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Keroko · 2012-04-16, 18:05

We know the legal implications of this are fairly minor, as there are as many region-free games out there as there are region-locked. Not to mention the PC platform, which does not even have this limitation on games to begin with (unless it's Nexon). So yeah, I'm having trouble believing the potential lawsuits or banning of games is the reason for region locks still existing.

Particularly that last example you mentioned is a personal pet-peeve of mine. A surprising number of the Tales games have been released in NA have either very late or even never been released in Europe, despite many players being very willing to buy them. The game is already English, so translation is not an issue. What is the issue though? The region lock.

The only way for us to play the game? Either modify our consoles to play games of all regions (illegal) or pirate the game itself (also illegal). And before you say "just wait patiently" I will remind you that communication regarding release dates is... non-existant. So we're never even sure if we'll be getting the game at all.

So let me recapture that: The only way for us Europeans to play Tales games within a reasonable amount of time (and by reasonable I mean 'within a month at most' not the nine months they made us wait for Vesperia or the 5 years we had to wait for Abyss) or in the case of Legendia at all, we have to pirate.

We have to pirate to play a game we would love to buy legally, import costs be damned. We have to pirate it because old publishing restrictions that were created by technology restrictions. Companies are losing money they could have made if only they didn't put a region lock on their games. And we know these games are okay, because it's a Tales game. All Tales games follow similar patterns and none of them have different ratings anywhere.

So why?

2012-04-16, 18:05	Link #46
Keroko Adeptus Animus Author Join Date: Jan 2007 Age: 36	We know the legal implications of this are fairly minor, as there are as many region-free games out there as there are region-locked. Not to mention the PC platform, which does not even have this limitation on games to begin with (unless it's Nexon). So yeah, I'm having trouble believing the potential lawsuits or banning of games is the reason for region locks still existing. Particularly that last example you mentioned is a personal pet-peeve of mine. A surprising number of the Tales games have been released in NA have either very late or even never been released in Europe, despite many players being very willing to buy them. The game is already English, so translation is not an issue. What is the issue though? The region lock. The only way for us to play the game? Either modify our consoles to play games of all regions (illegal) or pirate the game itself (also illegal). And before you say "just wait patiently" I will remind you that communication regarding release dates is... non-existant. So we're never even sure if we'll be getting the game at all. So let me recapture that: The only way for us Europeans to play Tales games within a reasonable amount of time (and by reasonable I mean 'within a month at most' not the nine months they made us wait for Vesperia or the 5 years we had to wait for Abyss) or in the case of Legendia at all, we have to pirate. We have to pirate to play a game we would love to buy legally, import costs be damned. We have to pirate it because old publishing restrictions that were created by technology restrictions. Companies are losing money they could have made if only they didn't put a region lock on their games. And we know these games are okay, because it's a Tales game. All Tales games follow similar patterns and none of them have different ratings anywhere. So why?