Petition to ban Region Locking

[Hells Malice]

US would be the last place to ban region locking, just stop and hear the screams of "that immigrant/china is stealing legit 'muricans jobs" (jobs they don't want for payments they wouldn't accept), a similar argument would be given to say that millions of dollars are being lost because basement-dweller-guy-level99-warrior isn't buying "North-American-Built-Seal-of-Qualit-Eagle-Guns-Explosion" games because all their money is going to another country and not supporting the economy of their country.

Not sure if troll...or just remarkably retarded and ignorant

 

[Senbei Norimaki]

Region Locking is for price control. They don't want Europeans importing cheaper US cartridges.

 

[duffmmann]

San Andreas' "Hot Coffee" was actually disabled by Rockstar before the game even came out, and only accessible via Gameshark codes on consoles, and patches on the PC version.

Manhunt 2 was censored due to Sony and Nintendo's policies, NOT the government, and done so again before the game was released by Rockstar's parent company.

Neither example you used was at the behest of the US government.


Look at the news lately, the focus on "violent video games" hat happens every time some jackhole shoots up a public school. Video games get to be a scapegoat from the media, and we all should know just how much the government likes to use the media for our protection.

Yes, but once it was known that the code was still there (even if you had to use a gameshark to activate), Rockstar was being forced to put an AO rating on the game instead of M as it was, not wanting to lose sales due to the dreaded AO rating, they promptly removed the Hot Coffee minigame from all games afterwards.

Manhunt 2 was to receive an AO rating as well if it were to ship as it were. Granted an AO rating isn't a banning, but it is a damning. Your game simply wont sell with that rating, its the same reason films don't release with an NC-17 rating.

My only point is, that while games don't get banned per se, the US has a rating system that doesn't make the uber mature rated games profitable, its essentially the same thing. your local Target or Best Buy aren't going to sell AO rated games or NC-17 rated movies.

Again though, I don't see a correlation between region locking and the banning of games (in the US). The US wouldn't change its laws on game rankings, but other countries with strict game ranking laws would take issue with certain mature games from the US being shipped there.

 

[DJ91990]

I am going to sign this petition. I am sick and tired of software and movie companies treating the end user like a caged animal. If I want to buy a game from Japan and play in on an American game system and if the display signals match then I should damn well be able to. I am not only paying for the game, but also the shipping, handling, and import fees.

If someone can either create or locate a petition that states; "Electronic products consumers buy, they own, not licence" or something to that effect, please let me know. I am also sick of the whole entertainment and tech industry blabbing on about "You don't own that product you bought, you only have a license to use it that is revocable without refund at any time."

Even if this petition passes, if a recent bill becomes law, it would make import games illegal, as well for any other interactive media not rated by the ESRB. You know, indie games like Minecraft? ILLEGAL if this bill passes.

Keywords: US Government, ESRB, Government Mandate, Unrated Games illegal to sell/buy, unconstitutional

Punch those into your favorite search engine and I am sure you'll find the bill.

 

[Gahars]

Yeah, the United States government has no jurisdiction on this matter. Like, at all.

You might as well write a petition to Santa Claus - the outcome's going to be the same.

 

[Senbei Norimaki]

If a movie company in the US wants to avoid the NC 17 they will just not have the movie rated. A lot of foreign films and directors cuts are released on DVD unrated. The government says nothing about it. NC17 movies are a pain in the ass for movie theatres because they have to pay an usher to guard the doors of the theatre to make sure no minors go in there. That is how they did it when I was an usher years ago.

The government could end region locking if they wanted to ,but they will not because the politicians are prostitutes for the corporations.

 

[the_randomizer]

But surely, the companies want to curtail DRM/copy protection removal to bypass the region locks, right? Right??

 

[Yepi69]

This won't do, not to mention both US and europe have different regions of tv output as well, PAL and NTSC.

 

[ReBirFh]

This won't do, not to mention both US and europe have different regions of tv output as well, PAL and NTSC.

That's an "artificial" problem, region hacked games can be played with no problems on system from every region and every TV should have no problems dealing with this (unless the maker locks the region on th TV's firmware).

 

[Yepi69]

That's an "artificial" problem, region hacked games can be played with no problems on system from every region and every TV should have no problems dealing with this (unless the maker locks the region on th TV's firmware).

The TV signal output system, not the firmware, and I bet when playing US games on a PAL console and vice versa, the loader patches it on the fly to be able to run on THAT TV signal.

 

[Gahars]

ITT People don't understand law

 

[ShadowSoldier]

Wouldn't it be funny to say if this does work and they do ban region locking, and Nintendo (for example) decide to just stop selling hardware in the U.S all together?

 

[ReBirFh]

The TV signal output system, not the firmware, and I bet when playing US games on a PAL console and vice versa, the loader patches it on the fly to be able to run on THAT TV signal.

Any modern TV, and by modern I mean basically any TV made from mid 90's onwards have what is called trinorm, you can just go to menu and set the region you want or set it to auto and it will choose the correct region for you.

Besides, do computer monitors have a region? don't every RGB/HDMI Monitor supports consoles from any region?

Edit: I said "firmware" because most TV sets from the well-known brands are sold worldwide with a different firmware they can use to lock access to certain functions (like the Trinorm) or unavailable inputs (like SCART or RGB).

 

[Senbei Norimaki]

Any modern TV, and by modern I mean basically any TV made from mid 90's onwards have what is called trinorm, you can just go to menu and set the region you want or set it to auto and it will choose the correct region for you.

Multi-standard TVs maybe common in rest of the world ,but not in the US. PAL & NTSC is only a problem with older video cables Yellow, Red, and White. When I play a Pal game on my NTSC Wii and TV with those cables the TV goes crazy. Now if I use the six color video cables Pal games play find on my NTSC Wii and TV.

 

[Taleweaver]

What kind of a retarded poll is this? I don't like region locking either, but it's not hard to see the reasoning it exists. All I hear in this thread is "it gives them more money", as if that's somehow a negative thing. Shipping worldwide isn't easy, and bringing things out in different regions makes things manageable. Without the region locking, games will STILL not see worldwide releases on the exact same dates. What we will see, however, is large shops and shady resellers going after profit while forcing bad deals on game producers. Meanwhile, marketeers will have a MUCH harder (or even impossible) job of predicting which region likes which kinds of games, as it's impossible to track these sorts of things.

And why the hell is that poll aimed at the white house? Last time I checked, Obama wasn't the board director of sony, nintendo, microsoft, valve, EA or any other big firm (let alone all the small ones). The best this poll can achieve is that he can ask those guys if they want to consider it and get laughed out of their office. Should be fun...

Barack: hi there...I've got a question. My voters have massively asked to remove region checking of games. So I thought I'd drop by and ask about it.
Reggie: so...does that mean you're going to change the laws concerning sex and violence (among others) so it conforms to the international standard?
Barack: there is an international standard for these sort of things?
Reggie: no. And that's exactly my point. Those voters of yours...do they want to succumb to the same restrictions the Germans forces on adult games?
Barack: erm...I don't think so. My guess is that most, if not all of them, want to put a liberal viewpoint on things. So...basically ignoring the voices of other countries.
Reggie: And Massachusetts, I guess. Have they found any more threatening arcade games in public stations? (linky)
Barack: ugh...don't get me started on that. We were talking about region restrictions.
Reggie: Right...so...why would we help them?
Barack: they don't like importing, obviously.
Reggie: of course not. I want all the games I want to be delivered here as well. But imports are always a small fraction of the games. If we even feel there is a demand for the game, we'll localize it. You can't be asking us to lose money, right?
Barack: well...no. But isn't there a way to make a profit out of it? I mean...if a game sells poorly in one country, you can always ship it to another.
Reggie: and who is going to pay for transport costs? You have any idea how much it costs to retrieve thousands of games from one shop and move them to another?
Barack: erm...
Reggie: and despite popular believe, the entire world isn't English or Japanese. Are you saying we should translate it to every language out there before we even ship it? Boy...it'll delay some games for quite some time, I'll tell you that. Are you sure the voters of that poll thought things through?
Barack: it was an internet poll. I think most of them just wanted to get some frustration off their chest.
Reggie: yeah, we know how it feels. I get death threats for not localizing most JRPG's on pretty much a daily basis. But when we do give in, it barely gets any profit.
Barack: you wouldn't get that if you removed the region lock, you know?
Reggie: yeah, but I'd get something much worse: a total nightmare trying to find out which games sell in which region. Imagine what kind of a mess it would be if the Presidential elections weren't done by state but all thrown together on a big heap.
Barack: I'd still win.
Reggie: Al Gore would have said the same. But what I'm saying is: how would you have planned your re-election if you only had a very vague idea of which state you were favorite. And keep in mind we do NOT have the kinds of budget for big polls like that.
Barack: I'd have no idea.
Barack: ...oh...wait...I see where you're going with this. :-\
Reggie: yeah. Welcome to my job. Sorry, dude. Region locking isn't done for fun. It's done for our customers. Even though they won't be grateful for it.



So...yeah. GG on the poll, wiseguys. I'm actually scared of the over 2000 nitwits who apparently cannot see an inch outside their own perspective.

What's next? A poll to legalize the distribution of illegal roms?

 

[emigre]

snip

Like Reggie knows that much the video game industry

 

[Rydian]

This won't do, not to mention both US and europe have different regions of tv output as well, PAL and NTSC.

That's the TV broadcast standard and only applies to the old analog signals. Modern consoles can run out-of-region software just fine, and it never even was an issue where analog broadcast didn't come into play, like with PC games.

For example there's no such thing as NTSC or PAL DS/DSi/3DS units... because they have nothing to do with TV signals. The fact that the DS wasn't region-locked disproves the whole "It's all the signals and they can't get around it" crap anyways.

 

[J-Machine]

removing a region lock is at a dev/publishers discretion. Cave, known for their bullet hell schmups had tried this strategy on the 360 to gauge export sales from japan to other countries.