by John Hoskin on Jul 29, 2011
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Thanks to the guy who sent me the ROMG worst column ever email yesterday. I tried to reply to you on my iPhone, but it apparently took offense to your mail and sent it into the Interether never to be found again. I’ll do my best to make today’s column the worst. Most people try to keep setting the bar higher and higher, but frankly, that’s a tough gig, so setting the bar lower and lower it is… this one’s for you!
A couple of my Aussie friends (readers, viewers of this column) emailed me to let me know that Star Wars: The Old Republic was not being given a release date in Australia. I was perplexed, but that feeling often bounces around in my head, so although I took notice I didn’t bump the issue to the top of my “must write” list.
Here is the deal: SW:TOR (hereafter referred to as sweater because it will be a cold day in Hell before some of you see it) will not be available at launch to anyone outside of North American and Europe.
I’m looking at you Iceland, Slovakia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovenia and more… Yes, some of you are part of the European Union, but that and two euros will get you a cup of coffee. It won’t get you SW:TOR.
Wipe that smile off your face North America. The game is being released in limited numbers, so waiting until the last minute to buy this title might leave you as left out as the guy from Lithuania.
BioWare and LucasArts wiped the SW:Galaxies wake cake off their chins and posted this:
“To all of our fans outside of North America and Europe:
Today we've announced the pre-order details for the initial launch of Star Wars: The Old Republic, and as you may now know, we've taken the difficult but necessary decision to limit our initial launch supply for the game.
BioWare and LucasArts are completely focused on building an exceptional game and an exceptional game service to go with it. We decided to constrain our launch capacity to ensure we deliver a great experience to every player. Part of the reason this decision was made was because of the overwhelming demand for The Old Republic, and we're humbled by that level of excitement and anticipation. We fully intend to deliver to you an amazing game when we expand our service post-launch, but right now we cannot commit to any timeframe for when that may happen.
As soon as we have more information about additional launches in more territories, we'll let you know. We are committed to delivering Star Wars: The Old Republic to BioWare and Star Wars fans around the world, and to growing a truly global community.”
This makes sense on many fronts. Rolling out a game in one region is hard. Rolling it out in multiple regions can be a nightmare.
Even if you were only to roll out one portion of the entire picture, let’s say customer support, it becomes a logistics nightmare. Rolling out customer support to North America is a mammoth undertaking. Rolling it out in Europe where it requires multiple languages is much tougher. Now imagine rolling it out across the globe. It makes me shudder just to think about it. (This doesn’t explain Australia however, who could use NA customer support.)
I understand why Bioware would take this stance, especially given the enormous number of people who want to play their game. I also understand why a person in Kazakhstan would be upset that they can’t play SW:TOR when it launches. Star Wars is a global franchise, with fans everywhere.
Are you affected by this decision?
What are your thoughts on the issue?
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As always, you can contact me a number of ways:
Until we meet again,
John “Boomjack” Hoskin
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