What if Dalamud Contest

[Antipika]

It's not like they have to seek our government's permission to distribute the game here (our local game retailers readily bring the game in for us to purchase at their shops!)

You really have no clue of what you're talking about. In order to distribute a product in most countries, companies must seek approval from local authorities. You do not distribute anything you want freely. And that's only for games, it would be the same for movies etc.

It's not because a retailer sells something that it means that the publisher did approve for the product to be distributed officially in the country. This is typically not endorsed by the publisher. (i.e. selling imported games or movies in the wrong region/country.)

By selling XIV in Singapore, it's not hard to guess that the distributor does NOT have Square Enix approval of doing so as SQEX Account services are NOT meant to be used there. So SE cannot sell a game in a country where no one can be a customer unless breaking their own ToS.

If SE determined that the cost of extending SQEX Account services in Singapore isn't justified (i.e. not enough potential customers) then deal with it. That's what happen when you want a product that's not originated from your own land. There are many Japanese games I would like to play, yet they aren't published in Europe. Guess what? I deal with it. Editors do what they want. As far as I know, no private company out there is forced to offer their services Worldwide. SE is no exception. Be lucky that you can actually log on and that SE isn't enforcing an IP ban + witch hunt to remove customers with false data out of their database. (Lot of JP companies providing online services do that actually...)

What kind of transparency do you want? No company will tell directly to their potential customers "look we do not offer our services in your country because it would cost us too much to deal with local laws and regulation while the market potential is too small".

And this discussion is unrelated to this contest, your first issue is not even being allowed to be a customer at the first place, without breaking the ToS. Picking a false country during the registration process makes your forfeit all your rights as a customer, keep that in mind.

And sorry if I sound harsh, but you seems to leave in a fairy tale world, where everything is free and can easily be done. You remind me of people asking for the game to be localized in whatever language that's spoke by <0.1% of players.