Open letter, Dear Mr Naoki Yoshida

[Kagayaki]

Hopefully they will consider to add the SEA country into legal list.

[Kagayaki]

I think this is why they made that recent news about confirming our account informations. It's been you SEA players trying to play the whole time? o_O

I believe this has a lot to do with lack of a localization team.

Your English is not bad either.

No, it is because many players from China was buying the personal information from Japan illegally.
And they are even trading with real money too.

[SilvannaLesly]

Because of language, localisation, weird copyright laws, and weird ratings laws, and commercial reasons, media of all types is normally regionally split.

When I worked for Disney we divided the world up into regional distributors. Each distributor was given a group of countries that they took complete responsibility for. They set the release dates locally, they even decided if they wanted to take up the show.

I'd say - as long as the game isn't "Tidak Diluluskan Untuk Tayangan" - that this might be a similar situation. If this is the case, then Malaysia has been given to another country, and that country is not interested in allowing/supporting/localising the game. There are two closed regions I know of, Korea which is distributed by the company Actoz Soft CO., LTD. and 盛大 (SDO) in China.

Further backing up this being a distribution contract is the recent clearup of addresses. To me that smells like a distributor is tugging on their contract - maybe in reainess for FFXVI or some other property from SE.

As much as free trade world wide would be good for consumers, commerical contracts like this, especially when they might be very old and have catch-alls on future property in them are incredibly difficult to change. Changes to remove a country from one distributor and give to to another can cost many, many millions of USD.

Australia, for example, is assigned to SE's European operations, however we do have our own online store with nothing at all on it. We will get our own DC, but we will be part of Europe forever, which is maybe why we are in Eurovision too.

I doubt Yoshi-P has much sway in this, this is likely far bigger than him and going to fall into the CEO of SE.

No, your argument are invalid... Malaysia has many legally authorised online games digital distributer like Steam, Origins, Battle.net (World of Warcraft), AppStore and PSStore(other ff games), even mobile games like MobileLegends set up their server here.. i dont think they will have any issue on selling MMO games for licensing or such things.. Korean developer like MMO Terra Rising easily available on Malaysia Steam for download, World of Warcraft & ragnarok online are available in Malaysia since 20 years ago (thats time i was in high school, our internet still in dial up).. FF14 are available on Steam they just decided to region lock it.. it is not Malaysia Issue its SE issue... currently I can buy almost any games big AAA or independent developer on steam, or any games from the rest of the distributers, i dont think Malaysia has strict rating law on Video Games, if thats the case (strict laws on Video Games) i dont think i can even play Dota2, or WoW or Ragnarok Online many years ago.. your comment are just BS.. for a company aas big as blizzard and EA, its not a reason & not fair to region lock Malaysia and punish Malaysian trying play their game..

[SilvannaLesly]

This probably isn't SE's fault. You're not allowed to just sell anything you want anywhere you want. I'm sure SE wold love to have a worldwide store where anyone in the world could just buy the game and play, but it's not that simple. Many countries have specific rules or licensing issues that prevent, or at least make it cost prohibitive to run the game there. Places like China and Korea have enough players to make dedicated servers worth the investment, but that's probably not true for most other places that can't use the 'global' (JP/NA/EU) server sets.

No, your argument are invalid... Malaysia has many legally authorised online games digital distributer like Steam, Origins, Battle.net (World of Warcraft), AppStore and PSStore(other ff games), even mobile games like MobileLegends set up their server here.. i dont think they will have any issue on selling MMO games for licensing or such things.. Korean developer like MMO Terra Rising easily available on Malaysia Steam for download, World of Warcraft & ragnarok online are available in Malaysia since 20 years ago (thats time i was in high school, our internet still in dial up).. FF14 are available on Steam they just decided to region lock it.. it is not Malaysia Issue its SE issue... currently I can buy almost any games big AAA or independent developer on steam, or any games from the rest of the distributers, i dont think Malaysia has strict rating law on Video Games, if thats the case (strict laws on Video Games) i dont think i can even play Dota2, or WoW or Ragnarok Online many years ago.. your comment are just BS.. for a company aas big as blizzard and EA, its not a reason & not fair to region lock Malaysia and punish Malaysian trying play their game..

[SilvannaLesly]

Companies don't turn away customers for trivial reasons.

As Brightamethyst said, likely the problem is your local government and not SE. Some countries have extremely restrictive laws regarding foreign business and/or game content.

It's up to the residents of your country to encourage your legislators to change the laws that obstruct foreign countries from doing business there.

No, your argument are invalid... Malaysia has many legally authorised online games digital distributer like Steam, Origins, Battle.net (World of Warcraft), AppStore and PSStore(other ff games), even mobile games like MobileLegends set up their server here.. i dont think they will have any issue on selling MMO games for licensing or such things.. Korean developer like MMO Terra Rising easily available on Malaysia Steam for download, World of Warcraft & ragnarok online are available in Malaysia since 20 years ago (thats time i was in high school, our internet still in dial up).. FF14 are available on Steam they just decided to region lock it.. it is not Malaysia Issue its SE issue... currently I can buy almost any games big AAA or independent developer on steam, or any games from the rest of the distributers, i dont think Malaysia has strict rating law on Video Games, if thats the case (strict laws on Video Games) i dont think i can even play Dota2, or WoW or Ragnarok Online many years ago.. your comment are just BS.. for a company aas big as blizzard and EA, its not a reason & not fair to region lock Malaysia and punish Malaysian trying play their game..

[Shibi]

No, your argument are invalid... Malaysia has many legally authorised online games digital distributer like Steam, Origins, Battle.net (World of Warcraft), AppStore and PSStore(other ff games), even mobile games like MobileLegends set up their server here.

It's not invalid at all.

If SE sold the rights to the franchise for Malaysia to a company who doesn't want to release it to the market for whatever reason... that's it. No FF franchise in Malaysia. This is contractual stuff between SE and whoever owns the distribution rights for the country. The very fact it's region locked on Steam when you can buy other games *strongly* suggests this is the case. Some company somewhere bought the distribution rights for Malaysia (and other SEA companies) and has decided to skip Malaysia, for whatever reason.

You saying it's invalid doesn't change international contract law - if this is the reason for the no-sale rules.

Doesn't matter a flying toss who else is in this market selling games. Also doesn't matter if other - say Korean, USA, or Uzbekistan game companies - are able to contractually sell their games into Malaysia, if SE sold the distribution rights to WHOMEVER CO LTD then they hold the country distribution rights and can decide to skip Malaysia for any reason they like, if the contract allows.

[IdowhatIwant]

OMG! I'm so sorry
Don't worry! Yoshi-P is gonna take care of you now!

They are not japanese. Yoshi P don't care.

[SilvannaLesly]

Honestly.. they SE can make billions more by just removing the region lock... Malaysia’s 20.1 million gamers spent an impressive $673 million on games on 2020.. let alone the whole SEA region...
Opening up a new DC on SEA make sense..

Refer statistics and survey here :

https://newzoo.com/insights/articles...kKYHsBmu45ESF4

https://allcorrectgames.com/insights...CE9mjOS3T95Pbo

https://mdec.my/wp-content/uploads/M...4oBzYRB6NnPlcE

[SilvannaLesly]

It's not invalid at all.

If SE sold the rights to the franchise for Malaysia to a company who doesn't want to release it to the market for whatever reason... that's it. No FF franchise in Malaysia. This is contractual stuff between SE and whoever owns the distribution rights for the country. The very fact it's region locked on Steam when you can buy other games *strongly* suggests this is the case. Some company somewhere bought the distribution rights for Malaysia (and other SEA companies) and has decided to skip Malaysia, for whatever reason.

You saying it's invalid doesn't change international contract law - if this is the reason for the no-sale rules.

Doesn't matter a flying toss who else is in this market selling games. Also doesn't matter if other - say Korean, USA, or Uzbekistan game companies - are able to contractually sell their games into Malaysia, if SE sold the distribution rights to WHOMEVER CO LTD then they hold the country distribution rights and can decide to skip Malaysia for any reason they like, if the contract allows.

So tell me why i can buy other SE franchise on steam, google play and PS Store.. like FF15, FF7 Remake (PSStore), FF10 on steam, classic FF7 and ff9 on PlayStore/AppleStore.. or even raise of tomb raider.. or even Neir.. why only ff14 that they lock...

Malaysia’s 20.1 million gamers spent an impressive $673 million on games on 2020.. let alone the whole SEA region...
Opening up a new DC on SEA make sense..

Refer statistics and survey here :

https://newzoo.com/insights/articles...kKYHsBmu45ESF4

https://allcorrectgames.com/insights...CE9mjOS3T95Pbo

https://mdec.my/wp-content/uploads/M...4oBzYRB6NnPlcE

[Shibi]

So tell me why i can buy other SE franchise on steam, google play and PS Store.. like FF15, FF7 Remake (PSStore), FF10 on steam, classic FF7 and ff9 on PlayStore/AppleStore.. or even raise of tomb raider.. or even Neir.. why only ff14 that they lock...

Because this is either:-
* a property under distribution contract.
* or, one that is just too difficult for SE Legal to get past Malaysia's laws
* or, they have other future plans
* or, they just don't like Malaysia
* or, it's not worth the money to localise
* or, as FFXIV is an MMO and none of the others are
* or, something else
* or, none of these and it's something I haven't thought of

I believe it's contractual. This doesn't make the premise invalid no matter how much you dislike my reasoning.

Malaysia’s 20.1 million gamers spent an impressive $673 million on games on 2020.. let alone the whole SEA region...

Australia's gamers spent $3.4 billion in 2020 (total population 25 million),
New Zealand's Gamers spent $324 million in 2020 (total population 4.8 million),
USA's gamers spent $60.4 billion (total population 334 million),
Japan's gamers spent $20.7 billion (total population 126 million).

It's meaningless and a red herring to the why of it.

Opening up a new DC on SEA make sense..

There is one opening in 10 days for the Oceanic region, of which large chunks of South East Asia are part of. There are also plans for needed server enhancements for NA, EU and JA, that's taking it through to 2023 I'd say. Opening another one in SEA, say in Singapore - or in LATAM, say in Brazil - comes down to specific property earnings, number of players and contracts with existing distributors.

Honestly, I hope that you can buy the game legally soon, but for now, you likely need to direct your questions to the SE CEO, not Yoshi-P. As I really do think it's going to be contractual or something else way outside development.

If you don't like what I think, sorry.