Vindication

Last July, I had an article published in the Escapist talking about Piracy in the developing world, and how efforts to eradicate piracy by targeting pirates were doomed to fail simply because of the economic cost benefits of piracy.  In short, you can’t force people to buy games they can’t afford.  I argued that console manufacturers and publishers should beat the pirates at their own game and provide low cost versions of their software specifically made for and price adjusted to the spending capabilities of gamers in developing countries.  I received a lot of flak for that article, with many people going back to the weak argument that “if you can’t afford it don’t buy it”.  Well here’s what I have to say to that:

Fuck all of you dumb motherfuckers, EA just went and proved my fucking point.

Basically, the article says that EA has hooked up with a local distributor in Russia called 1C to distribute their games in Russia, the Ukraine, and Kazakhstan.

Another important stage in the cooperation of Electronic Arts and 1C Company is the distribution of EA games for PC in economy jewel packs in Russia. For the first time ever part of new games released by world’s leading publisher will be distributed in economy packs (CD jewel case). Electronic Arts plans to release three new jewel packed games for PC – Crysis Warhead, C&C Red Alert 3, NHL 09. These games will be released in autumn 2008.

Economy packs.  Cheaper versions of top-selling games priced so that gamers in developing markets can afford them.  And this isn’t even the first time EA has done this.  I noticed that EA games in Datablitz were almost 50% cheaper than their counterparts, in some cases they were even cheaper than games that came out 3 years ago!  This is great news for gamers in developing countries who want access to cheap, legal games.  Hopefully other companies such as Activision and Ubisoft follow EA’s lead and partner up with local distributors so that we can all have access to great games at great prices.

Thanks EA, I think I’ll buy a copy of mass effect now just to show you I appreciate it.