EA: Sorry South Africa, No Titanfall for You

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CommanderFrank

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If you think that the Internet speeds here in the US are bad, you should give gaming a try in South Africa. After running online tests playing Titanfall, EA made the decision not to release Titanfall in South Africa, citing poor online performance. Looks like a no win situation for EA on this one. Damned if you do and damned if you don’t. Thanks to Forum member eth3ton for the linkage. :cool:

South African gamers are understandably upset by the last-minute cancellation of a highly anticipated game and are venting their anger on EA's Facebook page.
 
If this is truly the reason, then for once I agree with EA (is that the end of the world I sense? :eek: ). Though I think that people should still be given the option to purchase games with single player/offline mode(s).
My thinking is that it's better that they not sell product there rather than sell it and then blowing off all those customers because it's "not EA's problem that the internet sucks in their little part of the world". Let's face it, EA has more than enough (much deserved) bad press as it is.
 
This is bullshit from top to bottom.

The problem isn't that South Africa has slow internet... because that's just stupid... the problem is that South Africa has a "poor experience" because they're connecting to servers in Europe and America. They fucked Australians over like this too, but I guess play isn't so bad that they cut off the continent.
 
Any game that uses Microsoft Xbox servers and fucking lobbies has poor online performance no matter the platform..

State of gaming is garbage
 
This is bullshit from top to bottom.

The problem isn't that South Africa has slow internet... because that's just stupid... the problem is that South Africa has a "poor experience" because they're connecting to servers in Europe and America. They fucked Australians over like this too, but I guess play isn't so bad that they cut off the continent.

You're probably right, the average speed in South Africa is 2.3 Mbps which shouldn't be to slow for Titanfall.
 
If this is truly the reason, then for once I agree with EA (is that the end of the world I sense? :eek: ). Though I think that people should still be given the option to purchase games with single player/offline mode(s).
My thinking is that it's better that they not sell product there rather than sell it and then blowing off all those customers because it's "not EA's problem that the internet sucks in their little part of the world". Let's face it, EA has more than enough (much deserved) bad press as it is.

Hah what an idiotic throwaway comment, shows how little you know
 
They fucked Australians over like this too, but I guess play isn't so bad that they cut off the continent.
Australia screws itself over, with its retarded nanny state censorship government. I'm surprised that Titanfall would even be for sale over there without a permit. And there aren't even that many gamers on the continent to make bending over backwards for them worthwhile. Isn't Australia going to be the first government that actually holds elections to setup a state internet firewall?

And sorry South Africa, but bad news for you too, rightfully pissed or not, when you scared off all the white people, you had to realize that sooner or later we'd see the city of Detroit replayed on a country-wide scale. Whats their rape rate at now? Last I checked it was 75 per 100K, despite only an estimated 1 in 9 being reported... yeah, you have bigger problems than video games South Africa, sorry.
 
Australia screws itself over, with its retarded nanny state censorship government. I'm surprised that Titanfall would even be for sale over there without a permit. And there aren't even that many gamers on the continent to make bending over backwards for them worthwhile. Isn't Australia going to be the first government that actually holds elections to setup a state internet firewall?

And sorry South Africa, but bad news for you too, rightfully pissed or not, when you scared off all the white people, you had to realize that sooner or later we'd see the city of Detroit replayed on a country-wide scale. Whats their rape rate at now? Last I checked it was 75 per 100K, despite only an estimated 1 in 9 being reported... yeah, you have bigger problems than video games South Africa, sorry.

Good lord... did you miss last night's klan rally?

Titanfall isn't in South Africa because there are no MS data centers in South Africa. There are also no MS data centers in Australia. It has absolutely nothing to do with your idiot notions about gubmint.
 
Facts > political correctness. Candy coat it how you like, but the issue is SA is going to crap, and their internet speed (ranked around 100th in the world) is a symptom of that. That's what I was saying.

And Australia isn't a big enough market for them to be so heavy handed on censorship and the like, which was my point with them. Its the reason that there isn't any investment, and many are pulling out services from the region, I'm not sure how I could reword that more plainly, but that is what I meant. Although checking up it appears that last year in 2013 they did instate a R18+ rating which before they lacked, and used to ban a bunch of games. Even things as minor as drug use depiction would get banned.

Here's a link about how Australia is talking about adopting an internet firewall policy like China's for the country: http://www.internetblackout.com.au/

So yes, you are pointing out that its because Australians have mediocre internet performance and no local servers, and I'm pointing out WHY I believe that's the case. Would you invest in that type of market environment considering the userbase size?
 
Actually will be interesting to see how that game plays out in Australia as they don't have that great of a connection to the rest of the world either.
 
Facts > political correctness. Candy coat it how you like, but the issue is SA is going to crap, and their internet speed (ranked around 100th in the world) is a symptom of that. That's what I was saying.

And Australia isn't a big enough market for them to be so heavy handed on censorship and the like, which was my point with them. Its the reason that there isn't any investment, and many are pulling out services from the region, I'm not sure how I could reword that more plainly, but that is what I meant. Although checking up it appears that last year in 2013 they did instate a R18+ rating which before they lacked, and used to ban a bunch of games. Even things as minor as drug use depiction would get banned.

Here's a link about how Australia is talking about adopting an internet firewall policy like China's for the country: http://www.internetblackout.com.au/

So yes, you are pointing out that its because Australians have mediocre internet performance and no local servers, and I'm pointing out WHY I believe that's the case. Would you invest in that type of market environment considering the userbase size?

Your diatribe of nonsense is actually completely devoid of facts. Firstly, as Fumz explained it has nothing to do with the performance characteristics of local internet infrastructure and everything to do with the fact that EA signed an exclusivity agreement with MS which happens to not have server farms in either Australia or South Africa.

I can say firsthand as an Australian that internet speed is more than fine in most metropolitan areas with both cable and ADSL2+ being accessible, which means that I ping at 15 to local servers and at most around 80 to servers in Singapore and on the other side of the country.

And trying to make a connection between censorship in Australia and investment in internet infrastructure is laughable, particularly in light of the fact that MS is in fact building an Azure farm here which is yet to be completed. As you correctly observe, an R18+ classification has now been introduced, but the fact of the matter is that only a handful of games were ever outright banned and another handful had to be modified and submitted for reclassification.....and even then most sensible users would simply import uncensored versions anyway because of the price differential.

Even more laughable is how you make these sweeping conclusions on the basis of faulty outdated facts. You don't think that site http://www.internetblackout.com.au/ is peculiarly out of date? Well that's probably because the internet filter policy was abandoned by the Labor government in 2012 which in turn lost the Federal election in 2013. So not only is there no imminent plan to introduce an internet firewall, there in fact has been a complete change in government and policy.

So to sum up....limited exclusivity in game server providers is bad, publicly available server binaries is good. Hmmmmkay?
 
Actually will be interesting to see how that game plays out in Australia as they don't have that great of a connection to the rest of the world either.

Pings at 80ms to the SEA servers from the west coast, playable enough considering the limited player count and lack of demanding overhead for things like destruction and physics.
 
And sorry South Africa, but bad news for you too, rightfully pissed or not, when you scared off all the white people, you had to realize that sooner or later we'd see the city of Detroit replayed on a country-wide scale. Whats their rape rate at now? Last I checked it was 75 per 100K, despite only an estimated 1 in 9 being reported... yeah, you have bigger problems than video games South Africa, sorry.

Wow... you have a very short view of history. Empires are built on slavery. History is written by the victor. If you dig through history, you will see that current third world countries were not always that way. South Africa is just one of many countries that have been cannibalized by imperial colonialism.

Hotel Rwanda

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0395169/


Pop quiz for you. How does someone who studied law at university, in the UK end up kicking the British out of India?

Gandhi (1982)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083987/?ref_=nv_sr_1


How does someone who was a medical student end up a guerrilla freedom fighter, against the CIA?

The Motorcycle Diaries (2004)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0318462/?ref_=nv_sr_1

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Che_Guivera


What was the UK's solution to the trade deficit between the UK & China?

The opium wars: When Britain made war on China

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/0/20428167


How were the US railroads built?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Chinese_Americans#Departure_from_China


Coolies: How the British Reinvented Slavery

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxl4q_jfDPI
 
Sometimes I read threads on the internet and wish that I hadn't. People this criminally stupid shouldn't be allowed online.
 
I will be very surprised if they actually support this game properly. Too bad but what did you expect from EA? They just don't GET it.
 
Hmm I'm not the slightest surprised that EA would do something like this... After all the issues with Sim City seems to be about the norm for them!
 
Sometimes I read threads on the internet and wish that I hadn't. People this criminally stupid shouldn't be allowed online.

If there weren't people that stupid, how would smart people like you or I going to make money?:D
 
I will be very surprised if they actually support this game properly. Too bad but what did you expect from EA? They just don't GET it.

Hmm I'm not the slightest surprised that EA would do something like this... After all the issues with Sim City seems to be about the norm for them!

You guys didn't read above. The issue happens to be lack of Microsoft server farms in Africa. It has absolutely ZERO to do with EA. It has to do with Microsoft's lacking server infrastructure and Respawn Entertainment's choice of requiring their services. After all, the MS servers for XBox Live provide the AI for all the bots. This lack of servers in different areas will affect future releases also as more developers begin leveraging MS's servers.
 
And sorry South Africa, but bad news for you too, rightfully pissed or not, when you scared off all the white people, you had to realize that sooner or later we'd see the city of Detroit replayed on a country-wide scale.

WTAF is even going on it this thread?

we need an ignore button
 
Wow... you have a very short view of history.
You win. South Africa has a booming economy with blazing internet speeds, low crime rate (50 killings a day is a myth), massive near-future potential, there is no brain-drain emigration exodus problem, and the lack of investment including a server there simply can't be explained.
 
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