What is the reason from idolmaster game has region blocking?

[Fallen]

I abstained from shopping for Christmas to save for this game

[Fallen]

Originally posted by Evangela:

Originally posted by jisaker:

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.

We have a big problem :(
"Are Steam gifts region restricted?
Gifts purchased in certain regions can be redeemed only in those regions. When you purchase a gift you will be notified at checkout of any restrictions that will be placed on the gift. An example of a gift purchase in Russia and the countries that the gift can be redeemed in is shown below:"

Source - Steam Politics:
https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=1266-QFZC-2141&l=english

[Evangela]

Originally posted by Fallen Knight:

Originally posted by Evangela:

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.

We have a big problem :(
"Are Steam gifts region restricted?
Gifts purchased in certain regions can be redeemed only in those regions. When you purchase a gift you will be notified at checkout of any restrictions that will be placed on the gift. An example of a gift purchase in Russia and the countries that the gift can be redeemed in is shown below:"

Source - Steam Politics:
https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=1266-QFZC-2141&l=english

Yes, as I said, Russia is one of the regions that they restricted gifting to other regions.

Japan isn't one of them.

[Jeffer'son Airship]

Originally posted by Evangela:

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.

Actually the price thing works both ways for some stupid reason. You can't gift a game more expensive by the same margin. You've been lucky to not have been hit by it.

[jisaker]

Originally posted by Evangela:

Originally posted by Fallen Knight:

We have a big problem :(
"Are Steam gifts region restricted?
Gifts purchased in certain regions can be redeemed only in those regions. When you purchase a gift you will be notified at checkout of any restrictions that will be placed on the gift. An example of a gift purchase in Russia and the countries that the gift can be redeemed in is shown below:"

Source - Steam Politics:
https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=1266-QFZC-2141&l=english

Yes, as I said, Russia is one of the regions that they restricted gifting to other regions.

Japan isn't one of them.

I have tried sending a Steam Gift to a friend in the USA in some Japan only Steam games (Such things are really few.) at least the price of N/A seems to be treated like 0 in the base game.
I saw the price difference error in the Japanese version of "428: Shibuya Scramble". That is an app can only buy in Japan.

[jisaker]

Originally posted by Evangela:

Originally posted by jisaker:

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.

In "Street Fighter 30 Anniversary Collection", only the Depot is separated, and the overseas version and the Japanese version share the same App ID. In fact, it seems that the Japanese version of OKAMI HD is still available as a gift overseas.

[Evangela]

Originally posted by jisaker:

Originally posted by Evangela:

Yes, as I said, Russia is one of the regions that they restricted gifting to other regions.

Japan isn't one of them.

I have tried sending a Steam Gift to a friend in the USA in some Japan only Steam games (Such things are really few.) at least the price of N/A seems to be treated like 0 in the base game.
I saw the price difference error in the Japanese version of "428: Shibuya Scramble". That is an app can only buy in Japan.

There's still a chance that the publisher themselves choose to restrict their games further than Steam's standard but most games should be fine. We'll have to wait and see if Bannam lock the game to which level. If they also region lock gifting, then it's the end for people outside Asia who want to play this game.

[A birbday Aya]

If i'm to guess, they're looking for an excuse to never make PC games ever again, cuz us whining about Ace Combat 7 and Code Vein wasn't enough.

[Stallion]

Originally posted by houkoholic:

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.

I get your point and I totally agree with it, but still, there are lots of games for mobile that let you do the exact same (a quick example may be the Love Live games) and the girls literally say things like "Touching there is not allowed!" and stuff, and I don't see any problem with that.
I think those games being able to be released globally is due to the License Agreement/Terms & Conditions they throw at the player when they begin to play them for the first time, damn, even games like GTA IV and V have stuff like that, you are supposed to "read" all of that so there is no problem with stuff like sex or mass murder, while GTA San Andreas didn't had anything like that so the "Hot Coffee" stuff made everyone go crazy.
Is your responsability as the player to know what is good and what is wrong, specially for a game like this one where you muy pay (buy) to play it, while mobile games (like, again, Love Live games) can be downloaded for free by literally 2 year old kids lol
And to add to this, if Bamco is really that afraid over it, Steam let publishers to block games under age restriction, like porn pages do lol, if you have 10 y/o and select a birth date that says you are a 100 y/o person is totally your fault for liying about your age knowing the contents inside the game and the publisher has absolutelly no fault about it. An Idol-Anime game with age restriction? That wouldn't be weird at all actually.
After all, nowadays videogame companies put License Agreement, Terms & Conditions, Age Restriction, etc, in their games for a reason.

That's what I think about all of this, I'm pretty sure they just don't make the game global because the IM@S game released in X360 years ago did really bad even for Japan-only standards (remember that Japanese developers often see the Xbox family of consoles as a western only brand due to poor sales like that) and sadly many consider that PC gaming and Xbox gaming is the same... I'm confident that they will test how this game does here on Steam and will see the worldwide fans reaction so they can consider to release it in english. Always have in mind that this ain't just an anime game like DBZ, SAO, OP or anything that Bamco releases over here, this is an Idol game, it's western fandom probably isn't even a 50% of the fandom that any of those other IPs have.
And if you think "Then why do they release the mobile games globally?" remember that those are way, way easier to modify and develop than a console/pc game, the licenses to release them in the Play Store/App Store are cheaper than Steam, and even if they lose money because they are free downloads and doesn't have a big popularity, most of their players will keep playing them and buy stuff in-game for gachas or other things, so, in the long run they will get their inversion back with profit, while this game will be a one-time only purchase and nothing more (maybe they will add DLC idk), and that means once people stop buying it and lose interest, it will became a big loss for Bamco because they must keep the store page and files stored in Steam and that cost lots of money.

PD: sorry, that was a lot of text and my english is bad xD I'm not even an IM@S fan, but I would gladly became one and buy this game here if that helps to make game companies know that we do want Idol games in english on Steam! I'm a Love Live fan, they recently announced a game for PS4 and ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ I would be the happiest man in the planet if they port it to Steam someday, so I gotta help the cause!! Peace!!!
PD2: idk where you get that they "specifically said that was the issue", but I did find this and they seem chill about it: https://www.siliconera.com/the-idolmaster-starlit-season-producers-discuss-localization-possibilities-for-the-series-pc-debut/

[Stallion]

Originally posted by askasys:

Wait... what? IM@S on X360 released globally?
That game was Japanese exclusive only. Plus X360 is a region locked console.
There is no way to play IM@S on a non-Japanese Xbox 360.

The game didn't sell well, so Bandai Namco in 2011 changed console, and IM@S 2 was released also on PS3, but the X360 version still did'nt sell well.

In 2014, Bandai Namco developed THE iDOLM@STER ONE FOR ALL, only for PS3 console.
And after that game, the next release was only on PS4.
Two other titles was released on PS4 only.

All the idolm@ster console games are only in Japanese.

Starlit Season is the first im@s console game with chinese and korean subtitles. But still no english.
IM@S games were never released globally.

True, my bad, idk why I said it was released globally lol I'll fix my comment, but still the xbox game didn't released globally but it still released on X360 with very low sales even for the JP market-exclusive standards, and that was my point there, they are testing the waters with the Steam release.
And Bamco do want to bring IM@S to the west, that's a fact, and I'm sure they will listen with the release of this version, because if they don't do it the fans will pirate the game and maybe even release a fanmade english mod or something and that would hit Bamco really bad, since mobile games can't be hacked or modded like that due to being online only games.

[Edvardine ☪☮]

I would like to take a bet that Bamco played it SUPER SAFE with this one, like many others said, game has underage characters, god ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ knows what kind of ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ that Westerners would say about it, child labour, pedo etc, standard Tweeters stuff where they act like fictional characters are real.

And the reason why I said that is because Bamco has another game in the past which is only available for JP and Asia Region on PS4 but has FULL English translation.
And that game is "Girls und Panzer: Dream Tank Match"
Like Im@s, GuP also has underage characters, in fact, every characters are underage, I'm positive that Westerners will make ♥♥♥♥ up about that game if it's released globally.
So yeah, Bamco is THAT SCARED towards Westerners and the Woke Culture is getting bolder and bolder for the past 5 years.

[Worinof]

I know this is very disappointing for us.
the fact is they do never introduce Idolm@ster to the world
starting from its Game (Arcade Machine), Music, Manga, Anime, Live performance.

so if someone outside of Japan happen to know Idolm@ster. They really something
for localized Manga. im quite sure that because it's not fully owned by BamC

Although Idolm@ster is based on a Game, Their VA/ Seiyuu are in preserve

I believe one day BamC will let the word play his money maker

[Evangela]

Originally posted by Worinof:

I know this is very disappointing for us.
the fact is they do never introduce Idolm@ster to the world
starting from its Game (Arcade Machine), Music, Manga, Anime, Live performance.

so if someone outside of Japan happen to know Idolm@ster. They really something
for localized Manga. im quite sure that because it's not fully owned by BamC

Although Idolm@ster is based on a Game, Their VA/ Seiyuu are in preserve

I believe one day BamC will let the word play his money maker

The west =/= the world

Idolmaster is fairly well known in Asia.

[2d0x]

THE IDOLM@STER STARLIT SEASON:
https://store.steampowered.com/sub/542717

THE IDOLM@STER STARLIT SEASON Digital Deluxe Edition:
https://store.steampowered.com/sub/543021/

Can't locked regions buy like that?

[Jeffer'son Airship]

No. It won't add to cart

[houkoholic]

Originally posted by Stallion:

I get your point and I totally agree with it, but still, there are lots of games for mobile that let you do the exact same (a quick example may be the Love Live games) and the girls literally say things like "Touching there is not allowed!" and stuff, and I don't see any problem with that.

Except it's NOT the same.

In mobile phone games they just prevent you to touch the chest area and there's only one or two default dialogue (which is usually just asking you to stop it) on those screens and they don't affect gameplay. However in imas console games specifically, they actually track how the idol's affection towards the player as a game parameter and that sometimes it is NECESSARY to touch their chest area for the correct answer in the dialogue. So you can't remove that aspect of the game without breaking and rewriting a whole bunch of dialogue trees as well as alter the game mechanics.

For example, once you reach a certain level of affection - touching Miki in the chest doesn't invoke a bad response:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEfxfwCvCks

Or when she actually ASKS you to touch her near the chest area:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaFP1eyUhd8

But if you do this at the beginning of the game, it will almost definitely be a bad response. Part of the fun of this mechanic is figuring out when it is appropriate and when it isn't, and of course purposefully invoking a bad response for the dialogue has its own entertainment value for many people. This gameplay mechanic doesn't exists in ANY of the mobile phone rhythm games for other idol franchises such as LL or Bang Dream etc.


We can pretty much rule out licensing issue as Bamco OWNS all the new songs in 765AS, Million Live, Shiny Colors and SideM because the new music since the creation of Million Live are registered under the Lantis label, which is a music label Bamco OWNS, some of the very old 765AS and nearly all CG songs are registered under NBGI as composer/lyric writer which is also just Bamco, Columbia Music has little to no ownership to 765AS or CG songs except acting as a distributor partner (the reason Bamco bought Lantis is so they can skip involving a third party in their IP specifically to address licensing issues, but they kept the partnership with Columbia because that's just how business works - you don't burn all your bridges).

Here I've dug up the original interview with the main producer /director of the imas series Sakagami Youzou:
https://web.archive.org/web/20070202023440/http://moura.jp/frames/report/070129/

Here's the actual text referencing the difficulty of bringing the core franchise over

坂上「アメリカから熱心にファンレターを送ってくるファンの方もおりまして、海外でも発売を期待している声があるのは知っています。
ただ海外は海外でいろいろ考え方がありますから。こういう絵をジャパニメーションの延長線上とは見てくれないところがあって、『子供を働かせているゲーム』みたいな考え方をされることもあるんです」

かーず「そんな解釈をされてしまうんですか！」

坂上「それこそパイタッチなんて、『コラーッ！』ってなりますよ、セクハラですからね（一同笑い）。真のコミュニケーションパートで空手の練習で叩かれるイベントにも、『えー！女の子を殴るだなんて！』みたいな反応があるので、そういうところをクリアしていかないと海外版は難しいと思います」

I can't be bother to translate it properly you can throw it in google translate, it's accurate enough to convey their worries which I've already pointed out.