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18 06 2008

Direct2Drive UK now region locked

Posted by: Mythor in News

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Kudos and hurrah to those of you who heeded my advice and got the full version from them yesterday.

Bad news to those who did not - some time this morning Direct2Drive UK locked the Spore Creature Creator away from anyone outside the UK.

This means that gamers in Australia (among other locations) now have no official means via which to obtain the full version of the Creature Creator.

If there’s one thing that is sure to increase piracy of your game, making it completely unavailable via any other means in one region is certainly it.

The craziest thing here is that they are essentially throwing away free money. The full version requires a key to activate, so they would not even have to host the download themself, just the key sending mechanism. But even so, 300mb of bandwidth is not that costly and would have been factored into the US pricing. No reason to think it could not have been for Australia, too.

The only other cost involved (unique to Australia) is getting it classified by the OFLC, which may run as much as $2,000 but would likely be cheaper. Is EA really trying to tell us they don’t think they could sell 134 copies at $15 in Australia? Or 200 at $10?

Maybe they’re busily designing a rabbit in the Creature Creator for them to pull out of a hat and Aussies will get the Creator tomorrow. I’ll be sure to update you all if this happens.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 18th, 2008 at 2:37 pm and is filed under News.
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Viewing 5 Comments

    • ^
    • v
    www.spore.com/ftl (chose your country page) now has Australia and New Zealand flags. Australia and NZ online ordering for Spore-CC goes through US store.
    • ^
    • v
    But the NZ flag has AU in the URL. The AU flag has NZ in the URL.

    And the US EA Store won't let you order anything if you're from Australia.

    Australia have had a seperate EA store for more than a year now, so they can continue charging us $90 for the same games they're selling for $50 on the US site. If we want to buy stuff from EA it's got to be on the Australian EA store. Or we've got to have a very good friend in America whose address and credit card we can use. ;)
    • ^
    • v
    They have had the oflc rating since the 10th of June

    SPORE CREATURES NDS (aka SPORE CREATURE CREATOR PC/ SPORE PC) Game (Nintendo DS)

    Classification G (General)
    Consumer Advice
    Category Computer Games
    Version ORIGINAL
    Duration variable
    Date of Classification 10 June 2008
    Author ELECTRONIC ARTS
    Publisher ELECTRONIC ARTS
    Production Company NOT SHOWN
    Country of Origin USA
    Applicant ELECTRONIC ARTS
    File Number T08/2404
    Classification Number 5253157E

    and even before that

    SPORE CREATURES Game (Multi Platform)


    Classification G (General)
    Consumer Advice
    Category Computer Games
    Version ORIGINAL
    Duration variable
    Date of Classification 22 April 2008
    Author ELECTRONIC ARTS
    Publisher ELECTRONIC ARTS
    Production Company ELECTRONIC ARTS
    Country of Origin USA
    Applicant ELECTRONIC ARTS
    File Number T08/1670
    Classification Number 5073257D
    • ^
    • v
    I think that might be the Nintendo DS version, since that's what the primary listing is for. Not sure though.

    You can also get a preliminary rating and then have it revised later, which I think might be to do with gaining advertising approval? For example "Too Human", a game coming in August for the XBOX 360, has both an "original" and "revised" rating already.

    The most recent rating also covered the full game of Spore, which is what leads me to believe that it's not the Creature Creator. The content of the full game is obviously going to differ quite a lot from the Creature Creator and from the DS version. I don't think they'd get away with a blanket rating for all three. :)

    I don't think you're right but I very much hope you are, since then there's clearly nothing stopping them releasing it Real Soon Now! Still a few hours till the US release via the EA Store so it's possible they're just waiting for that. To be mean. :)
    • ^
    • v
    It didn't when I had a look...it just goes from bad to worse.
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