Burrito of Peace wrote on Jul 5, 2019, 15:58:
I find this all highly amusing.
What the publishers really want is protectionist capitalism. They want to sell globally but only at prices they have fixed in certain markets. However, data is region agnostic and an actual free market doesn't work that way. Let's say I want to buy a car. I can buy it locally for X price but if I drive 4 hours to another state (well, not Texas because Texas distances are measured in days) I can buy the same car for X-$10,000. Why would I not drive 4 hours to save myself ten grand? I see that as what people who buy from G2A, CDKeys, GMG, and others are doing. They are protecting their pocket book which they have every right and responsibility to do. Now, should there be actual, provable evidence (which one anecdote does not provide) that fraud is occurring then that is a problem that needs to be addressed. However, outside of accusations, I don't see any provable evidence being supplied. I see a lot of whining from publishers, though.
I also don't buy the excuse of "Well, Call of Halo Battlefield 97,173 won't get made because it is soooooooo expensive to make and A region pays less so B region subsidizes A region by paying more." Then don't make the game. Hell, let the publishers who are playing this shell game crash and burn. It'll be good for us in the long term. I'm old enough to remember the videogame market crash of the 1983. While people pissed and moaned about it being the end of all things, it actually ended up being a good thing for us as gamers. We got Electronic Arts out of it (the good version which made awesome games, not the current shitlord), Origin Systems, Sierra On-Line, Westwood Studios, Blizzard Entertainment, and many others. We saw a resurgence in games for the PC that lasted well through the 90s in to the early 2000s.
Should EA, Ubisoft, and others flame out and die, other companies will emerge after a period of recovery and start putting out titles. That's just the cyclical nature of non-corporeal goods based market. Anyone here still pining for the glory days of Packard, Hudson, Cord, Sears, Kmart, Compaq, eMachines, Gateway, Matrox, Trident, or Hercules?
With almost any other product, there would be a myriad of other costs associated with buying from another country: tariffs, taxes, shipping,import restrictions, etc. that would affect the price. Those are missing from games for two reasons:
1. The lack of cost for shipping software electronically.
2. The lack of import regulations.
From this perspective, I can see why publishers and devs bristle at the inability to handle sales globally the way other industries do. Not sure what the solution is, but it's a unique problem.
"Even after you've had the COVID-19 vaccine, you still need to wash hands, watch distance and wear a mask because you can still transmit the virus even though you're not going to get sick." - NIH Director Dr. Francis Collins