General Discussion

I recently encountered a problem with a mmo which I shall not name (for fear of being sued ) but it was only at the end of my stint in it that I realised a rather big issue. I had decide to buy the game and play it because the game actually suited my rl work schedules but for the life of me I just couldn't do it. I know that there's a problem with my country, and likely a few others in the world too, in that the government doesn't allow software to be shipped in unless it is specifically cleared with customs (there are a ton of paperwork involved with actually doing this). So basically, sites such as Amazon are useless to me since I simply can't buy the game because they can't deliver. I also noticed in their forums that quite a number of people encountered the same problems. People who legitimately wanted to play the game (and not the usual gold/plat farmers) who couldn't buy the game either for the same reasons.

After I realised this I decide to go look for some other similar game which I could buy and play, lo and behold, there is literally none that I wanted which I could. The only games which I could actually buy via digital downloads were Anarchy, CoH/V, EQ (1,2 and likely the next 100), and a few others which did not suit my play style, i.e. I no longer have the time these days to dedicate anything more than maybe a couple hours on the weekends. At first I blamed my country's government for imposing such restrictive measures but then I realised why didn't the developers of the games simply just start out with digital downloads in the first place.

Looking at it from a purely commercial point of view, I would have thought that this would actually increase sales for a company while eliminating some of the usual distribution costs. I understand that there are issues with contractual obligations but I can't really understand why a developer would want to sign a contract with distributor(s) in the first place in order to restrict their revenues. Since this is the digital age, and looking at it from a global perspective, wouldn't it be better to attempt to market a product globally, at a reduced distribution/logistics cost, instead of marketing within a territory via traditional methods ? It just seems a shame to me to be losing such a revenue channel when it needn't necessarily be so.

And....does this post belong here or in the Off Topic section ?