EA and BioWare announced a few days ago that Star Wars: The Old Republic was available to pre-order now. They did not specify it was only for gamers in North America and Europe.
If you go to the official website for the game, you will see that pre-order details aren’t available for gamers outside of North America and Europe. This isn’t really a problem most of the time but pre-ordering the game will allow access to a closed beta in September.
Those gamers outside of North America and Europe won’t be able to participate in the beta and won’t get access to the “Color Stone” that will change the effect of your weapon.
BioWare gave the following statement:
“We decided to constrain our launch capacity to ensure we deliver a great experience to every player. Part of the reason this decision was made was because of the overwhelming demand for The Old Republic, and we’re humbled by that level of excitement and anticipation.
We fully intend to deliver to you an amazing game when we expand our service post-launch, but right now we cannot commit to any timeframe for when that may happen. As soon as we have more information about additional launches in more territories, we’ll let you know.
Bioware and LucasArts are completely focused on building an exceptional game and an exceptional game service to go with it.”
The alternative would be that fans can purchase the game from overseas retailers. Although this does not mean the game won’t be released in territories outside North America and Europe, it just denies them access to the game’s benefits when you pre-order it.
Rom Ireton
July 26, 2011 at 12:20 AMThat sucks! I guess they don’t want to make a profit immediately from the game. LOL!
Danakar
July 26, 2011 at 5:00 PM“but pre-ordering the game will allow access to a closed beta in September.”
Uhm, no it doesn’t. Those who have preordered the game will only get a few days’ headstart; not entry into any closed beta.
Alazander
December 29, 2011 at 10:50 PMWell they can now go F*** themselves, any company that does this sort of thing is never seeing my money. I expect to have the release the same time as others no a few months later. GJ lucas art’s F***ed another one up.