Blizzard Removes Multi-Language Support for Russian Copies of Diablo III, Leaving Gamers Stranded

[sp4z3n3ko]

Still no responce from Blizzard by the way.....

http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/ ... 6?page=1#0

[Bluefire]

Well first up.. Im amazed people are still playing D3...
And second .. LOL at the posts...
Dont worry so much about not being able to read or play "your" game that you paid money for.. Its not actually "your" game anyway.. you dont "own" it.. you have no "rights" to it.. You have just paid to possibly have it avalible for occasional use until the actual owners of the software you paid for change their minds...

Isnt that what you lot like to defend so much ?
So whats with the qq ?
Whats good enough for one company.. is good enough for another right ?

[Lexxbomb]

Games are shipped with on disk DLC by that methodology I am entitled to it as well free of charge.

This was infact discussed recently and may in fact be legal

http://gamepolitics.com/2012/05/29/mich ... s-disc-dlc

[asmodai]

It is stupid that all versions of the game that are getting locked, didn't realised it went beyond Russia.

It was stupid in the first place. What if you're an english speaker living in Russia and buy a local copy of the game from a shop? What if you're a Russian who want's to practice their english?

The permutations are well beyond "buy a Russian key is only slightly better than piracy"...

If some of you read my whole post I said I don't agree with price gouging either, in fact I wish more people got their keys from Russia simply because they felt it nessessary to charge us twice the price for the game and still didn't give us Aussie servers.

So now it's okay to steal a car and leave a 50 buck note behind?? (your analogy is junk but you seem to now say it's okay to buy Russian keys as punishment to blizz for not providing local servers...)

It's funny, they say they don't do Aussie servers cause it costs too much but you'd think that twice the cost price would cover that.

We have 22 million people in total, less than the greater Los Angeles area.

I doubt 1% of the population bought D3 ( 220,000 people). They have no compelling reason to supply support when they know that Aus players will continue to play with crappy pings to their US servers because we don't have an alternative.

[Cyrinno]

I'm sorry but if I'm in Russia I don't expect all game companies to provide english translations nor do I expect all newspapers to be published in english and all tv channels to be running in english just because it's "my" language.

[tacitus42]

^^ not all of them, surely. but a big one probably isn't too much to ask for. especially in the 21st century. and also if they sell it originally with the capability to be in another language. its just a bit funny that they changed afterwards. i'm sure they have their reasons. money probably.

[Cyrinno]

We all know why they changed it afterwards and of course it's a money grab. I'm not defending them I just have no sympathy for those who went and got Russian keys on the cheap and then want to complain.

I import and get cdkeys very very often and I've always steered clear of the Russian keys for this reason. I've always felt like if I got a Russian key it was going to bite me in the arse at some point.

[GoToadGo]

I just have no sympathy for those who went and got Russian keys on the cheap and then want to complain.

Why? It isn't like they stole them. They paid for a copy of the game just like you did. It's the exact same thing as importing a game from another country and these people have every right to complain.

[frigidhell]

They are fast to realize and take action about it. I guess it's a natural thing to do for a developer/publisher who have been working the game for more than a decade. It's just too bad for the people who actually went to purchase the cheaper CD Key.

[Cyrinno]

I just have no sympathy for those who went and got Russian keys on the cheap and then want to complain.

Why? It isn't like they stole them. They paid for a copy of the game just like you did. It's the exact same thing as importing a game from another country and these people have every right to complain.

Read one of my previous posts where I talked about fairness. People want companies not to price gougue but they also take companies for a ride with $10 Russian cdkeys. It's no better. Just saying you paid for something doesn't make it right. I would say it's unreasonable just as price gouging is.

[PalZer0]

Read one of my previous posts where I talked about fairness. People want companies not to price gougue but they also take companies for a ride with $10 Russian cdkeys. It's no better. Just saying you paid for something doesn't make it right. I would say it's unreasonable just as price gouging is.

So if I went to Russia and bought a copy of Diablo 3 for cheap there and brought it back home, am I no better than a pirate?

The keys are as legitimate as EU or US keys. Blizzard are just **** people over because they only like the free market when it suits them.

[Cyrinno]

Read one of my previous posts where I talked about fairness. People want companies not to price gougue but they also take companies for a ride with $10 Russian cdkeys. It's no better. Just saying you paid for something doesn't make it right. I would say it's unreasonable just as price gouging is.

So if I went to Russia and bought a copy of Diablo 3 for cheap there and brought it back home, am I no better than a pirate?

The keys are as legitimate as EU or US keys. Blizzard are just **** people over because they only like the free market when it suits them.

Then there's nothing wrong with price gouging. It's obviously not illegal so it must be the right thing to do...

[revengous]

Then there's nothing wrong with price gouging. It's obviously not illegal so it must be the right thing to do...

from a business perspective it is.

[PalZer0]

Then there's nothing wrong with price gouging. It's obviously not illegal so it must be the right thing to do...

That's what I meant when I said that Blizzard only likes the free market when it suits them (ie. when they can gouge certain regions and leave people in those regions with no alternatives).

If people are buying cheap keys (be they Russian, EU, US or some other region) to get around the gouged price in their local region, thus using the free market to their advantage, Blizzard don't like it which has resulted in this mess.

EDIT: This is a problem with all major publishers - especially prevalant on Steam.

[Marius]

I'm tempted to cover the chances of a court action for my next legal article, but I've talked waaay too much about D3.

I'm sure there'll be some other crisis to pop up in the next week.

I was hoping you'd actually do an article on this :-\

Well, you got your wish. I just sent in my article for tomorrow about whether gamers have a claim against Blizzard for this.