Topic: Reasons for Region Locking

Why not stop moaning and make the most of what you have?

because there are literally no good reasons for it and without it we'd be better off. Without it there'd be freer trade and therefore more competition which would make the games cheaper. Removing it would also make it harder for governments to introduce arbitrary restrictions on what games I can play. I think those are perfectly reasonable reasons to "moan" about it. I'm not going to lose sleep over it but I'm not going to defend it or say that it's a brilliant idea either. Because it's not, it's ridiculous.

Compromise?

Grown people should decide for themself what is appropriate for them. Why do adult customers need those restrictions? There are parental controls in every modern console to protect the children. Nintendo could just block imported games if you activate parental controls. So the region locking is no commitment, it's just an annoyance for older Nintendo fans.

Everyone seems really passionate about this... o_O It's never really affected me. Only once, when I wanted some provocative French game for the Wii was I disappointed.

Erm, sort of. NOE handle releases in Australia, but to release in Australia the game has to be rated by the OFLC which is the Australian version of PEGI or ESRB. Games produced by NOE have up to 4 different ratings controlling who plays them. The appropriate one is used based on the region setting of the hardware.

Then you have all the R18+ rated games from America and Europe, rated MA15+ in Australia. If there is a standard establish by all the rating boards we wouldn't have a problem.

There are games made for regions like North America or Japan that may not make it beyond that region if its regionally lock. Punch Time Explosion for 3DS might end up being Japan's regional release of Jump Super Stars/ultimate Stars. No where beyond its region when it was released, so it would be wise to be region free.

I'd like to bring up another point that you touched upon DiggerDan about videogames and bad press. If for example some game popped out of Japan that featured chibi girls that you could wiggle their breasts around with the touchscreen or something (I'm making this up but I wouldn't put it past them). Then say someone in Australia somehow caught wind of it and as their eyes bug out of their head they immediately declare the "child fondling sim" banned throughout Australia. What if then the console wasn't region locked, and so gamers, excited by the press reaction and rebellious as they are, began importing the infamous child fondler by the boatload? That could create a really bad situation for Nintendo, the game's publisher and developer, and perhaps most of all, the videogame industry in the Australian region, which is already said to have some strict government regulations. Now, this exact scenario might not actually happen, but it brings to light the significance of the issue where something that may be rather routine in the likes of Japan might not be socially acceptable in other regions, and not only is that something we might want to protect young people from, but the reaction to that could potentially hurt the whole industry.

Oh for God's sakes.

That already happened. There's a boob jiggling game on the DS where the entire goal is to touch underage-looking girls in their privates because they might be witches and that's the way to figure out who is a witch and who isn't.

That game was released on the DS which doesn't have region locking. And no, the ridiculous scenario you outlined above is most definately not what happened. I'd bet my house that there are 10 copies of the game in Australia, if that.

And for the record, since you decided to take a not-so-subtle dig at me in that post, no, I do not have that game.

The real reason region locking exists is to protect local distribution businesses, because Nintendo is worried about upsetting them, as Sony did with the PSPGo, which ultimately led to the Go's failure. Region locking has sweet f-all to do with Nintendo wishing to be the morality police. If it was that commited to providing gamers with wholesome entertainment it would never allow boob jiggling games to be licensed in the first place.

NOE handle releases in Australia,

So what does NoAU do, exactly? You might be right with eShop releases, but Nintendo has an Australian division for handling its retail releases here and in New Zealand.

As I kinda touched on before, I'm mostly annoyed because it takes pressure off regional retailers. Quick example, if I go into the shops down the road I can buy Starfox 64 for $59AU (which is actually a "good price") but if I imported then I could get it from the US for $44AU with less than $4 shipping. I could also buy a lot of games before they were releaced in Australia and some games that were never realised in Australia.

The fact that people can't do that effects everyone. If local retailers and distributors don't have to compete on price and release date then they won't. If the games weren't region locked then maybe they'd have a little bit more of an incentive to compete on time/price. Think about those JRPGs that the EU region got but the US missed out on.... wouldn't it be a good thing if you could import and play that on your US Wii?

But can people from Australia play games from Europe? Yes. You can go online and purchase them and the games will play on their local consoles, even if they are banned from release in Australia. Europe/Australia are not region locked from each other.

Nobody's saying they HAVE to release games in certain territories, but you can bet that parental controls in different reasons isn't the region for it if Australia is not it's own separate region (they do not have an 18+ rating, so many games are just outright banned there). Sony doesn't release every game in Japan in the US, even though their console is region free. It's just not as difficult to import. Imported titles don't have to get local ratings board approval.

Yes, Australian consoles are able to play European games, even those that are banned by the OFLC.

In fact, when the OFLC banned Mortal Kombat from Australia, it went as far to release a statement to say "hey, it's A-OK if you want to import this," in other words, customs wouldn't sieze copies of the games.

Australia has a very clear line between material that is banned for sale and posession (essentially illegal), and unrated material, which is just banned from sale.

So even the OFLC isn't worried about importing. It's just Nintendo (and for now Microsoft, but I'll bet money the next MS console is region free).

It's just one of the reasons, not THE reason. And perhaps not "parental controls" specifically but content management in general.

The real answer is $$$. Market conditions, exchange rates, purchasing power, taxes, market size etc. are different from one economy to the next. For example, games cost more in Europe than they do in the US, due to more translations, smaller individual markets, purchasing power difference, and higher taxes. What's to stop English speaking Europeans from just purchasing cheaper US versions of the game? Not a whole lot. This means lower sales for NoE and retailers. That's why region locking exists, to keep more customer money going to Nintendo/retailers and not shipping.

Thanks for pointing that out! I forgot that point. Although it doesn't just mean more money for Nintendo/retailers; it actually protects the market in those regions and, once again, protects publishers and localization efforts.

Look, Nintendo is a big company, run by people who know a lot about this stuff that you're not exposed to. They chose to put the extra effort forth to implement region locking for a reason. I'm sharing with you what that reason is. If you think things would be better off without region locking, fine. I think that would be nice too. But there are two sides to the coin. What I'm doing is showing you both sides.

It's just one of the reasons, not THE reason. And perhaps not "parental controls" specifically but content management in general.

No, it's not any of the reasons. It's an excuse thrown around to mask the real reasons.

Thanks for pointing that out! I forgot that point.

That "point," also rests dangerously close to a form of pricing control that boarders on illegal in many countries. If region locking continues as the industry moves to digital downloads, Nintendo might start to come under fire from regulators for this reason.

it actually protects the market in those regions.

It protects the retailers, distributors and logistics companies that ship product around, and those three groups are responsible for a whole lot of bad stuff in the games industry. We'll be better off without them. And when you remove those (via digital downloads and cloud computing), and there's no reason to 'protect' the market in those regions any longer.

Look, Nintendo is a big company, run by people who know a lot about this stuff that you're not exposed to.

Yeah, except some of us are exposed to it. I'm a journalist and I specialise in market analysis. I have access to these companies, I know how they operate.

They chose to put the extra effort forth to implement region locking for a reason. I'm sharing with you what that reason is.

No, you're coming up with incorrect reasons. Because, mr Moosa, you are one of those people who aren't nearly as exposed to this stuff as you seem to think.

I'm talking about exposure to the events within Nintendo's company, none of us are exposed to that, as far as I know.

Waltz, seriously, just tell us what the reasons for it are, in your mind. That's what this topic is about.

The reasons for region locking? They've already been covered. They're there to create and then protect artifical markets.

Nintendo, in true Nintendo style, is quite backwards about all this, and hasn't realised yet that those artifical markets are no longer necessary.

What about protecting localization agreements?

Protecting from what? The 0.1% of consumers that can be bothered importing foreign language games? If a publisher/ developer is really desparate to ward against that, there should be the option to region lock at a software level, not at the hardware level.

And if a publisher doesn't plan to bring a game into the country (Nintendo with Xenoblade, for instance), there's no localisation contract in place to protect in allowing imports.

More people pirate games than import foreign language games. By that rationale you've outlined above, there's no point in releasing games or consoles at all, because you want to protect the publishers from pirates.

Unless they can show that they are fixing their prices by colluding with other companies. For example, Nintendo can easily say that games cost more in much in Europe than in the US due to VAT, higher necessary wages to European employees, and translation costs. All these factors could lead to a generally higher market price for no nefarious reason.

Most countries aren't going to get on a company for the prices they set in their region, and don't have jurisdiction to deal with prices outside their region. Australia is a somewhat special case where a weaker currency and small and far-flung market has historically lead to higher prices. A strong AU dollar and digital distribution should solve both those problems though, but many publishers are keeping their digital prices really high. So far the Australian gov't hasn't really been willing to do anything about that, but that's the one area where there really could be some illegal price collusion going on.

Ultimately, I agree with you Waltz. The internet has made importing very easily, all regions have different games that are attractive to importing, and the more games sold, the better. Since I don't have access to Ninty's balance sheets, I don't know what their financial strategists are really seeing though.