Are Bioware making a mistake by not allowing SWTOR to be released in Australia?

[Alumatine]

Bioware has decided not to have a world wide release of SWTOR. This often happens to a degree not being released in some smaller European countries but to discount Australia as a major market is a big mistake in my book. I already preordered the collectors edition off amazon but that only solves the problem for a certain number of people.

What do you guys think? Is this is a mistake, is it justified or is it just plain stupid.

 

[gabe12301]

Of course it's a mistake. There's really no way to argue that it's not.

 

[Canid117]

Its what you guys get for being criminals.

I kid I kid but honestly it is probably has something to do with the ratings system in your country. Or they are trying to get it released in larger markets first so they can get around to you guys later.

 

[Alumatine]

We're not a small gaming country though. It's not like we're a small country in Europe. We are a massive buyer of games. Bioware have said there is a reason that they are not releasing in Australia but honestly I agree with gabe12301, I have no idea what it could be or what sort of argument there could be against it.

The rating system in Australia has no method to the madness. At this point it seems just as likely to ban online monopoly for being too competitive as they are to ban L4D2 for being too violent. -.- I don't think that has anything to do with this decision personally though.

 

[Comando96]

They aren't?

To be frank they must have good reasons not too because they aren't exactly going to miss out on money... unless they think it will cost them more to make that money...

 

[Alumatine]

Yet how does it benefit them to even block digital copies? Surely the infrastructure for digital downloading almost world wide is already there. They don't need to worry about region locking for PC gamers in terms of hardware. I'm beginning to think they just don't like our cool plastic money...

 

[Arsen]

...I am very, very sorry.

Not saying it's a great game or even looks altogether appeasing for me at this moment, but for those who wanted it...my apologies. Write an angry letter or send the ghosts of the criminals to LucasArts!

 

[JB1528]

...I am very, very sorry.

Not saying it's a great game or even looks altogether appeasing for me at this moment, but for those who wanted it...my apologies. Write an angry letter or send the ghosts of the criminals to LucasArts!

I recommend they send it to their own censor-crazy government. I mean let's be honest here, whenever some type of video game can't/wont be sold in Australia, it's almost ALWAYS the Australian government that is the cause.

 

[Alumatine]

That makes sense (although I don't agree) with some of the decisions they've made in the past. What possible reason could they have for banning star wars for a rating reason. If this is the cause, I have to say I would be more furious over this than anything else.

 

[ThriKreen]

It's probably logistics. Thing is, brick and mortar stores still contribute a lot to the sales of games, and if they went digital only or discounted for the digital version, the stores can threaten to stop carrying that game or the whole publisher library (hence why you see prices being the same on Steam versions as the retails).

Coupled that with the download limit restrictions due to the internet providers in Australia, and with how big the game probably will be... it'll blow everyone's monthly allowance by 5 times or something.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

Huh wow..Idk, maybe they are waiting to see how everything will handle with NA and Europe to iron out bugs/misbalancing/servers/etc.. before they give it a worldwide release?


Idk..but that does suck, sorry the rest of the world -_-

 

[Domehammer]

Maybe there worried that any information at all could get leaked about the game. EA is being very strict what information gets out and could be paranoid about something getting out.

 

[Tsaba]

SNIP

Why should the rest of the world wait, because, Australia's government is ass backwards when it comes to video games?

 

[LookingGlass]

Well for starters I'm assuming it's EA rather than Bioware that are able to make such decisions.

As for my (Australian) opinion. Is it a mistake? Probably not. Will it piss off some people? Absolutely. But if they release it here eventually (which it looks like they're open to doing), then people will get over it as long as the game is good.

Honestly we're a small market that would require our own local servers. We're probably not that profitable to them compared to an area like Europe with a lot of countries and a lot of gamers close together. If they're going to release it here and across the rest of the world, they probably want to make sure they have everything going smoothly first.

 

[Alumatine]

Sorry to say, but I don't think so. World of Warcraft was not released in many, much more populated countries until a good long while after its NA release. Sometimes the cost to potential benefit ratio just doesn't make sense. Chances are it will find its way there eventually, though.

Exactly how unpopulated do you think Australia is? The game is being released in Hungry and Poland yet not Australia? What about Belgium... Blegium isn't even technically a country. -.-

Furthermore WoW had a US and EU release date, Australia was included in the EU release date... not excluded outright.

 

[Funkysandwich]

They aren't releasing The Old Republic in Australia?

This country fucking sucks.

EDIT:: Then in the kotaku article they say: "Part of the reason this decision was made was because of the overwhelming demand for The Old Republic..."

What the hell?! If there's demand for something, make it available! That's how you make money!

 

[Alumatine]

Well for starters I'm assuming it's EA rather than Bioware that are able to make such decisions.

As for my (Australian) opinion. Is it a mistake? Probably not. Will it piss off some people? Absolutely. But if they release it here eventually (which it looks like they're open to doing), then people will get over it as long as the game is good.

Honestly we're a small market that would require our own local servers. We're probably not that profitable to them compared to an area like Europe with a lot of countries and a lot of gamers close together. If they're going to release it here and across the rest of the world, they probably want to make sure they have everything going smoothly first.

This makes sense, granted. Although alot of us won't care about playing on American servers like we do with most other MMOs. There is the problem of the smaller infrastructure required in order for us to read said servers but I'm honestly not sure how complicated or simple that would be.

I think it will be the worst decision for them if the game is bad to be honest. We're gonna find out it's bad before it gets released and we simply won't buy it. They will probably realise this though and simply not release it if it ends up being another aeon/warhammer online/rift "wow clone". Yet if they release it at least in line with the EU release, we'll all spend our money before we know what we're buying. With the price of games in Australia and the strength of the dollar, they would be making up for at least a small part of the subscription loss. (For those that don't know, the $50/$60 average pricetag in the USA is replaced in AU by a $90/$110 pricetag in almost all cases for AAA games).