FINAL FANTASY XI® Seekers of Adoulin

[Demon6324236]

nationalism is segregation based on the country.

racism is based on race.

i never knew that eastern asian people living in the states could receive jp only items...

Nationalism or Racism, both are just as bad, I live in NA no reason I should be denied a game because of that, some companies I might understand, they don't have the people to translate the games and put them out, SE however...

SE does it with many things, not just a small amount, they make games that take years to long to get to other countries, make special editions with added content(Not as much of a problem now that DLC exists) and just games in general that we will never see in stores. Its sad & pathetic in general, and its honestly why I am not surprised at this move by them, its just another company doing what everyone is doing these days, screw customers, make money, EA does it, Activision does it, and our lovely SE does it too.

[saevel]

nationalism is segregation based on the country.

racism is based on race.

i never knew that eastern asian people living in the states could receive jp only items...

Nationalism and Racism intersect whenever a nationalistic population is largely homogenous. In these case's the race is seen as the nation and vice versa. This happens in many places that maintained an anti-outsider attitude until the last century or so.

Ex: In South Korea, being ethnic Korean is culturally treated the same as being a citizen of SK. Someone being of non-Korean ethnicity yet having Korean citizenship, via immigration or being children of immigrants, is treated as a lower class citizen. Japan is a slightly better only because they hide their feelings behind a smile, otherwise the same behaviors exist. I can not speak for other countries as I've not yet been there, but I can speak for SK / Japan.

[Tsukino_Kaji]

SE does it with many things, not just a small amount, they make games that take years to long to get to other countries, make special editions with added content(Not as much of a problem now that DLC exists) and just games in general that we will never see in stores. Its sad & pathetic in general, and its honestly why I am not surprised at this move by them, its just another company doing what everyone is doing these days, screw customers, make money, EA does it, Activision does it, and our lovely SE does it too.

It's our own fault for having crappy, gimmic only gaming companies. What do we make here? Wall crawller and FPS rehashes.

[Apie]

After I posted it, I re-read it and I agree, racism is the wrong word, but the meaning behind it is the same. It's not even that much extra work for a USA PS2 release. All the translations are done, since there are 360 and PC releases are coming out in the USA and the programming is being done for the PS2 since Japan is getting a PS2 release. So I fail to see where all the extra work would come in for them to do a USA release. If they want to play it safe, have the USA version only sold as pre-orders from the USA Square-Enix store. They print just enough to cover the pre-order cut-off date. That way they don't alienate the small handful of PS2 USA customers. Bam, extra profit with ZERO risk and happier customers. They aren't dumb, I'm very sure this idea of mine has crossed their minds, which makes this whole situation that much more offensive. The only thing I can think of is that Sony told them that they can't release it in the USA - since it's not going to have many sales...

Demon6324236 said:

>>>make special editions with added content(Not as much of a problem now that DLC exists)

I would almost agree, but for FFXIII, Square released a DLC patch to add Easy Type to the Japanese version so people can do speed runs, we never got that. So even in the era of DLC, Square is still giving Japan more than everywhere else. Not just FFXIII, also Dissidia 012, some of the DLC is also Japan only.

>>>EA does it, Activision does it, and our lovely SE does it too.

And don't forget Capcom, they are the kings of screwing customers, but that's a different topic.

[Dazusu]

You seem to think its as easy as just producing the disks and shipping them to people. They need to license it with Sony and get permission. It's a lot more expensive than it is going to make them money in sales. Chances are they won't even make the expenses back with subs in 12 months across all US PS2 players, if the numbers are as small as anticipated.

I'm pretty sure this is purely an economical reason. No racism or discrimination intended.

[Anapingofness]

I'm pretty sure this is purely an economical reason. No racism or discrimination intended.

True that.
Why would people even consider racism/discrimination? It boggles the mind.

Look, SE runs a business, not a bloody charity.

Personally, I'd just nix the ps2 support altogether. However, at the end of the day it's SE's dime and if they think they can make money off of the JP market with the ps2 then they'll go for it. However, to attempt to produce the expansion for the rest of the world for a system nothing is being produced for is kind of silly. Not to mention that the large ps2's don't even read the disks anymore - for the most part.

Plus, it's not even just production and license costs that they have to take into account. It's the localization costs to boot. Those are just the first things that pop into my mind. I'm sure there are more things to work around.

[Apie]

Alienating a portion of their customers doesn't sound like a smart economical decision. Also, I checked online, the PlayStation3 licensing fee is $10 per game sold and the expansion will most likely be $19 to $29, plus since this is a PS2 title, I would imagine the licensing fee is even less than $10. Usually that would make the profit margin really low, but all the costs involved with programming and translating are already going to be done with the other releases. They have no additional licensing fees since they own the property and they are a publisher, so no outside costs with publishing. The manual will already be made for the PC and 360 version, so costs are very minimal there to make slight adjustments to the manual to make it for the PS2, or they could just translate the Japanese PS2 manual. So no, I don't see how it will be more expensive than it costs to release it here. If anything, it will be very slightly profitable, even with minimum sales. Plus Sony might have a special rate for expansions, since they aren't full games, they rely on another game to function, in which Sony has already made their profit on the original release.

Another option is making the Japanese PS2 expansion region-free, Play-Asia and eBay can easily handle that demand. This is just a suggestion off the top of my head, I'm sure there are plenty of other solutions.

Anapingofness Said:

>>>Why would people even consider racism/discrimination? It boggles the mind.

That part was already explained a few posts back, in detail, by a few different people. You really should read the full argument if you're going to criticize the comments of others.

>>>Look, SE runs a business, not a bloody charity.

When did PS2 owners ask for it for free? They want EQUAL treatment that others are getting, not special treatment.

>>>for a system nothing is being produced for is kind of silly. Not to mention that the large ps2's don't even read the disks anymore - for the most part.

Whether or not they are still making games for the PS2 is irrelevant cause people still play this game on the PS2 and it's these people who will buy it, no one else will, so the ones that want it already have working PS2s or at least a first generation PS3, so there are working systems to play the PS2 game on. I have 3 fully working PS2s (one old style, one new style and the Japanese FFXII collector's system.)

These people who are being denied access to the new expansion, just because they live in the "wrong" country or use the "wrong" system, are people who you may have had parties with or who may have walked by you and cured you when you were hurt. Why should they be excluded when others in the same situation as them aren't being excluded. You would feel a lot more butthurt if it was your system that was being denied access to what everyone else is getting.

For the record, I play on the PC, but I have it on the 360 and first generation PS3. So it doesn't really affect me, but wrong is wrong and this is wrong.

[Arcon]

Alienating a portion of their customers doesn't sound like a smart economical decision.

How can you qualify such a statement without determining the size of the portion? Sure, a large amount of people played on PS2, then it may not be, but if it's just a handful of people, alienating them at the benefit of preserving a sufficient sum of money can very well be worth it.

[Teraniku]

How is it wrong? The NA distribution / Manufacturing Companies don't even print PS2 discs anymore. You can't produce Region Free Discs for the PS2 Format. (In case you thought you could import the JP release) Even if you could find a manufacturer to do a print run for you, You have to print a minimum number of discs, usually a minimum of at least 3000. (I can honestly say there are less than 3k people in the NA region who play Exclusively on PS2 format) Then you have to schedule the run itself, Pay for distribution, etc.

Summing it up, it's not cost effective to continue to support NA PS2 players.

[Demon6324236]

Demon6324236 said:

>>>make special editions with added content(Not as much of a problem now that DLC exists)

I would almost agree, but for FFXIII, Square released a DLC patch to add Easy Type to the Japanese version so people can do speed runs, we never got that. So even in the era of DLC, Square is still giving Japan more than everywhere else. Not just FFXIII, also Dissidia 012, some of the DLC is also Japan only.

This I did not know, but thats even worse. My main reason for saying that is that now they have almost no excuse for not giving other countries extra content like in international versions & final mixs. Which has always been a problem to me so long as they do it because I know alot of people who love the games and would love to throw their money at SE for their extra content. I would hope due to the DLC availability we now have SE would stop this stupidity.

>>>EA does it, Activision does it, and our lovely SE does it too.

And don't forget Capcom, they are the kings of screwing customers, but that's a different topic.

Yep, alot of companies are doing it more and more and its sad. Honestly I think in the end it might drive people away from gaming because of everything gamers get thrown at them at the same time as the cost it is on the players themselves to buy new consoles or upgrade PCs for newer games.