It’s Friday! It’s the last day of work again, and ten million wild horses are galloping! I have been playing a classic new game "Pokemon Day" these days. After all, Nintendo finally launched the genuine Chinese version of Pokemon due to the "force" of domestic gamers. The editor is wondering why there is no National Bank? Well, not really. . It’s not that they are discriminating against domestic users, but that the domestic environment is indeed not good, in terms of policies, piracy, and even now, in the perception of some people, video games are equivalent to drugs. . .

Of course, in addition to the above-mentioned reasons, there is another one, zone locking.

People who don’t play games may not quite understand what “region lock” means. Here, let’s take a look at the definition of region lock.

Let’s first take a look at Baidu Encyclopedia’s definition of zone lock:

Region locking refers to the fact that due to the relationship between local network agents, different versions of games in their respective regions on steam and other game platforms can only play games in their respective regions.

There is a serious piracy problem. With the popularity of the Internet today, it seems unrealistic to completely block the spread of piracy. However, for a specific region, if the game piracy in that region can be controlled only within that region through region locking, then the scale of the damage will be reduced.

The editor thinks Baidu Encyclopedia is very good!

Region locking means not only "this game is not sold in your region and you are not allowed to play it", but also means "you can only play the game in your respective region".

The naive little KK saw on the news that a certain game was region-locked in China, and the next day he saw it on the Steam store, and was still wondering if this game was region-locked. . .

Naive!

Furthermore, everyone must know that region locking is the product of negotiations between game manufacturers and agents. But times have changed, and the reasons for zone locking can’t be summed up in just this sentence on Baidu Encyclopedia.

First of all, the editor believes that the fundamental reason for zone locking is to prevent cross-selling.

For example, the same game sells for 59 dollars in the United States, 59 euros in Europe, and 138 yuan in China. The price difference is too big. If the area is not locked, I will collect a batch in China and sell them to the US. . .

Brothers, rounding it off is 100 million! ! !

This kind of cross-continental cross-continental goods must be what agents hate the most. In order to prevent similar phenomena from happening, lock!

Secondly, there are differences in versions.

This aspect is related to the policies of various countries. The most obvious one is the different grading systems. Patients who are concerned about the European and American grading systems should know about the strict grading system in Europe. For some 18X-oriented games, if you do not lock the region and the children are full of curiosity, then the parents will go to court to sue you.

For example, "Battlefield 4" was banned by China because it vilified China; another example is the "Call of Duty" series because "Call of Duty" had an agreement with TX, so the entire series was banned on Steam.

In order to allow their games to be released smoothly in various regions, producers usually compromise, lock! Of course, there are also some who are uncompromising. The reason is simply that agents require modification of game data to comply with local policies (agents in a certain country love to do this kind of thing).

what to do? The company we develop games has a backbone and we won’t sell them anymore. Like to play, don't play. . .

Finally, the editor thought it was the piracy issue mentioned in the encyclopedia.

In the early years, game manufacturers launched a "region lock" policy in order to minimize the number of rampant piracy in certain areas and protect their copyrights. Do you know who pioneered this? . . . That's right, it's Nintendo. . .

In fact, Nintendo was the first company to implement region locking for its games. As early as the era when the Famicom was introduced to the United States and became the NES, Nintendo achieved the purpose of region locking through different designs, such as using different chips.

Now that we are talking about Nintendo, we have to mention the difference between console and PC region locking.

Here, the editor found out the difference between region locking of console games and PC games, and posted it to share with everyone.

My personal feeling has to do with the difference between PC players and console players.

The fact that the PC is region locked does not mean that you really can’t play it. We are all old players. People who open the skylight and speak out loudly and buy games for a large amount of money on STEAM will not use pirated versions. That is impossible. As for the topic of "buying a STEAM and then cracking it", I see it almost every day. Not to mention that most region locks are just differences in selling prices and do not affect your ability to play.

In fact, the policy of "lock regions when using a VPN" is translated into human language as "we cannot cross regions because of adults, so please play piracy."

Host zone locking is basically a dead end. There is nothing you can do except buy a new host, and you may also need to use a VPN. Not to mention that 95% of the main players of game consoles in developed countries are novices.

Putting the region lock of game consoles on PC is equivalent to DOTA2 only having a MAC version but not a PC version. It will be strange if the PC party doesn't turn the world upside down by then.

To add, the locked area on the host is at the hardware level, but it is different on the PC.

It is impossible for PC games to detect whether your computer is ASUS or MSI before each game, and then stipulate that the game can only be played on Lenovo computers. . . Therefore, hardware locking rarely occurs on the PC side.

Let’s take Steam, currently the world’s largest game platform, as an example. Steam's lock area includes lock purchase, lock activation, lock execution, etc. If each game is purchased and unlocked in the country code, then the player can find a gift from another region to activate it and still play in the country code.

The host is different. . . The console is 360° fully locked with no blind spots. If you want to play games that are not released in China but in the United States, then the only way is to buy the American version of the console. . .

But don’t cry for the host party yet. Society is progressing and the times are developing. It has been 38 years since the reform and opening up, and the sales of e-sports games have also become more global: whether it is an Xbox game, it can now basically have the same release date and the same sales price around the world (except for some special regions) .

Therefore, in the 3 era, Sony has gradually relaxed the region lock restrictions, and Microsoft has also completely canceled the region lock policy on Xbox One.

When these two game consoles entered the Chinese market, there were rumors of region locking. Although the method adopted by the Bank of China in the end was to lock the server but not the region, that is, players of the Bank of China could not use foreign game accounts and network services, but they still Can use foreign game software.

Currently, only Nintendo among the three giants in the console market adheres to the region locking policy. Even on the previous generation of handheld 3DS, Nintendo also added region locking to the handheld console that had never been region locked. But apparently, Nintendo's anti-era stubbornness is loosening, because there are rumors that the latest console NX will not be region locked.

But it’s clear that Nintendo’s anti-era stubbornness is loosening. . .

Having said so much, I believe that patients should have a certain understanding of zone locking. In fact, there are very few games nowadays that are “not sold somewhere”. But there are always exceptions to everything. If the game you like happens to be banned… then… today is almost over~ I am going to enjoy a wonderful weekend~