Gamers
in India looking forward to Dragon Age: Inquisition will not be able to
play the game. Well, officially at least. While parts of the internet,
including publisher Electronic Arts' (EA) forums are abuzz with all
sorts of speculation, we've managed to speak to those close to the
matter to set the record straight.
Okay, what actually happened?
This
weekend, EA issued a statement on Origin, the company's online PC game
store that anyone in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh who has pre-ordered
the game will have their money refunded. The official statement is as
follows:
"In order to avoid a breach of local content laws, EA has
withdrawn Dragon Age: Inquisition from sale in India and the game is no
longer available for pre-order. Customers who pre-ordered the game will
be contacted directly and will be fully refunded."
Simon
Smith-Wright, Regional Marketing Director, Asia Pacific at Electronic
Arts has confirmed the same to NDTV Gadgets on email. EA stopped
releasing games on disc for PC in India earlier this year, but this also
applies to the physical copies of the game that would have been sold on
consoles.
The
distributor for the game, Milestone Interactive said that this refers
to the game's homosexual sex scenes. Rather than face the wrath of some
of India's more prudish segments of society, EA have pre-emptively
decided to make the game unavailable in India, without confirming or
commenting on which local laws were being breached.
Sources close
to the matter who chose to remain anonymous have said that this refers
to users who have taken offence to some of EA's earlier games such as
Dante's Inferno. Unfortunately, the exact details of the judgement in
that case are not available online but it is clear that EA is willing to
avoid entering the market at all, instead of risking another court
case.
Does this affect Dragon Age: Inquisition only?
"The
current action we've taken only affects Dragon Age Inquisition", said
Smith-Wright when asked if this would affect Dragon Age: Origins and
Dragon Age II as well as other role-playing games such as Mass Effect
and it's two sequels. All of these allowed players to pursue romantic
relationships with specific characters in the games.
Dragon Age II
had only four character romances. They were all bisexual so players had
some sort of choice. With Inquisition there are a lot more options. It
sports the series' first fully gay character, Dorian, that players have
the option to romance. The developer Bioware has gone with more options
in terms of romances for Inquisition. There are straight, bisexual, and
gay character romances because they each tell different stories.
In
the Fable games, your character can be straight or gay. Assassin's
Creed: Brotherhood suggests that Leonardo Da Vinci was gay. Even The
Last of Us has a minor part played by a gay character and in the game's
Left Behind downloadable content, we learn that Ellie is attracted to
other girls. All these games are available in India as well. Our guess
is that given the recent revisions to the laws pertaining to
homosexuality, EA is not willing to risk any potential legal trouble.
Okay, has this happened before?
In
the past Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas never made it to India. This
is because Bethesda, the series' publisher didn't want to offend Indian
sensibilities due to the game's portrayal of cows. They were mutated,
two-headed, and called Brahmins. At the same time, the game was edited
for sale in Australia and Japan. References to morphine and nuclear
bombs were removed respectively for copies sold in these countries. Of
course, the size of the Indian RPG market is much smaller. Informed
sources tell us that such games sell a few hundred copies at best.
Nonetheless,
the games were (and still are) readily available via the grey market.
And digitally as well if you're willing to use a VPN or have a friend
abroad gift them to you via Steam.
But I want the game anyway, what do I do?
If
you're on PC, you can use a VPN service like Hola to buy the game from
sites like G2A or Green Man Gaming or import a physical copy from Amazon
US or PlayAsia. You'll also need a VPN for disc-based PC copies as
these too require activation via Origin.
Buying it officially via Sony's and Microsoft's digital stores in India may not be possible either.
"The
action we are taking applies to all versions of Dragon Age Inquisition
across all sales channels within India. So India PSN and XBL stores
included in that, yes. We're working with all partners on ensuring this
action is complete as soon as possible", said Smith-Wright.
PS3,
PS4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One users can either import the game from Amazon
US or download it via the US PS Store or US Xbox Games Store. The
latter requires you to either have a US credit card (your luck with
virtual cards would vary) or purchase store credit via Amazon US or
sites like Maximus Cards. Needless to say, the grey market will be
bringing it in so be on the look out around release date. The release
date of the game for India was November 21, in line with the European
release date - less than a week away.
Is this really a big deal?
From
a commercial standpoint, role-playing games like Dragon Age don't do
well at all in India. Usually nothing more than the minimum order
quantity is what is imported. This is in the range of 300 to 500 units
for consoles and about 1,000 units on PC. So it's not a big loss to EA
or it's distributor compared to games such as FIFA that are more
popular.
However it does beg the question, why indulge in complete
censorship? Television shows of all sorts are available in the country
by exercising self-censorship in subtitles. The user base isn't
spectacular in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh but if there's a long
term view to grow the market,video game companies would do well to take
notice of the practises followed by other industries.
By
pre-emptively deciding against selling the game before raising any
questions, EA will push a lot more people into piracy. It's simpler than
finding a legal workaround. People who would have paid full price for
the game locally will end up importing it, buying it digitally from
other stores or obtain illegal copies. Simply because EA isn't willing
to cater to the market.
What do you think? Should EA have made the right decision by not bringing the game at all? Let us know in the comments.
