschbeam]

The reason why is largely because of money, I guess. Not so much about license and all that crap.

 

[Water]

For some games it's not about price fixing.

Take shoot'em ups for example - very niche stuff. As far as I'm concerned, and as far as the developer is concerned, clearly it would be better if I bought the Japanese version at $60 + $15 for DLC immediately rather than buying a localised "GOTY edition" two years later in my own region for just $45.

But the developer still won't make Japanese version region free and include minimal English subtitles. Doing so would seriously hurt their chances of getting a willing distributor in Europe; there's less incentive to localise and distribute the game if you know the most enthusiastic players have already imported the game and played it to exhaustion. On the other hand, only the enthusiasts will import games. If there's no local distributor to advertise and push the game, the casual/semicasual market will be lost and total sales will be much less. Also, the local distributor is better positioned to do extensive localization than the original devs who might essentially only be capable of translating the menus.

 

[Hamster Plugin]

It helps enforce pricing discrimination between regions.

This is the only reason. They want Australians to pay $100 and Europeans to pay 70€ (about $95) for every game instead of getting it for the cheap cheap price of $60.

 

[HolyBaikal]

I understand that in America, we have a higher income than a lot of countries. And I suppose that region locking exists to discourage us from buying games from other countries, cheaper.

But instead of that, it only prevents me from buying Japanese games. Which cost more than games from my country. I don't understand why systems from my region block out expensive Japanese content. I doesn't earn them any money at all.

 

[JaseC]

prices are rediculous here as but postage does come in it on some things like i got a mate in US to buy me a Titan ($850US he got good deal) they were 1100-1300 here... but it cost him 130 or something to post it!!! same as when he bought my CSW Fanatec wheel for me before they released here all up with post $1230 AU when they finally released here $1249 for same as i bought & this was when AU was worth more than US dollar

For future reference, Amazon ships select products to Australia, including some graphics cards. When I bought a GTX 670 last year I opted to import an EVGA one; even taking into account shipping and currency conversion I still saved around $100. By the time I was in the position to buy a second one, though, prices here had dropped to the point where there was no need to import.

 

[Asd202]

I understand that in America, we have a higher income than a lot of countries. And I suppose that region locking exists to discourage us from buying games from other countries, cheaper.

That would make sense if games and consoles in US would be actually expensive. The truth is USA is one of cheapest gaming markets.

 

[Tribes of Trusty]

It's money.

Fun fact : it's been going for a while (2007-2008) but UK / Jersey Islands video games prices tend to plummet after a little while, costing only a fraction of the price you'd pay in your country in mainland Europe, shipping costs included. To discourage this, publisher now make a special version of their games for the UK market, with only the English language in it (mainland Europe still gets multi-language releases).

Spoiler

Too bad most people who import don't give a shit about this.

 

[lupinko]

Wait wait, so I can't download MGR now that I'm here in Japan? But what if I already had it redeemed in my steam library? I had done so prior to moving to Japan. I don't have home internet yet so I haven't been able to try.

 

[Occam]

The intention of region locking is price control (make consumers pay the maximum amount possible), the result is that games that don't get localized sell fewer copies. It's completely anti-consumer no matter how you look at it, and it should be made illegal.

 

[Hamster Plugin]

It's money.

Fun fact : it's been going for a while (2007-2008) but UK / Jersey Islands video games prices tend to plummet after a little while, costing only a fraction of the price you'd pay in your country in mainland Europe, shipping costs included. To discourage this, publisher now make a special version of their games for the UK market, with only the English language in it (mainland Europe still gets multi-language releases).

Spoiler

Too bad most people who import don't give a shit about this.

This is why the UK chart is more important than other charts whenever you visit the PAL Charts threads. I preordered Dark Souls 2 on PS3 from Amazon UK for £35 (about 45&#8364. The cheapest local price is 65€, most stores will be asking for 70€. The price difference is completely insane.

This is also the reason I really hated the Original Xbox One DRM, which had a very strict region lock to ensure you buy local games.

 

[Anteater]

I may be totally wrong, but I think the real reason MGR is not available in Asia is a distribution deal with Sony. MGR didn't come out on X360 in Japan either. Kojima states that the userbase is too small to warrant a release, which may be true, but it echoes Square not releasing FFXIII on 360 in Japan because of Sony. Sony makes a big push in Asian markets and would probably like to have some semblance of exclusivity for major franchises. MGR is special since it has some new locks that forbids cross region gifting and trading, so there is literally no way for anybody in Asia to play the game legitimately on PC (not like Sonic Generations where you can just use the serial code from Amazon or get gifted it).

It all really comes down to money. I mean it must cost zero dollars to release Steam games in all regions. It's not like they have to spend time to translate each one. But if a publisher says, "hey don't release it here because we have some special deal" then that trumps all.

Yeah, that is interesting if true, that's what I would really like to know, because despite having a trend of locking some of their games, it's not all of them, so there has to be something more going on, I know it is for sure a money thing.

Wait wait, so I can't download MGR now that I'm here in Japan? But what if I already had it redeemed in my steam library? I had done so prior to moving to Japan. I don't have home internet yet so I haven't been able to try.

You just can't buy it from their store, as long as you have it redeemed in your library you should be able to play.

 

[Bluth54]

I can understand why companies would want to region lock digital stores, since they are so easy to access and can have different pricing and rating systems.

I don't understand why any companies would bother to region lock a physical game though. The number of people are are going to go through the trouble of importing a game is tiny. The only potential issue time I could see a decent number of imports is if there is a very big difference in release schedule for 2 countries that speak the same language.

I've only ever once imported a physical game, and that was The Secret of Cape West from the UK because Hotel Dusk was my favorite DS game and NOA decided to be stupid and not bring it to the US.

 

[Rocky]

I understand that in America, we have a higher income than a lot of countries. And I suppose that region locking exists to discourage us from buying games from other countries, cheaper.

But instead of that, it only prevents me from buying Japanese games. Which cost more than games from my country. I don't understand why systems from my region block out expensive Japanese content. I doesn't earn them any money at all.

And what systems would that be? AFAIK, its only Nintendo that region locks their stuff these days. None of my Sony systems have any sort of region lock on them. Not sure if MS region locks though.

 

[Zalman]

I honestly have no idea. As a guy who travels a lot, region-locking is a huge pain in the butt. I don't get why they do it. I want to buy their games, but they're not letting me.

 

[Tribes of Trusty]

This is why the UK chart is more important than other charts whenever you visit the PAL Charts threads. I preordered Dark Souls 2 on PS3 from Amazon UK for £35 (about 45&#8364. The cheapest local price is 65€, most stores will be asking for 70€. The price difference is completely insane.

This is also the reason I really hated the Original Xbox One DRM, which had a very strict region lock to ensure you buy local games.

Yes it is insane. I remember paying FFXIII-2 for 18€ like 3 weeks post-release, while the cheapest you could find it where I live was 55€ pre-owned.

Also, I think region-unlocking has a lot to do with hacking. I mean, a lot of hackers just want to unlock the console for region-free goodness. By ensuring this, they don't have any reason to hack the console and the research on console hacking is slowed down by a notch (at least that's what I think Sony's stance on region-locking is).

 

[Ban Puncher]

 

[JaseC]

You just can't buy it from their store, as long as you have it redeemed in your library you should be able to play.

Yeah, it's only region-locked at the activation level.

 

[toddhunter]

I don't understand why any companies would bother to region lock a physical game though. The number of people are are going to go through the trouble of importing a game is tiny. The only potential issue time I could see a decent number of imports is if there is a very big difference in release schedule for 2 countries that speak the same language.

For the first case, the games that typically "benefit" from region locking have a small audience to begin with. So even if a tiny amount of people import, that could be a larger percentage of the player base, meaning a local physical release is a failure.
Small publishers want to protect local distributors through region locking in this way (which of course comes back to money...)

In the second case, P4A is a good example. This launched with Japanese and English languages in multiple regions. So it was region locked to prevent Japanese people importing for much, much cheaper. At the same time, this prevented PAL regions from buying the game, which from memory is like $90 in the Austrailan PSN store...and has been like $15 on the US store.

So again...money.

 

[Hamster Plugin]

And what systems would that be? AFAIK, its only Nintendo that region locks their stuff these days. None of my Sony systems have any sort of region lock on them. Not sure if MS region locks though.

Xbox 360 has a region lock, but most smaller publishers don't use it. Xbox One's original plan was to have a strict online activation based region lock, but after the DRM controversy they got rid of it and now Xbox One has no region locking.

So no, MS and Sony do not region lock, but MS really wanted to do that until the backlash.

 

[Dremark]

One of the reasons to region lock games is that it's common place for the same game to be released by different companies in different regions.

For example Cave purposely left region locking off it's games in several cases on the 360 because they were made aware of the foreign market for them. However games that became likely to be released in the US or Europe after they started working with Rising Star went locked again.

 

[Anteater]

And what systems would that be? AFAIK, its only Nintendo that region locks their stuff these days. None of my Sony systems have any sort of region lock on them. Not sure if MS region locks though.

I'm not sure if I remember correctly but for 360 it is entirely up to the publisher. So there were cases of region locked games but most don't.

Nintendo is a lost cause despite I have nothing against them, it's a bit too much trouble to import their system and games over here.

Xbox 360 has a region lock, but most smaller publishers don't use it. Xbox One's original plan was to have a strict online activation based region lock, but after the DRM controversy they got rid of it and now Xbox One has no region locking.

So no, MS and Sony do not region lock, but MS really wanted to do that until the backlash.

Interesting, I didn't follow gaming news all that much during the launches so I never knew about the backlash.

 

[toddhunter]

I'm not sure if I remember correctly but for 360 it is entirely up to the publisher. So there were cases of region locked games but most don't.

Nintendo is a lost cause despite I have nothing against them, it's a bit too much trouble to import their system and games over here.

It is up to the publisher for both Sony and Microsoft. Sony only had one game go through with it (P4A) and another game that threatened a region lock (whose name escapes me) but the publisher backed out before launch.

 

[MikeXXIeaf]

If I was a multinational business I wouldn't want imports ruining my release model either. All we need is feedback, however. If there's an overwhelming demand for a game to be released locally then Nintendo/Sony should respond. There are many consumers of niche games who would happily wait for a translated release if you let them know it's coming out at all. If they're left to speculate then they'll play it however possible.

 

[Baleoce]

I was thinking about this recently, but (and correct me if I'm wrong), wouldn't the emerging Chinese videogame market be very problematic for someone like Nintendo if they were to forfeit their region locking system? They stated as much themselves that in order to appeal to emerging markets they have to price accordingly. Would it not be an issue if everybody just imported their games from China for far less than they would buy them from over here? It's pretty easy to find e-tailers that do free shipping from there too.

I could be talking complete rubbish though, and the demand from overseas would lead to price hikes, as there would only be a certain amount of stock shipped to China before Nintendo started noticing something fishy. I'm not entirely sure how something like that would play out.