Benefits and disadvantages of gaming in your country

[MalevolentJim]

Ireland

Pros:

-Availability.
-We're pretty lax on the whole R18 thing.
-Large gaming community

Cons:

-We don't like talking online,we get mocked alot =/
-Games are expensive as Ireland's an expensive country to live in.

 

[y1fella]

Germany

Advantages:
- Seeing as how many people complain about Gamestop and such, i guess it's pretty easy to get games in Germany. Lots of electronic stores have them, rarely in limited stock and without trying to talk you into any special stuff like insurances or special offers.
And there are lots of online stores to get games, and if you preorder, most will deliver them a day or so BEFORE the official release date

- Return policies and such are heavily regulated by german law, and they are mostly pretty customer friendly.

- Thanks to the PAL Standard you can get games from all over Europe, like the UK, where games are currently a LOT cheaper than in Germany.


Disadvantages:
- Importing Games outside of Europe however, is very pricey and there are not much actual import stores to get games from the US or Japan.

- Of course, the whole censoring thing...i guess i have to go a bit deeper into that:
(1) The age-rating logos of the USK (german version of PEGI or ESRB), are pretty f**king big, and mandatory. If you like pretty game covers, it can be REALLY annoying. Here's Bioshock 2, as an example:
http://www.spielerwitwen.de/wp-content/gallery/bioshock-2-packshots/BIOSHOCK%202%20PS3%20USK.jpg

(2) Speaking of the USK, they are REALLY tough...sometimes (more on that later).
Anything that involves blood or shooting people is restricted to 18 pretty much immediately. Of course, It's sort of understandable and no problem once you've grown up, but that does make the whole thing actually worse.

(3) You see, the USK can downright refuse to rate a game if it is too violent. And if that happens, stores are not allowed to sell the game "openly" (like, on shelves), wich of course leads to stores not offering the game for obvious reasons, and in turn for publishers to not even release the game in germany because it's just not worth it...

(4) Unless they censor the game itself and cut down the most violent parts. So it's very much possible to have a game only being sold to mature people that is STILL partly censored, effectively protecting "grown ups" with a law "for kids".

(5) So yeah, publishers are not releasing games in germany, but no problem, right? You just go into a gamestore and get an import....As long as the ratings board does not decide afterwards to forbid the game to be even sold in germany. So often times, importing from foreign countries is the ONLY option.

(6) Wich is ALSO not as much of a problem as it sounds, but if a game is not rated in germany, you also cannot offer any DLC openly on german networks, wich includes german accounts on Xbox Live, Playstation Network and Steam. So say goodbye to your international Gears of War 3 Clan/Team once the first Mappack is released...

(7) ...And speaking of Steam, you cannot of course buy unreleased/uncut stuff there.

- Games are slightly pricier in Germany

- German Dubs S U C K most of the time, and you can't always count on them being multilanguage.

wow............ Germany sucks, i new the gov was strict about games but that.... that is insane

Well only 11 games have been banned in the history of Germany, you still get every game you wan't and uncensored (if they release a censored version, the can sell the uncensored one openly and pretty much only do that)
Also, imports are really easy since your in the eu and they are cheaper then buying a unimported version.
+ the shops carry the imported version instead of the censored one in my area and for the same price.

well that's not so bad, it just seemed much worse than it was from your description

 

[Vinculi]

Well, as an Australian i'm *used* to shelling out ridiculous amounts of cash for a game.

But I HATE listening to foreigners complain about paying too much for a game. A new PS3 release can often cost the equivalent of over $100 USD, so i get annoyed hearing someone say that they feel ripped off over $60 when that is a sale price over here.

 

[laggyteabag]

Good -
Reasonably cheap games (even if they're new)
Lots of people play games here
Bad -
TERRIBLE internet connection (Just my area =( )
Every body shouts at each other about what console is the best one

 

[BossBax]

Germany

Advantages:
- Seeing as how many people complain about Gamestop and such, i guess it's pretty easy to get games in Germany. Lots of electronic stores have them, rarely in limited stock and without trying to talk you into any special stuff like insurances or special offers.
And there are lots of online stores to get games, and if you preorder, most will deliver them a day or so BEFORE the official release date

- Return policies and such are heavily regulated by german law, and they are mostly pretty customer friendly.

- Thanks to the PAL Standard you can get games from all over Europe, like the UK, where games are currently a LOT cheaper than in Germany.


Disadvantages:
- Importing Games outside of Europe however, is very pricey and there are not much actual import stores to get games from the US or Japan.

- Of course, the whole censoring thing...i guess i have to go a bit deeper into that:
(1) The age-rating logos of the USK (german version of PEGI or ESRB), are pretty f**king big, and mandatory. If you like pretty game covers, it can be REALLY annoying. Here's Bioshock 2, as an example:
http://www.spielerwitwen.de/wp-content/gallery/bioshock-2-packshots/BIOSHOCK%202%20PS3%20USK.jpg

(2) Speaking of the USK, they are REALLY tough...sometimes (more on that later).
Anything that involves blood or shooting people is restricted to 18 pretty much immediately. Of course, It's sort of understandable and no problem once you've grown up, but that does make the whole thing actually worse.

(3) You see, the USK can downright refuse to rate a game if it is too violent. And if that happens, stores are not allowed to sell the game "openly" (like, on shelves), wich of course leads to stores not offering the game for obvious reasons, and in turn for publishers to not even release the game in germany because it's just not worth it...

(4) Unless they censor the game itself and cut down the most violent parts. So it's very much possible to have a game only being sold to mature people that is STILL partly censored, effectively protecting "grown ups" with a law "for kids".

(5) So yeah, publishers are not releasing games in germany, but no problem, right? You just go into a gamestore and get an import....As long as the ratings board does not decide afterwards to forbid the game to be even sold in germany. So often times, importing from foreign countries is the ONLY option.

(6) Wich is ALSO not as much of a problem as it sounds, but if a game is not rated in germany, you also cannot offer any DLC openly on german networks, wich includes german accounts on Xbox Live, Playstation Network and Steam. So say goodbye to your international Gears of War 3 Clan/Team once the first Mappack is released...

(7) ...And speaking of Steam, you cannot of course buy unreleased/uncut stuff there.

- Games are slightly pricier in Germany

- German Dubs S U C K most of the time, and you can't always count on them being multilanguage.

wow............ Germany sucks, i new the gov was strict about games but that.... that is insane

Well only 11 games have been banned in the history of Germany, you still get every game you wan't and uncensored (if they release a censored version, the can sell the uncensored one openly and pretty much only do that)
Also, imports are really easy since your in the eu and they are cheaper then buying a unimported version.
+ the shops carry the imported version instead of the censored one in my area and for the same price.

well that's not so bad, it just seemed much worse than it was from your description

Damn us Germans, we are too thorough with what we do, so there's hardly anything to ad.

Still OT: Sometimes the developers are forced to change a few thing in their games due to the USK. For example the german version of Half Life (the first one that is) featured Robots instead of Marines. Scientists that were killed just sat down and shook their head until they disapeared after some time. Early versions of Counterstrike and other shooters featured green blood to make the games less realistic.

One Disatvantage i'll add is that due to our laws and overall puplic opinion on guns (wich is not in favor of guns(d'uh)) many Germans see gamers, especially fps-gamers, as serialkillers waiting to happen. Those idiots will never get it! they should pay for how they insult me. they'll all get to know me soon enough!!!

[/irony]

 

[Cid Silverwing]

Norway's position in the gaming industry:

1. SOME games get translated into Norwegian (Action Man, all Disney games, Sly Cooper series, EyeToy, JumpStart and some others.) Otherwise it's completely ignored.
2. Slow release dates.
3. Zero censorship.
4. Good prices (conversion rates from Euro to NOK are kinda fair right now).

 

[Ze_Reaper_Of_Zeath]

Hong Kong
Advantages
- No tax rates, so very cheap games here,
- Depending on the ISP, you have very good internet speeds, and very low ping.
Disadvantages
- Not alot of game stores here ( Toy's R Us, Microworld -closed- are the only stores in my area)

 

[superbatranger]

Costa Rica

+ Decent amount of game stores. 10 or so per shopping center, depending on the area.
+ No negative press

-Overpriced games. Up to 100+ dollars.
-Games get released later.
-Amazon won't ship games here.
-Most of those video game stores just sell pirated copies.