Well, EA just lost the overseas military market

[Jericho941]

EA's been jealous of Valve's Steam for quite awhile, and they cooked up a knock-off they call Origin. Knowing that this would be highly unwelcome, they tied it to the release of Battlefield 3: In order to play the game, you have to have Origin. They even stopped selling BF3 through other online distributors like Steam.

Only problem is, Origin is region-locked. Ridiculously so. So if you want to order Battlefield 3 online, you'd better hope you read and understand the local language, and have an account with the local currency. Otherwise you're SOL. And if you happen to be a local and EA misinterprets your IP? Well fuck you Mr. Ukrainian, you should've learned French.

Soooo... yeah. Modern Warfare 3 is probably going to be a terrible, phoned-in game, but it looks like EA screwed the pooch hard enough for that not to matter. BF3's toast.

Well, maybe not on the consoles, but if you're playing an FPS on consoles, you are wrong.

[Kommander]

*starts sobbing uncontrollably about Mass Effect 3*

[oilcrash]

*starts sobbing uncontrollably about Mass Effect 3*

Indeed. I'll be in [location redacted] when it comes out.

[Odahi]

Well, DAMN. I might have actually bought that one, although it's not my usual cup of tea. Fortunately there are enough other shooters/rpg's out there to keep me out of trouble. I haven't bought a game in a while anyway, and this kind of nonsense tends to make me want to keep my money.

[Rich Jordan]

Sounds like they're seriously demeaning the memory of Origin Systems (Lord British, the Ultima Series, Akalabeth, etc). Sad on so many levels.

[mekender]

You can change the language inside the Origin program...

As for region locks, that is likely due to local laws in different regions... Some places make it illegal to depict certain things so you have to have some mechanism to detect where the player is or risk getting charged criminally.

[Jericho941]

You can change the language inside the Origin program...

It doesn't matter worth a damn when you go to the actual Origin store. Your entire EA account might've been set to US English since you bought BF2 in 2006, your Origin client might have always been set to US English as well, but the moment you try to buy the game, you get redirected to the "local" store.

For example, this link will take you to the US English page for it. But the moment you click "Buy Now," you get this.

As for region locks, that is likely due to local laws in different regions... Some places make it illegal to depict certain things so you have to have some mechanism to detect where the player is or risk getting charged criminally.

Nope, EA just wants to make sure people in certain countries aren't getting out of those specific countries' prices and release dates. Valve will let American customers buy from the US Steam store no matter where they are. Just have to contact customer service. EA's been bombarded with complaints about this already. They don't care.

[mekender]

Well, I have my own beef with EA over this game release so who knows...

[Jericho941]

Well, I managed to get a small bit of revenge.

[Kommander]

Is that real? Wow.