Region Lock is Irrelevant nowadays

[Avibhrama]

In this trend of digital distribution, I can not understand why some publisher released their game only to some specific region? Seriously I can not understand why some publisher close some of their potential market with made their game unavailable to be accessed through steam? What is the reason behind it?

Making some of those games unavailable in some region will is not really relevant for now. If they really want to play the unavailable game badly, and physical copy nor what should be widely available digital copy is not availabe either, they will obtain the copy in not legitimate way which is what we should avoid

Why would they do that? Is it because of they won't give call support for the unavailable region? Nah we can ask fot the support at the forum when something bad happened. Currecy problem? Nah, we buy it in USD anyway. Because those country is not the market they want to enter? Why some country is not the market while other publisher able to released the game in this region?

I hope someday Valve stop the publisher of being riddiculous putting some region lock in their product. Digital goods is supposed to be globally available no matter where you are at

[ KARR™]

Sometimes they don't have the license to sell to that country, sometimes it hasn't been rated in that country, sometimes it's banned in that country.

They wouldn't not sell it there for FUN... there's a reason.

[Avibhrama]

License is only needed if there are some local publisher who want to publish the intelectual property of outsider company. Like how local company publish games from another country. At least that's how it works in my country. Maybe some country blocking some games for having offensive content like Battlefield 4 being banned in China and Battlefield 3 banned in Iran.

If you can, maybe you can provide me how the other country regulated their digital distribution. I'm eager to learn more. Maybe it was because there's a loophole in the law of my country that may cause this. But if there are really the reason of it. Why other publisher being able to release the game available in mine. Why they can't or won't to do that.

[krayg-s]

KARR の投稿を引用：

Sometimes they don't have the license to sell to that country, sometimes it hasn't been rated in that country, sometimes it's banned in that country.

They wouldn't not sell it there for FUN... there's a reason.

This, also talking about piracy can get you banned you know.

[Avibhrama]

krayg-s の投稿を引用：

This, also talking about piracy can get you banned you know.

How far the talking about piracy can lead you to the ban?

[Kuladhar Dorabjee]

Avibhrama の投稿を引用：

krayg-s の投稿を引用：

This, also talking about piracy can get you banned you know.

How far the talking about piracy can lead you to the ban?

Literally one Post about Piracy is justification for a perma ban

[Satoru]

Publishers impose region locks

Publishers impose said locks for multiple reasons that include

* Distribution deals in specific regions with sub-distributors
* Controlling grey market leakage

Also beware for what you wish for., If you want 'harmonized pricing' guess waht, as a publisher I'm going to choose the method that makes teh most sense. Which means charging you Australian regional pricing for all regions.

Becareful waht you wish for. You might get what you asked for. Not what you want.

[welt_protoss]

Because some games are subsidized in certain regions. I had bought the orange box retail in India which was region locked. It created quite some problems for me when I moved to the US.

[Achelon]

One example I can think of is Bunny Must Die: Rocking Android brought it to Steam yet they region locked it so it was unavailable to buy for those from Japan.

Their reasoning for this was because they didn't want to impede on Platine Dispositif's (the developers) market.

So sure, region locking may seem out of place in this era, but sometimes it's a sensible step to take.

[◢◤]

The regoin locks are only going ot get worse... this is likely going to be a deal breaker for me.

[Τhe Rolling Cheese Wheel]

Region locking is getting more and more relevent as prices continue to be adapted for the region they are originating from. Get use to it. IMO, Valve should just lock down game trading to only people living in the same region and remove the region lock. That would make a lot more sense since it would counter the major problem of cross region trader profiting from price differences in games.

Quite frankly the only people really get wrecked here are the Brazilians and ru/cis due to their extremely low game prices. If you are not from these regions, these issues hardly effect you, since your games will for the most part remain region free.

[Avibhrama]

Hmmm maybe I put a wrong word to this thread title. I should said Region Lock about making some game unavailable in some countries. If about price difference I think I can understand that, different currency can make some big difference in actual price. But for not making some games unavailable are just provoking some people to get their locked games in other way. Even an illegal one

Maybe because of some legal problem or such. But well maybe someone can tell me about the rules of digital marketing in their country

[◢◤]

I still don't like the fact that valve made it retroactive. Not all your games are now regoin locked but enough will be. what of those of us who travel abroad with a gaming laptop. Will the change in my ip cause the game to lock up. People who want to play a regoin locked game will figure out a way to do so. All this does it punishes the average consumer.