Activision lays foundation for region restricting PC games.

[Mario]

2012 was the year Activision switched to using Steamworks for their PC titles. This is a somewhat good thing, though overall and in the long run, a bad thing. At any rate, this thread is about the fact that Activision is placing notices on the back of their retail PC games that inform people that the game may not be activated and played outside the original region of purchase. This feature, is not, at this stage, being enforced.


Activation notice on the back of most Activision PC games released in 2012, and probably all future ones.



The "local laws" claim is bullshit and, I would suggest, even illegal in many countries. There is no law prohibiting the importation of a European version of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, for example, into the United States. As of this date, the ESRB is a voluntary ratings system, and there is no actual government law that rates PC games.

Additionally, as it stands, online retailers are selling these Activision games to nearly anyone, globally. If Acivision one day starts enforcing this regional policy, those places better wise up and know which regions not to sell to international customers, lest they learn the hard way.

At the end of the day, they will be able to get away with this because the game is tied to Steam. Had they stayed with traditional on-disc copy protection, things would be better.

Finally, this seems to be a specific Activision thing. I buy a lot of new retail PC games, many also using Steamworks, and so far, not another company has such notices. Not one.

It is my belief that Activision is trying to condition people to get used to that notice, at least the curious people who check for these things, and also so they can later claim that they have been using that warning for years.