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Rock, Paper, Shotgun Call For Worldwide Game Release Dates
deanbmmv quotes a plea from gaming site Rock, Paper, Shotgun for game makers to stop delaying game releases in continents with lower per capita cheeseburger consumption:
"Crysis 2 comes out today! And Lego Star Wars III! Hooray! Except of course, only if you drawl your vowels. These two big games are out in America only today. Crysis 2 reaches Australia on Thursday, and the finally completes its journey to Europe by Friday. Lego Star Wars III: The Clone Wars is taking a three day journey to Europe to reach us by Friday, before then walking to Australia to eventually be released eight days after its US launch. We've had enough. ... There’s an internet now. It’s changed everything. Once we were separate nations kept apart by vast spreads of water. But the internet contains no oceans. The time was a game could come out in North America and we’d not hear about it until the boats arrived carrying news from the new country. But now we can see the Steam page, the giant clocks on the game websites counting down to a day that means nothing, the launch trailers and excitable press releases about something we can’t have yet."
Now in an ideal world - which is to say a completely implausible world that exists only in my frenzied imagination - copyright protections would not apply to works that were "released" globally but not available in your territory. Which would, in most cases, give the industry a choice between "simultaneous worldwide releases" or "three days of legal, state endorsed piracy-mania in Europe".
Yes, I know there are a billion and one reasons why this would never happen, but I still smile at the thought.
Right. You undertake a multi-million project over the course of years and you can't sync logistics & legal? Come on, bullshit. The reason they release games on different dates now must be that they think they can make more money that way (money always is the reason).
Next up; a demand for products to be released worldwide at the same timezone-corrected GMT-based time.
Yes, it's annoying the marketing idiots seems to ignore the rather significant market of "the rest of the world", but a few days isn't too bad, is it?
I'm much more annoyed by movies (not only because I don't play any games) which sometimes seem to be released over half a year later here in Europe. Most annoyingly, dumbfuck movies like "Big Momma 3" are released on time, whereas good movies can take several months. Then again; a good movie doesn't go bad in half a year.
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Actually, the current releases are already coordinated, they're just not done on the same day.
It's a bit like with TV shows, a show is aired in the US on say, march 25th. Within a few hours of airing it is available as a paid-for download as well as a torrent. Six months later the region 1 DVD of the season with that episode comes out in the US, a few months later the region 2 DVD is released (only to be followed by the Bluray release). Of course, here in Sweden the only legal way to watch the show short of waiting for the Region 1 DVD will be to wait for some Swedish TV channel to work it into their schedule which can mean anything from a delay of a month or so to over six months (in case they want a bit of a "buffer" to deal with frequent breaks in US seasons).
So why can't us europeans get things right away? The answer seems to be the same for games and TV shows, distribution deals.
No one wants to piss off the major game importers/TV networks that pay big bucks to be the exclusive first source of boxed games/TV shows. The fact that they're basically irrelevant is of course ignored...
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A few days.. really? I remember regularly waiting years for games to make their way from the "Famicon" to my Nintendo. Yes, they're the same platform.
Maybe it's because the things traveling in the tubes are adverse to going to a penal colony?
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Yes, this. I think the staggered release dates are more due to retail pressure than publishers delaying shit for the sheer hell of it. Every country has a day of the week where traditionally new music/movies/games etc. are released, however each country has a different date. I don't really think that game publishers have enough clout to force retailers into releasing new media on a different day, so the path of least resistance is just to stagger the game by a few days.
Monstar L
If you won't sell it to me, and I can acquire it without depriving anyone else of it, no government-endorsed monopoly protections apply.
This would include, for example:
- Movie studios owning the "rights" to a film, while having no intention of actually making that film
- Patent trolls, who do not actually create the product which they own the exclusive right to produce
- Anyone who sells a product which is intentionally broken (DRM, DVD regions, etc)
The idea that it is illegal to "steal" a copy of something which is not actually available for purchase is absurd to me. What are the damages? You don't sell it, so the damages are zero.
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Well we all know for sure that if they charged less their sales would increase more than enough to compensate, and yet they don't do it (temporary promotions aside).
So somebody somewhere must be stupid...
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Sometimes the delays for games making it to Australia can be a lot longer than 3 days.
Like the recent Ghostbusters FPS. Atari (the publisher of the game after Activision sold the publishing deal to them) pulled some crap and did a deal with Sony where the game was exclusive to the PlayStation console in Australia for a couple of months.
Many fans of this game were pissed off at this (myself included). Once it became known that the US 360 version didnt have region locks and would run on EU/AU 360s, a lot of them just said "Screw you Sony/Atari" and imported the game from the states. I suspect a lot of PC players just pirated it.
All that the limited-time exclusivity did was to result in a lot of lost sales from people who would have quite happily bought the game if they didnt have to wait so long for it.
The problem is most big tech/gaming sites are US based. If the US gets release preference , the internet community usually isnt bothered , and anyone complaining is a whiner,baby, impatient etc. If the US doesn't get release preference , its histories greatest tragedy, internet petitions are raised , individuals threatened, people are setting themselves on fire in front of EA's head office , "cats and dogs living together , end of the world people..". Not gaming based but I remember the teeth that were gnashed and the clothes rent in anguish by many scifi forums when the first series of Battlestar Galactica was shown first on Sky in the UK and Ireland(not the miniseries, but the first full series) a few month or so early. To the point where the the creators came out to apologize and beg people not to torrent it. The following seasons all debuted in the states first , any grumblings were met with "whatevs..lol"
... they think they can make more money that way (money always is the reason).
Now, supposing the pirate version of a game is not released even before the first day of availability, it is likely it will spread out in "usual protocols" some days after it. Shouldn't they foresee a money loss if the only option for gamers to play will be through illegal means? How is that going to bring them money?
If the pirate version is stable and the game is not mainly multiplayer, once gamers go down the pirate road they're unlikely to buy the game after the official release. Or, at least, they will see less advantage in doing so...
With all these firms loosing money I wish they'd loose some my way.
These delayed releases for anything, be it games, movies or music, promote piracy. Why wait 3 days (or months in some cases) for something to appear in the store if you can just download it now? The whole control of distribution is no longer there, so any company that wants to make money, should not try and use controlled distribution as a money vehicle. Focus on membership fees for online gameplay, added features, bonus things only available to people with a genuine product key and all that.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
Right. You undertake a multi-million project over the course of years and you can't sync logistics & legal? Come on, bullshit. The reason they release games on different dates now must be that they think they can make more money that way (money always is the reason).
Not disagreeing with your logic, it's sound but still pants on head retarded.
In Australia a game costs A$90, in USD thats $90.10, considering we have no restrictions on media exports delaying release in the US and Europe would theoretically net more money by making early adopters in the US and Europe import at higher prices... yet Australia is the last to get anything.
Maybe I shouldn't be giving them ideas.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.