I am currently playing ITOS from southeast asia. I will move to Taiwan in a few months and dread playing on their servers for a couple reasons. I still pay for my game in American money and American bank account from my American Steam account.
Now, IP Wise, I know that this would be an automated block. But politically and monetarily speaking, I am from America. Just because I physically live in Taiwan, does a gaming company have the right to judicially include me (or exclude me) of my country of origin?
If the publisher’s monetary conflicts are an issue, wouldn’t me, paying a Taiwanese company in U.S. currency also count as a conflict of interest for the American publisher?
Lately, there are more and more of my western friends living abroad, and we still keep in contact with friends back home. International communities are a thing, and the internet brings the world closer together whether we like it or not. The fact that there is even a regional lock for certain parts of this great planet we live on sounds preposterous, especially if it’s for monetary gains of publishing companies who probably do not care about their players a speck as much as IMC does.
As a gaming company makes deals with publishers in other regions, it’s sad that the discussion is to lock people in a box essentially, for monetary insurance. This concept is a sad hindrance of what a great International game should be, once again devalued by corporate greed. While I understand that many players don’t want international interaction with certain groups or races due to numerous personal reasons, giving foreign countries a less-than-reputable publisher to play under will only cause the exact conflicts of interaction in a great social environment of MMO.
This kind of “boxing” does nothing to hinder botters or gold sellers, because they are more international than our game releases in the current meta. The only people that can actually stop botters, are publishers that care. From what I have heard, some of these publishers actually allow gold selling for a cut, which is truly despicable. So I implore the top brass of this game to carefully consider who they are handing this game off to.
If the international release is truly international, I would like to see the servers for Oceania, SEA, Asia, SA and NA open for all to choose from.