Country restrictions
For everyone waiting for this game for 2+ years, making it available for pre-ordering was a dream come true and a sign that finally, the wait is over. Unfortunately, things have not been as satisfying for all the fans around the world. Here’s the story. If you want to purchase SWTOR in digital form, you can only do that from Electronic Arts’ online store called Origin. For boxed version you can order online or go to many of the major retailers around the world, full list to be found here by clicking on the pre-order button.
The problem is that if you do not live in one of the 22 countries listed here you will not be able to make a purchase of the digital version on Origin. Retailers in your country might, or might not carry any copies of The Old Republic come launch day. Retailers in countries listed on the links provided above might not ship to your country or you will not get the game on time because of shipping abroad. In short, everyone not in the countries that are in the “Green zone” might encounter significant troubles in acquiring a copy of the game.
This has made a lot of people angry and there has been a thread going on in the official forums that reached several incarnations (because of the 1000 posts per thread limit) and had more then several hundred thousand views so far. In all honesty there is a lot of trolling going on, but there are some legitimate concerns and posts there as well.
Now that the initial tantrum has passed most people outside the “Green zone” are looking for alternate ways to get their hands on the copy of the game. Australians have been making orders through Amazon.com, although shipping to them will probably be delayed and the game will arrive post-launch. European countries that have been left out are mostly ordering through European version of Amazon sites like amazon.co.uk, amazon.de (which still has boxed collector’s editions available) and amazon.it. I must warn all that Amazon has its own shipping policies and you should look at their help pages to see if they will ship PC games to your country! There is currently no info available on how Brazilian (and South American in general), Asian and African gamers can successfully get their hands on the game right now. If any of you have any valid methods of getting SWTOR to those areas of the world please let me know and I will update this article with new info.
What remains to be seen is whether they will go as far as blocking the countries outside the “green zone” from accessing the game servers or being able to pay with local credit cards. This is highly unlikely, but just to be safe I’d recommend everyone to monitor the situation closely until official information on this has been made available.
I would also recommend patience and not being tempted to look at unverified and shady offerings that are bound to pop up to take advantage of this situation. Your credit card info, game account info and other sensitive and personal information may be put at risk if you succumb to some random offer by some unknown web store or retailer.
12 Responses to “Country restrictions”
Err, swtor-life, you just made me feel a bit more uneasy by saying we might have a major trouble getting the game shipped to our country? I just recently ordered through gamestop-international(yes I realize it was a rash decision on my part) andI’m pretty certain they will be able to ship it over here, although it costed me 180$(I bought the CE), and it will cost additional more one’s it arrives because of tax, which might double the fee(~2x 150$!).
But even though I won’t get my hard copy right away, I will still be able to dl the game through origin, ie if I won’t be IP blocked, but who knows, there may be alternatives to that as well?
You can use a proxy to mask your IP with a US IP, and provide all the real credit card information except for country (usa) and zip code (90210 works). That’s how I got the pre-order from Origin.
I live in Argentina and Amazon does not ship here. I haven’t found another way to get the game that’s not getting a friend in the green zone to buy it for you.
There will probably be importers (days or weeks after launch) that will charge 200 dollars or more for the standard edition, and considering our currency is 1/4 of a dollar, it would be as if people in the US spend 800 dollars in a videogame. This is not acceptable.
EA/Bioware should give everyone the right to buy the digital version. Our money is as good as everyone’s. At the very least, someone from the company should release an official statement about why this decission was made, if there’s gonna be IP blocks, if we will be able to use international credit cards with non US/EU address to subscribe and when/if the game will be available for the rest of the world.
Brazil can also buy from amazon, but the standard edition (60 dollars) costs ~180 dollars after taxes and shipping. And there is no oficial statement regarding a possible ip block. It would be terrible, but if they seek to enforce the staggered release, and mostly the region lock, such a measure would be necessary.
A lot of us South Africans are ordering through amazon.com, interestingly amazon.com will ship to games to SA but amazon.co.uk seems to have a different policy.
There is a way for those in the disenfranchised hemisphere to legally play with no TOS even bumped
It relies on a few moving parts, not the least of the need of a person to rely on within the current release areas.
A friend of yours buys the game and installs on a very, very strong PC (not their primary playing rig) and that person creates a log-in and account. Then the person in the DMZ (de-merriment zone) uses one of many RDC programs to remote take over the machine and play the game. now .. it would be slower yes, it would be a hassle yes, and the nuanced controls might be a bit off. BUT you would be playing. Once you get a copy in hand you install locally.
@Zlatto And you think this is fair? Would you like to play in this way?
Ugh, my account already says that I’m from Iceland, even with PROXY server, not sure if it would change that, and I’ve already installed the codes.
I’m just crossing my fingers that there will be no IP block, otherwise I’m going to sell this thing, or try it, might proof to be difficult since it is locked to an account and already existing email… -.-
@Biozombie
Not a matter of fair, it’s a path to play nothing more. I wish it was different, I would hate to play that way but I would. I am a Mac user, so like you ( but not as close to frustrating i know) I wish some more creative thought was put into Bioware’s release policies prior to launch. So I will be boot camping, as a work around, like many other ppl.
I can’t see much trolling happening on the forum thread at all. Just a lot of really upset people.
I like many have had problems in getting the CE addition of TOR being in Turkey on holiday as the news hit.
As far as I know there will be no IP blocking so if you manage to order the game you should be able to play.
There have been some statements about this issue, they pretty much said it’s about quality of service, in other words “we don’t want our american customers to have long queues and lag” which is GOOD, but they should be worrying about providing a good service for everyone, not just parts of north america and western europe. This is Bioware and EA, not some indy company, they should be able to secure the infrastructure for worldwide service, like many other games.