Please Release Me
Waiting for Godot
Last year saw the release of Unreal. Here in the UK we waited. And waited. And then waited some more. About a month later, Unreal was finally released in Europe.
In fact, most computer games are released at least a week or two later in the UK than in the USA, and sometimes the delay stretches into months.
We use the same hardware and software as the Americans. And in the UK we even speak the same language .. well, more or less. So why does it often take anything from a week to a month or more for games to reach our green and pleasant land?
51st State
Unfortunately it seems that the Americans are labouring under the mistaken belief that the United Kingdom is part of Europe...
"What causes a difference in release date is almost always where a game is programmed in the US", Virgin Interactive's VP of Development, Joss Ellis, told us. "The UK release is usually aimed to be simultaneous with the release across Europe, and so the US game has to be localised into French, German, etc."
In other words, instead of just shipping the American version of the game in the UK as soon as it is available, we end up waiting for the game to be translated into half a dozen European languages which we'll never hear.
This is especially a problem with more complicated games which have large amounts of dialogue.
This explains why, for example, "Slave Zero" is already on sale in the USA but, according to our latest information from publisher Infogrames, here in Europe we won't see it until mid February!
Problems can also occur when different publishers handle the game in different countries, as Nick Clarkson of Infogrames UK told us.
"A recent example is Infogrames' V-Rally 2 : Championship Edition, which was released in the US by EA, who called the game V-Rally 2 : Need for Speed. When this occurs publishers will set the release date dependant on their own strategy."
And regardless of other issues, there is often a delay of a few days anyway because "games are released on a Friday in the UK and Monday in the US". Don't ask us why, though!
Grey Market
The problem for publishers is that the longer a game's European release is delayed, the more English-speaking people will import it from the USA.
A particularly drastic example of this was Starsiege Tribes, which was finally released in the UK as part of a bundle with mech game Starsiege, several months after going on sale in America!
By the time Sierra finally released Tribes in Europe, most hardcore gamers had already either had a copy shipped to them from the USA, or pirated the game from a "warez" site. Either way, Sierra Europe lost out.
It doesn't help that computer games cost more in the UK than in the USA either. Joss told me that "pricing is not that far out these days", and to be fair much of the difference in price is down to VAT, the UK's somewhat excessive 17.5% sales tax.
The bottom line is that an average game costs about £5 less in the USA than in the UK, almost entirely due to VAT. But many US stores sell some games for as little as $30, and even taking VAT into account that's still a difference of about £8.
Nick was happy to admit that there is often a significant price difference, although he says that it is "to do with the cost of living", and that "generally whatever you can buy in the States will cost you the same on a pound for dollar basis" in the UK.
Sadly this is true - your local bank might think that a pound is worth $1.60, but when it comes to actually buying anything (whether it's CDs, computer games, or jeans) the exchange rate is more like $1.00 to the pound.
Another reason for the price difference, as Joss pointed out, is that "the US is a large homogenous market about the same size as Europe but all (well mostly) English speaking! So economies of scale play a large part."
Luckily for the publishers, shipping a bulky computer game across the Atlantic is relatively expensive, which is why I buy my CDs and DVDs from online stores based in the USA, but still buy computer games from my local Electronics Boutique most of the time.
But as broadband internet connections become more widespread over here, and more and more shops spring up on the internet selling computer games as downloads, all that could soon change...
Revenge!
Of course, we do occasionally get one up on the Americans.
Games developed in Europe are often released in the UK months before they reach the USA, though again I don't see why it should take that long to turn a UK English game into a US English game.
Belgium's "Outcast" and Germany's "X : Beyond The Frontier" are examples of games that were available for several months in Europe before they finally reached America.
And next year we can look forward to at least one hit game being released over here at the same time it appears in the USA.
A recent press release confirming that Diablo II won't be released until early next year tried to put a positive shine on the announcement by saying that "the additional development time will not only ensure that the game meets the standards customers have come to expect from Blizzard, but also allows for a global launch".
"Diablo II will be Blizzard's first worldwide release of a game across all major international markets. Not only will localised versions of the game ship simultaneously, but also Battle.net servers will be up and running throughout the world."
It's just a shame that the only reason they are prepared to do that is because they need the extra time to fix the game's bugs anyway...