What is the reason from idolmaster game has region blocking?

[Fallen]

I abstained from shopping for Christmas to save for this game

[Mir0ki [TH]]

It looks like Bamco just really wants to keep this game to South and East Asians.
Man, they didn't even bother to add English like SRW.

[Denonbuckshot]

looking at the history of bamco's attempt at releasing imas in the west, they're just afraid it'll flop. i think it was back at 2009 or 2010ish when they released an imas mobage on iOS. it was also available in the west but it flopped hard.

another possibility is that they don't want a backlash happening for working underaged children

[REIVENTH]

Because of Woke in the west, that complain about everything that don't fit their agenda.
Even Monster Hunter Rise twitter reply is full of em, complaining about pants or shown thigh/legs

[myotak_oke]

Legal issues, maybe. It’s less o fa hassle to localize Tekken than Idolm@ster due to the music labels involved.

[IchinoseP]

Originally posted by myotak_oke:

Legal issues, maybe. It’s less o fa hassle to localize Tekken than Idolm@ster due to the music labels involved.

I kinda doubt that. IIRC, Love Live songs is also under Lantis's umbrella, but it got localised just fine. I think it had something to do with the niche that iM@S fills (especially the youngin' idols and the option to get closer to those you prefer), that won't sit well with Western audiences.

[IchinoseP]

I might be the lucky ones who are able to access the store page outside of Japan, because I live in Indonesia, and Indonesia is part of South East Asia.

That being said, though, I doubt Bandai Namco is the type of "bow down" publishers who don't want to get in trouble with the meddling Western kids, so we can ignore the risque niche of the youngin' idols for the sake of the argument. However, many people said that Bandai Namco isn't exactly the keen type in terms of localisation or releasing stuff worldwide.

Unless iDOLM@STER is somehow published by Square Enix, you're SOL if you're outside Asia. (Square Enix is more keen on localising their Japanese only games, especially in recent years, contrary to Bandai Namco)

[The ONLY Miki P]

lol

[houkoholic]

Originally posted by askasys:

Originally posted by TheHoodieGuy02:

I think it had something to do with the niche that iM@S fills (especially the youngin' idols and the option to get closer to those you prefer), that won't sit well with Western audiences.

Western audiences are not all like California. Plus, that is only an excuse. It's better to say:
"that won't sit well with the SJWs." <-- a minority
If that is the case, they can region block only California and other politically correct countries, and sell the game globally just fine.

But in this case looks like the game is only available in Japan, looks like they just don't want to sell the game outside their country.
If this game had a physical release I will just import it like the other iM@S games on PS3 and PS4. But Digital only is really a problem now.

edit:
my mistake, it's available in South Korea and some other Asia regions, but not my country. And I don't live in a SJW country, plus Japanese is my third language

Console Idolmaster always had the "touch" events where if you poke the idols on different parts of their body the react differently, and yes you can touch them on the chest. The VAST majority of the idols in the game are under 18 - this is a problem which Bamco had always acknowledged as a hurdle when trying to bring the console IM@S games to the west due to a deeply rooted cultural difference.

So it's not SJW or just California as conservatives are just as touchy when it comes to these ideas because countries like the US is easy on violence but extremely sensitive with sex. Conservatives in the US don't even want teenagers to learn sex-ed in school. Being sensitive with potential child porn - even fictional - is an issue that is at the very foundation of western society. The conservatives will have as much of a field day on the content of im@s as well. So don't pin this on SJW or "woke" culture.

[yumarowen]

Originally posted by SVENTH85:

Because of Woke in the west, that complain about everything that don't fit their agenda.
Even Monster Hunter Rise twitter reply is full of em, complaining about pants or shown thigh/legs

(I'm assuming by "Woke" you mean "SJW".)

...you picked a very bad example considering monster hunter rise is actually releasing in the west. SJWs don't stop a game from releasing or even stop people from buying the game. Idolm@ster has a big fanbase outside of Japan that is active and participates a lot, showing that SJWs just. don't care about idolm@ster. CG's Viewing Revolution on the PS4 was localized, after all, same for Shiny Festa's games on iOS.

The only thing I could see people complaining about is the absence of SideM, which is something not only English fans do, yet Bamco doesn't seem to care, therefore it wouldn't hurt the sales.

[houkoholic]

Originally posted by askasys:

I take full responsibility and declare that I am not sensitive or conservative. They should allow me to buy the game.
I can sign all the documents they want. But blocking the sale entirely is something despicable to me who have always been a fan of idolm@ster.
Miki is my oshimen, I want to see her on my PC in 4K resolution!!!

It doesn't matter, politicians on both sides can and will make it a scapegoat target. Conservatives claims they want small government and individual freedom, unless they suddenly feel you shouldn't have it just the same.

Bamco just don't want to take the legal risk as they are a huge company with hundreds of IP under their name, it's not worth it to risk their entire company's portfolio for just one game. Tarnishing their brand means they jeopardise other IPs like Tekken, Tales series, Soul Calibur, Gundam and a crap tone of other stuff. They aren't going to do it just like Disney don't do R18 under their Disney brand.

[kelvin0502]

Ask SJW about this. Even BioWare change camera setting of Mass Effect: Legendary to comfort those SJW who are not going to buy their game.

[jisaker]

Originally posted by askasys:

At this point, I'll pay someone from Japan or South Korea and then they send me the Steam Gift. In this way will work for sure.

I doubt if I can still Steam Gift a region restricted game
Because Steam has been getting more and stricter region restricted in recent years.

[houkoholic]

Originally posted by RetsuOwen:

The only thing I could see people complaining about is the absence of SideM, which is something not only English fans do, yet Bamco doesn't seem to care, therefore it wouldn't hurt the sales.

The producers of IM@S had specifically said the issue in bringing the game to the west is the "touch events" - these are time-limited events where during a dialogue phase you get to move a pointer over any part of the idol's body and click on it leading to a branching of the dialogue tree. For example say when you have a conversation with the idol and you hit the "touch event" branching point, you can then point and click on her hair or on her face, and yes even her chest, which will lead to different outcomes. Sometimes the "correct" answer IS actually moving the pointer and clicking on the chest (a common trope may be if she's not doing so well in her work, and you "point" to her chest leading to a conversation about her not putting her heart/feelings into the work), but other times they end up being the wrong choice where you actually make sexual comments or even inappropriately touching them. But either way, it's a central gameplay mechanics which is console game exclusive to the main titles and haven't existed in the mobile games or the branch-off games.

Due to the entire premise of the game - where you play as a budding young male idol producer managing mostly underage teenage idol girls (most of them are under 17, some are as young as 12 and 13) - the "touch events" and some of the branching dialogues would easily constitute as sexual harassment or even assault from a position of power towards underage girls, the entire concept of the game is a huge target for being unacceptable content in the west in general - not just woke or SJW, as you aren't going to find any conservatives defending a video game where you can touch underage girls (even when they themselves are often caught doing it in real life, lol). This is why Bamco don't want to bring the game over to a western audience because this isn't like a GTA "hot coffee" mod which even an unofficial mod of nudity still raised a bunch of backlash from all political spectrum, and it's something that is central to the gameplay and they can't edit it out without destroying what the console games were about and jeopardise its core fan base in Japan.

[Denonbuckshot]

Originally posted by TheHoodieGuy02:

I might be the lucky ones who are able to access the store page outside of Japan, because I live in Indonesia, and Indonesia is part of South East Asia.

That being said, though, I doubt Bandai Namco is the type of "bow down" publishers who don't want to get in trouble with the meddling Western kids, so we can ignore the risque niche of the youngin' idols for the sake of the argument. However, many people said that Bandai Namco isn't exactly the keen type in terms of localisation or releasing stuff worldwide.

Unless iDOLM@STER is somehow published by Square Enix, you're SOL if you're outside Asia. (Square Enix is more keen on localising their Japanese only games, especially in recent years, contrary to Bandai Namco)

then how about the bamco games that features english language like ace combat? there's an english localozation since the first game. Bamco is okay with english localizations

[Evangela]

Originally posted by jisaker:

Originally posted by askasys:

At this point, I'll pay someone from Japan or South Korea and then they send me the Steam Gift. In this way will work for sure.

I doubt if I can still Steam Gift a region restricted game
Because Steam has been getting more and stricter region restricted in recent years.

People should be able to gift this game to friends no problem. I've been gifting Japanese games to my friends and the most recent one was like two months ago (Street Fighter 30th).

Steam being "stricter" is about those who try to get games from regions with low prices. But Japan is the most expensive region so they don't care much if people want to gift games away from Japan.