Oldschool Hard

No, that is not a typo. Welcome to Australia(n pricing).

As I mentioned in my post pondering about what to take with me when (if) I move, PS2 games are locked to a geographical region, split by technology and language into three regions: NTSC-J, NTSC-US, and PAL (Europe/Aus), with other countries being bundled into one of these regions. This can be circumvented, but requires a combination of a chip or chips and a lot of fly leads, making it quite complicated.

Region locking is nothing new, going back to at least the NES, and possibly before. Ostensibly it was about the differences between PAL and NTSC, that scanline differences and different speeds (50Hz vs. 60Hz) would create problems displaying foreign games on your TV. While there were issues with black bars, and slower gameplay and sound, most TVs, once a system had been chipped, or a cartridge put onto a region converter, were fine. Although you had to create a large, precarious stack on top of your machine (DON’T MAKE ANY SUDDEN MOVEMENTS!), foreign games usually worked, without any damage to TVs, game cartridges, or systems. So, more likely, it was instead about being able to control pricing of games in any particular region.

Now, handheld systems have always been happy to deal with multiple regions of games, both as a benefit to travellers, and because there was no ability to make claims about compatibility with TVs, PC games have also always been region-free, thanks to the (relatively) open nature of PCs, and things are changing somewhat in consoles, with the PS3 region free for games (although not for Blu-rays), the XBox 360 leaving region locking up to publishers, so some games are locked and some aren’t, and only the Wii still being locked down tighter than a nun’s proverbial. While a lot of people still use standard definition TVs, most standard-def TVs are, and have been for many years, both PAL/NTSC and 50/60Hz compatible, and HDTVs certainly remove any issues involving scanlines and refresh rates.

Still, you won’t find any overt advertising about the PS3 and its lack of region locking, and the only way to know if a 360 game will work in an overseas system is to either try it and hope, or refer to a range of lists maintained on the internet – the game boxes certainly won’t tell you. Most galling of all, games are still locked into a regional pricing model, with retailers sometimes prevented from shipping overseas or between countries, a patently absurd way to go in the day of ubiquitous internet. While, admittedly, exchange rates fluctuate, it doesn’t always explain the difference in pricing between countries. I laugh bitterly when US gamers complain about games being $60 USD. Considering the standard RRP of a game in Australia is $100-110 AUD, and the Australian dollar has been above 90c US for quite some time, we currently pay the equivalent of $90-100 USD for new games. As a result, I tend to buy most of my games on sale, the only time they’re worth buying locally. Any recent game I want to buy, I buy from either the UK, due to the exchange rate and guarantee of compatibility (for a 360 game) or through Play Asia, set the option to ‘English’ in the menu, and enjoy the extra 50 dollars in my pocket.

At least with a physical product, you can argue about localisation costs, shipping costs, and so on being contributors to an increased price in certain markets. The difference in regional pricing for some games and occasional locking out of sales for certain regions on download services like Steam shows an utter contempt for the consumer, and there is absolutely no technical reason why the prices can’t be the same. The only reason is price gouging. Again, a lot of these issues can be worked around, using VPNs, and false addresses, but with the digital download model, it’s not a stretch to think that if you’re discovered, you’ll lose access to the games you paid for – and you shouldn’t have to be forced into doing this just to get the IMO reasonable option of paying the same price as the US market.

(PS. I’m still waiting for the local release of Demon’s Souls in June, or at least I would be, if, you know, I hadn’t bought it from Play Asia A FUCKING YEAR AGO, like most of the Aussies really interested in this game. What are the odds on it being a flop here and Atlus blaming anything but their own tardiness?)

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I may be behind one of these tiny lights in the near future.

Once again I must make excuses for my absence – between the wedding that I was involved in – it went well – a cold that just seemed to come and go as it pleased before finally fucking off, trying to write 15,000 odd words of business plan and thesis so I can finish grad school, Operation Stop Being a Fat Bastard (down 22kg/48lb, nearly 6 inches around (not below) the waist, and fitting into a medium shirt for the first time in living memory – the ‘trick’ is to eat well and exercise, sorry) and being sucked back into raiding on WoW (I know), time’s slipped away from me, again.

There’s been a storm of gaming-related bullshit since I last posted, as there always seems to be: PS3s having clock errors, Activision causing havoc at Infinity Ward (so as to have as much control over the ‘brand’ and ‘annualisation’ as possible?) with subsequent claims and counter-claims, Ubisoft’s DRM servers getting hacked.

In good news, there was the Portal update, with its mysterious messages that showed what the power of nerds can do, and with Michael Atkinson showing himself out of parliament in South Australia we might be able to get a proper go at an 18+ games rating in Australia. I believe his true character was shown by the fact that he decided to retire after being voted back in with a massive swing against him.

In my own personal news, short of being offered a fabulous job here in the next 2 months, I’ll be moving to the US when I finish my grad studies (oh, the joy of hereditary dual citizenship). Either New York or San Francisco seem to be where the majority of jobs around my skill sets are, although I’m not ruling out other cities. Despite Australia supposedly having a much better job market, I can’t seem to get a job in one of my chosen fields (writing and/or editing) here, and through the strange nature of the internet and family networks, I know more people in New York than I know in Sydney, the other Australian publishing city.

This is a logistical challenge for me, as I did a count other day, and not counting my homebrew games, ’50 retro games on one disc!’ collections and so on, and estimating how many games are on some discs (eg. Space and Kings Quest collections), I currently own approximately 285 games, across 7 formats. I’ve probably sold about 70 games in my life, the vast majority when selling systems to get new systems, and I usually hang onto games rather than sell them, even if I don’t intend on ever playing them again.

So the question is raised: If I go, what games would I bring with me, and what would I leave behind? PC games are a no brainer – they work anywhere, and I just need to bring manuals (or even just a list of keys), a folder of discs, and downloads on an external HDD – boxes can be sent later when I’m settled in. PS3 games, not that I own many, are another no brainer – they’re region-free. DS/GBA games will also work anywhere. 360 games are tougher – some are region-free, some aren’t. My collection on 360 is a good pile without being huge, and I’m tempted to just play through the ones I haven’t finished before I leave and then sell them all, rather than try and sort out what works where.

The one collection that really drives me to confusion is my PS2 games. It’s approximately 70 games, including a bunch of rare ones (at least in PAL territories) like the .Hack collection, ICO, the Shadow Hearts games, (the subsequently banned from sale) Manhunt, Rez, Gitaroo Man, and the two Space Channel 5 games. There’s just too many issues: these won’t work on an overseas PS2 without modding and I have no idea if chipping PS2s is commonplace in the US, transporting many games is unwieldy and expensive, I don’t want to deal with the hassles of transformers and TV compatibility, and I don’t know if PS2 emulation is good enough yet to just play them through a PC. There’s a lot of games I’m yet to play through, I don’t have nearly enough time before my degree is finished, and while selling them would make me a decent chunk of change, I’d probably just put that out again buying US versions of the same games.

There’s always the prospect of me coming back, I can’t say any move would be forever. Should I let them sit because I can’t make up my mind definitively either way? Some things, it doesn’t matter – DVDs I can rip to computer, the same with CDs. But I need the physical media with these games, and I have a limited amount of luggage space. I also fret about my guitars and amplifiers, my books and certain magazines – much loved and important to me, but expensive to move in bulk, and barring a few Australian titles, first editions, and such, easy enough to buy again. Clothes, computer parts, most everything else, I’m not emotionally attached to, but some things mean a lot to me, and my games are part of that.

Image from art.com

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