This Post is Only Readable by People in North America

This blog post is region-coded so that only people from North America can read it. It was decided to be this way so that I can sell this blog post to peoples outside of North America for a higher price, even though I might get more readers by just letting Spanish people try to translate this blog post.

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If you haven't already figured it out, I'm starting a rant about region coding. You see, I recently remembered that a new version of my favoritest fighting game ever is coming out for the PS2 soon, and it looks super shiny. Normally, I would just *blank* such games (I PLEAD THE 5TH!), but I like this branch of fighting games so much that I actually want to SUPPORT THE COMPANY and BUY IT. Unfortunately, old Sony doesn't want my business, because I'm white, or, more specifically, because I'm not in Japan.

That's right--it's region coded for the PS2. If it were a PS3 game, that wouldn't be an issue, but it isn't (probably because producing a game like this for the PS3 would cost more than it's worth). And so, I think I want to look at and critique why in the world companies loooooooooooove region coding (because they obviously do, since they keep on doing it, the fudgers--BUT THAT'S NOT WHAT I REALLY TYPED).

So, I couldn't think of any reason why it's good on private contemplation, since I'm a huge supporter of free trade and all that jazz, and thus was not able to comprehend why in the world free trade would be so disinsentivized. So, we go to wikipedia, where they say:

• Allow for companies to have seperate release dates in seperate countries, which can make it cheaper to release (fair enough).
• Allow for games to be feesibly released in countries that have stricter censorship laws (which is fair enough, but I'll get back to this point later).
  
• Allows for different country branches to be more economically feaseble (e.g. NIS America v.s. NIS--fair enough, I guess).
  
• Allow for price discrimination by region, thus making companies some more money (i.e. a company can sell a product in one country for a higher price than another without free of people bypassing their home country's price by importing).
  
• Allow for companies to milk more moneys out of us because companies are sometimes run by smart assholes.
• Allow for companies to analy rape its fans and make money while doing it.
• Gives reasons for some people to write complanative blog posts.
  

Now, let's take a look at some of the advantages to not region coding:

• Allows for free trade.
• Insentivises more interaction between different cultures.
• Insentivises actually learning about different cultures.
  
• Creates a great way for people to learn a new language.
  
• Gives a great reason for people to learn a new language.
  
• Allows for customers who like "untainted" (i.e. un-localized, purer, etc) products to easily obtain said "untainted" products.
• Disinsentivises previously mentioned "purer-is-better" people from obtaining said product illegally, which is win-win really.
• Allows for people to get products that will probably never be localized in their home country legally.
  
• Disinsentiveses people who like products that will probably never get released locally to actually obtain said products legally.
  
• Allows for companies who are not international to still receive money from the international market, instead of just having a bunch of foreigners essentially steal all of their games.
  
• Disinsentiveses people from modding their consoles, which while it has many legal uses, it also has far more illegal uses.
  
• Allows people to not have to pay a company to analy rape them. I mean seriously.
  

Now, this second list looks a whole lot longer than the first list to me, and the first list had a bunch of repeats to boot!

Now, I'm going to talk about why some of the points on the first list are stupid. Namely, the point on censorship. Censorship is dumb. Sure, it is very arguable that violent video games, movies, parents, and abusive dogs can have a big impact on a child. However, it IS NOT the responsibility of companies to make sure that kids who cannot remove themself from a game or movie after they have finished playing or watching said game or movie, but the responsibility of that child's PARENTS. The movie and video game industry has been nice enough to provide us with these nifty things called ratings (ESRB ratings in the video game industry) that makes this job INFINITELY easier for parents to accomplish, but that still doesn't make it the manufacturer's responsibility to ensure that a snively 12 year old brat doesn't play Grand Theft Auto and decide that he should go steal a car, hire a hooker, run over grandma on the way, and then kill the hooker and take all of his/her money in real life--that is the parents' job, gifted to them by G-d, God, Buddha, or Survival of the Least Retarded (The Sperm and the Egg just didn't seem like an appropriately godly name to me), whichever you believe.

That being said, I was really dissappointed when playing Xenosaga episodes II and III when I noticed the strange lack of any sort of blood when there very should've been blood--it made it look silly. And then I became even more dissappointed when I realized that blood was present in those scenes in the Japanese version, and that us STOOPID AMERRYKANS decided that OMG, RED PIXELS ARE TOO GRAPHIC, GET RID OF IT, GET RID OF IT! Seriously people, you live with the fucking fluid, get over it. Also, breasts are breasts. It's not like you have never seen a pair before. Same with penises.

OH YEAH, I forgot: WARNING: THE FOLLOWING BLOG MIGHT USE NAUGHTY WORDS, LIKE BREAST, AND PENIS, AND DEPICTS CORPORATIONS ANALY RAPING THEIR CUSTOMERS.

*EDIT* Well, a pair of penises very well probably is a new thing for most people... unless you are into some kinky stuff. Or if you are a sexually active homosexual (nothing wrong with that either). *END EDIT*

< /rant>