Topic: Issue with competitions held by Nintendo Life

Why is it that every competition that Nintendo Life holds is always limited to people living in the UK? Also why do they prefer to region lock the comment sections of said competitions? Do they not want to hear any critique regarding their greediness or something?

1, because it's a UK site and as such they mostly get stuff for people in the UK, and 2, probably because before they limited the comments, the comments sections of these articles were usually just people complaining that they couldn't participate.

Yep, that's the bulk of it. We're mainly UK based and therefore the prizes we get are almost always for the UK. Shipping a UK Switch to the US doesn't make a lot of sense and would cost quite a lot.

I always find it strange that we get complaints from people for giving things away for free...

@Timsworld This is a UK site aimed at UK readers. Just because readers from other countries use the site doesn't mean their target demographic has changed. Also what is greedy about giving things away?

A lot of competitions are in partnership with Nintendo UK. Nintendo UK are based in the UK, and ship to the UK.

For reasons already stated above, most competitions on this site are based in the UK. There are occasionally competitions for other regions and the articles are normally very specific about which region it's for.

@antdickens Well, I'm an American, but I live in the Netherlands, so that UK Wii U would work just fine for me... (and I'd gladly pay the shipping costs myself if I would win a price like that)

All kidding aside, I do very much understand the complaints, and I also believe most of them are valid. It might be a UK-based site, but there are a lot of people from other countries on your site, probably more than the UK members, so it's fair to say that we have generously contributed to making the community and/or the site into what it is today, and as such it truly is a bit of a letdown to almost constantly be ignored where it concerns competitions.

Personally, I couldn't care less for any online competition, since I don't participate in them, but in the interest of fairness and objectivity, I can certainly see why any reservations against the whole "UK residents only" label are actually a thing.

@Antdickens can possibly confirm or correct this, but i believe that there may also certain legal restrictions/limitations when it comes to giveaways/competitions outside the countries of origin.

@Meowpheel They could've taken that feedback to heart instead of shooting it all down though.

@antdickens I understand that shipping stuff to America can be quite expensive but what about shipping to Europe?

@Ryu_Niiyama I'm not saying that giving stuff away is greedy. I'm saying that limiting said giveaways to only the UK is greedy.

They get contests for every relevant region, but the UK contests are just a lot more common. There's really nothing they can do about it.

Anyway, please try to keep the replies in the same post. Multiposting is no bueno.

@Meowpheel The UK competitions are becoming a bit too common if you ask me.

Finally. Someone who understands my way of thinking. Glad to see that your kind is still around here.

Maybe they could start hiding them from people who can't participate.

As they say: out of sight, out of mind.

Anonymous Nintendolife readers from other regions should do giveaways anonymously so people don't get upset anonymously

Because this is a fan site?

Their "greediness""?

@jump Word has it that sometimes Nintendo Life has stuff which they don't give away in competitions. They hold onto it for themselves! The greedy rascals.

I can kind of understand the frustration to be honest, even though the argument seems to be coming across a little entitled.

IGN often do similar (US-only) competitions despite having a very much global audience - I can understand if it's for something like eShop vouchers (which are very much region-specific) but, if you attract (and generate revenue from) a global audience, the giveaways should perhaps reflect that in my view...just my 2c!

(..and using the cost of international shipping as an excuse is a little bit lame - unless the giveaway is for a car or something, it really shouldn't be an issue!)

Sending a console to another country can get very pricey, especially with shipping and customs costs. It's great that this website even does these competitions. Accusing a website of being greedy because they sometimes give things away seems rather silly.

@Timsworld I believe sometimes it's also up to the company who's is offering the prizes and where they want to ship as well, and if that's the case NL has no control over that.

A another problem was at least with Nintendo's older systems was the region locking. It made no sense to offer a region a prize that someone from the wrong region couldn't use.

As for locking other regions out of the comments it was because the comment section just turned into a mess with people arguing and insulting each other and the mods had enough of it. It got to the point where it wasn't even feedback, just people insulting other regions and people from those regions.

@Timsworld You're welcome, no problem.

@Tasuki the region lock is only an issue for US residents, but Nintendo Life also has a heck of a lot of European members for whom this wouldn't be a problem, since they would be able to use UK equipment just fine, other than having to buy another mains adapter for it.

And current hardware doesn't even have a region lock anymore, or can be played in other regions, since most TV's support other signals nowadays, so all they would have to do is buy and play the right versions of the games. Importing consoles to other regions has been a quite common thing for several decades now...