voodoo47 on 17/8/2011 at 20:36
1) after the game is out, wait 48hrs
2) open google,type "deus ex 3 region lock remover"
3) download and use
4) play
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5) problem,Squeenix?
Matthew on 17/8/2011 at 22:28
Well, I suppose the biggest problem is that to do that you'd have to knock out the entire Steamworks install and Steam registration. Is that even possible yet? (I honestly don't know.)
Yakoob on 18/8/2011 at 00:26
Whuh? I can understand continent--locking since there are vastly different trade / sale / censorship laws in each place and culture that may require some tinkering, but region locking it to each specific country in the EU? That's a little overkill, especially considering half of those will be completely identical (not even custom language and subs for the smaller countries).EDIT: Ok read it in detail and says
Quote:
Retail copies sold in the UK will only activate on UK Steam accounts. It's a similar story for copies sold in Russia/Poland, and the rest of the EU makes up the third European region ... This region locking protects Square-Enix's policy of international pricing
Hmm they say they lock the UK for price reasons. I wonder if that stems from sales tax somehow (is it lower there, which is why they can charge a lower price)?
I have a feeling this is not a simple "SE GREEDY!" thing but a complex tree of dependencies where SE has some deal with retailers, stores, online outlets, steam and the devs to sell at certain prices and bring certain profit or meet a requirement which necessitates a different price in UK / Russia / Poland than rest of EU. And now the whole setup is either so convoluted and co-dependent, or dating so far back, that changing these things would require lots of renegotiating, delaying the already-completed and probably already burned-on-cds game.
After all, if SE were merely greed, they'd probably just jack the price up to the common highest denominator all across the board and be done with it.
mothra on 18/8/2011 at 06:01
play contacted me that they canceled my order automatically but I am free to reorder, just that they will not be able to give any support. which is ok with me. SE+EidosMontreal can officially kiss my a**, I am sure they will find some crazy explanation why DX:HR will be one of the most pirated games upon release.....
this publisher just went down the drain for me
Matthew on 18/8/2011 at 08:55
Quote Posted by Yakoob
I have a feeling this is not a simple "SE GREEDY!" thing but a complex tree of dependencies where SE has some deal with retailers, stores, online outlets, steam and the devs to sell at certain prices and bring certain profit or meet a requirement which necessitates a different price in UK / Russia / Poland than rest of EU. And now the whole setup is either so convoluted and co-dependent, or dating so far back, that changing these things would require lots of renegotiating, delaying the already-completed and probably already burned-on-cds game.
After all, if SE were merely greed, they'd probably just jack the price up to the common highest denominator all across the board and be done with it.
Well, here's their problem: it's not contrary to EU regulations to have different prices in different countries within the Union (or indeed EFTA). It IS however contrary to those regulations to prevent a citizen of the EU from buying a product in another EU or EFTA country simply because they don't live there.
Despite the fact that you can still physically buy the product, the fact that the manufacturer can specifically prevent you from using it based on your location in another part of the EU/EFTA (albeit not if you activated it in the UK first, which I doubt would be sufficient) would seem to run contrary to the right of free movement of goods and services between Member States. If they had had a 'Europe' lock then there would probably be no problem as parallel importation is still a bit of a grey (ha) area, but Poland and the UK are obviously both members of the EU and this system means that a consumer in the rest of the EU cannot have the benefit of a product ordered in one of those Member States.
It's a principle of European law that regulations of this sort are generally effective against businesses and individuals as well as the governments of Member States themselves (horizontal direct effect - without going into details, courts would be required to interpret national law in order to give effect to the intentions of the European legislation), so I'm very surprised that Squeenix decided to take this chance (and from what some mods on their forum are saying, it was a very last-minute decision at the time of pressing). Surely someone could have warned them that taking the fairly unprecedented step of separating up Europe into different sectors could lead them into considerable difficulty?
Melan on 18/8/2011 at 09:08
Quote Posted by Yakoob
After all, if SE were merely greed, they'd probably just jack the price up to the common highest denominator all across the board and be done with it.
Not really. For example, Western European retail chains often subsidise their generous home deals with higher prices in the eastern member states; likewise, a recent probe in Slovakia has found that identically labelled food products in several retained chains contained much lower quality products than in the west. In the end, people living in countries with lower wages often pay more for shittier goods, getting fucked not once, not twice, but three times in the process. There is a lot of this shit going on, which is what makes this recent case even more infuriating. And at least you can use the Pringles you bought in the UK in Poland or wherever. :erg:
(Yes, they are just silly computer games, not a necessity)
Matthew on 18/8/2011 at 12:24
Update: one of Squeenix's lawyers has obviously read them the (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riot_Act#.22Read_the_Riot_Act.22) Riot Act and as a result:
Quote Posted by Very Shamefaced Squeenix Rep
Region-locking plan UPDATE
We’re aware of some discussion regarding the planned region-locking of boxed PC versions of Deus Ex: Human Revolution, and after careful review we have decided not to implement this in the UK/Europe. Please note, this plan only related to PC boxed games, and not digital or console editions.
European jurisprudence 1, Square Enix 0.
Matthew on 18/8/2011 at 14:55
Or had their orders automatically cancelled, as I believe Amazon et al were doing.
