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Russian gamers play HALF-LIFE 2 in russian language rightNOW

chrisbeddoes

Erudite
Joined
Oct 22, 2002
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RPG land
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=13573

Yes yes. Sad but TRUE.


A READER HAS sent us some photographs of a two-disk Half Life 2 distribution which he says is on the shelves of a Russian trader in Novosibirsk.

The game has been translated into Russian, and according to our reader, this is a copy taken from Valve's web site and "translated and compiled by the chaps out there".

He says that the game itself is quite playable, although there are some plot inconsistencies in places. µ

The inquirer also has 2 images of the distribution.
 

Elwro

Arcane
Joined
Dec 29, 2002
Messages
11,746
Location
Krakow, Poland
Divinity: Original Sin Wasteland 2
I think they were selling Quake 3 almost a year before its release, but it later turned out that they had only stolen the engine and had made the levels themselves iirc. So the real HL2 might have little in common in terms of maps with this thing they're selling.
 

chrisbeddoes

Erudite
Joined
Oct 22, 2002
Messages
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Location
RPG land
Elwro said:
I think they were selling Quake 3 almost a year before its release, but it later turned out that they had only stolen the engine and had made the levels themselves iirc. So the real HL2 might have little in common in terms of maps with this thing they're selling.


LOL .
 

Transcendent One

Liturgist
Joined
Nov 21, 2003
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781
Location
Fortress of Regrets
As someone who has lived in Russia for many years, I can indeed say that it is almost impossible to find a non-ripped non-pirated version of any game and I wouldn't be surprised if you could buy games even before their official release.
 

Azael

Magister
Joined
Dec 6, 2002
Messages
4,405
Location
Multikult Central South
Wasteland 2
Spazmo said:
Hey, there's a copy of Silent Storm on that shelf, too.

Those bastards!

While I doubt it, it's possible that it's a legit copy considering that Nival relased the game in Russia before the English translation. Otherwise, I hate the fuckers.
 

Sol Invictus

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Joined
Oct 19, 2002
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Haha no, it's not a legitimate copy. The legitimate copy comes in a pretty little box and not a jewel case. I don't think that the cover of Silent Storm on that jewel case is even anywhere from the game and looks instead like they pulled it off some place like deviantart or something.
 

Anonymous

Guest
Greyhawk said:
As someone who has lived in Russia for many years, I can indeed say that it is almost impossible to find a non-ripped non-pirated version of any game and I wouldn't be surprised if you could buy games even before their official release.

I have a friend that was born and half-raised in Russia, he's only bought like 5 games but owns about 100-200. And the ones he's bought were ones I bullied him into buying, because I either like the developer or the developer doesnt need people ripping them for cash (Troika's games and Gothic, I actually gave him a small lesson on why pirating good games = teh bad)
 

Sol Invictus

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Pirating games is bad but in some places (like Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong and China), certain publishers refuse to pay taxes to the governments or have their products licensed and registered in these countries as copyrighted material. As such, the authorities don't have any legal right to bust the piraters nor do they even have the inclination to do so. It's like complaining to the police that you had your marijuana stash ripped off.

On the other hand there are companies like Microsoft, Intel and IBM which sponsor the technological infrastructure of these countries so the police actually do something about pirated Windows XP.

If more publishers were willing to lose a little profit (by say 60%) by having their products licensed and by lowering the price of these products to make them affordable to the locals, I'm sure they'd see a 1000%+ increase in profit. It's a pity that their marketing people are comprised of talking monkeys who care only about the short-term profits made from selling an overpriced copy of Homeworld 2 for RM160 (or 160 zloty, about 40 US dollars, but equates into 160 US dollars for locals due to local currency and local monthly pay) instead of selling them at respectable prices. What this does only encourages further piracy and screw up profit making in the region.

To blame piracy on the loss of sales is ridiculous. I'm sure most people would prefer to pay RM30 for a legitimate copy, neatly packaged with bonus goodies (like the TOEE Polish version) instead of shelling out RM10 for a jewel case. Sure, the pirates would still be around, but as it is, most people who can afford to buy gaming computers can sure as hell afford to pay RM30.

What's really stupid about the marketing strategy of large publishers over here (VU and Atari) is to really skimp on the packaging by not including a manual, jewel case or anything like that. Instead you get paper sleeves and the game cds. Just name a person who wouldn't feel ripped off paying RM160 for that.

There's plenty of local Asian game makers that pack their products with plenty of goodies, including cloth maps, figurines, guide books and all sorts and sell their products for reasonable prices (RM15-RM50). You just won't find too many pirated versions of those products because people would prefer to buy those original ones instead. The big publishers could really learn a thing or two from these independent guys instead of launching multimillion dollar campaigns to fight piracy.

Some would argue that this overpricing scheme is just another example of arrogant Western imperialism, to prove to the East its dominance over the market and over 'luxury items' like computer games. I'd disagree with that and state simply that some people just don't belong in the business of making money, but that's how it looks like to a lot of people.
 

Deathy

Liturgist
Joined
Jun 15, 2002
Messages
793
Well, from what I have seen, the business end of the game industry is full of the stupidest business people that have ever been churned out of universities, if they even have had any education. Hell, they're even stupider than high school business teachers.
 

DarkUnderlord

Professional Throne Sitter
Staff Member
Joined
Jun 18, 2002
Messages
28,343
Exitium said:
Pirating games is bad but in some places (like Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong and China), certain publishers refuse to pay taxes to the governments or have their products licensed and registered in these countries as copyrighted material.
Heh. That reminds me about a thing I read in the paper the other day. The Indonesian government wanted tobacco companies to make and sell more tobacco so they could get more money from the taxes charged on it.

Exitium said:
On the other hand there are companies like Microsoft, Intel and IBM which sponsor the technological infrastructure of these countries so the police actually do something about pirated Windows XP.
Translation: Want something done in Asia? Bribe the government.

Exitium said:
If more publishers were willing to lose a little profit (by say 60%) by having their products licensed and by lowering the price of these products to make them affordable to the locals, I'm sure they'd see a 1000%+ increase in profit. It's a pity that their marketing people are comprised of talking monkeys who care only about the short-term profits made from selling an overpriced copy of Homeworld 2 for RM160 (or 160 zloty, about 40 US dollars, but equates into 160 US dollars for locals due to local currency and local monthly pay) instead of selling them at respectable prices. What this does only encourages further piracy and screw up profit making in the region.
The flip side of that is that Asia is a huge source (I think it's number #1 actually) of pirated material. Pirated material that ends up going on sale in places like Australia, where $40 US for a game is easy money. Especially with our dollar now reaching the $0.80 USD mark and predicted by some optimists to go $1 for $1 if things in America don't pick up.
 

Ausir

Arcane
Joined
Oct 21, 2002
Messages
2,388
Location
Poland
The remedy for high piracy here, in Poland is adding as much bonus stuff to the legal versions of games as they can. CD Projekt added a map (available only in preorder in the US), a bonus cd, and the ToEE novel to ToEE (not to mention the collector'e edition), they added Fallout 1 and 2 and a bonus CD to FOT, etc.
 

Sol Invictus

Erudite
Joined
Oct 19, 2002
Messages
9,614
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Pax Romana
The flip side of that is that Asia is a huge source (I think it's number #1 actually) of pirated material. Pirated material that ends up going on sale in places like Australia, where $40 US for a game is easy money. Especially with our dollar now reaching the $0.80 USD mark and predicted by some optimists to go $1 for $1 if things in America don't pick up.

Watch all of your trade exports go down the drain when that happens, DU. The same thing is happening to Canada and they're losing a lot of their exports. America doesn't want to trade with them and neither does anybody else, because of the currency ratio.

Some countries like Singapore, Malaysia and China peg their currencies to the US Dollar so that their currencies will always be competitive within the global market (read: cheap) so that Americans and everyone else will always be able to afford importing their products. It works out, too, because everyone buys their stuff. If it was expensive, like Canadian goods are, nobody would care to import or build factories there.

Yeah, it all comes down to exploiting the proletariat in these countries, but what can you do? It's not as if anyone has the balls to start a global worker's revolution right now.
 

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