{"id":31337,"date":"2024-05-23T17:57:05","date_gmt":"2024-05-23T08:57:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/?p=31337"},"modified":"2024-05-23T17:59:04","modified_gmt":"2024-05-23T08:59:04","slug":"japanese-publishers-habit-of-region-locking-games-in-japan-may-finally-be-changing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/japanese-publishers-habit-of-region-locking-games-in-japan-may-finally-be-changing\/","title":{"rendered":"Japanese publishers\u2019 habit of region locking games in Japan may finally be changing\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Today, a large number of Japanese PC gamers collectively went \u201cFinally!\u201d as they saw Bandai Namco Entertainment lift the region lock that had been placed on Dragon Ball FighterZ, Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 and Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot ever since their release on Steam. Japanese game publishers making Steam releases unavailable for their countrymen has been a thing for years, but Steam&#8217;s recent popularity boom in Japan may be nudging things in the right direction.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Often used by Japanese netizens, \u201comakuni\u201d is a slang term derived from the phrase, \u201cWe\u2019re not selling it in your country,\u201d and refers to a product or service being blocked in a specific country, i.e. region locking. It&#8217;s most often used to refer to games on Steam released by Japanese publishers but made unpurchasable or unplayable (e.g. no language support) for Japanese users. The practice can be seen even with major names such as Square Enix, Capcom, Koei Tecmo and Bandai Namco Entertainment.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1280\" height=\"720\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px\" src=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/20240523-294417-header.jpg\" alt=\"Screenshot from Bandai Namco's Dragon Ball title\" class=\"wp-image-31342\" srcset=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/20240523-294417-header.jpg 1280w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/20240523-294417-header-380x214.jpg 380w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/20240523-294417-header-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/20240523-294417-header-600x338.jpg 600w\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Developers generally do not provide official reasons for region-locking in this way (Bandai Namco lifted the ban on Dragon Ball without an explanation), but users speculate that they may have to do with manufacturers trying to protect their existing channels of distribution. For example, selling physical editions to a retailer provides the manufacturer with a certain margin of profit even if the copies don\u2019t end up being purchased by players. If the manufacturer were to actively promote digital sales, this could jeopardize their relationship with retailers.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There is also the possibility of region locking being related to exclusivity deals that only apply domestically. In other words, a game could be exclusive to one console in Japan, but available on multiple platforms, including Steam, overseas.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"939\" height=\"629\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 939px) 100vw, 939px\" src=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/20240523-31337-1.jpg\" alt=\"Steam displaying an error that says &quot;This item is currently not available in your region&quot;\" class=\"wp-image-31346\" srcset=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/20240523-31337-1.jpg 939w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/20240523-31337-1-380x255.jpg 380w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/20240523-31337-1-768x514.jpg 768w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/20240523-31337-1-600x402.jpg 600w\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Thankfully, there has been a trend of Steam releases in Japan being freed from their \u201comakuni\u201d status recently. As of May 23, the previously mentioned Dragon Ball titles have been made purchasable from Japan with support for the Japanese language. In January this year, Sega lifted their local bans on Sonic Adventure DX: Director&#8217;s Cut and Sonic Adventure 2. These moves could be influenced by <a href=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/20230705-19941\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Steam\u2019s massive growth among Japanese users<\/a> in the past few years. As Steam\u2019s market size continues to grow and attract Japanese PC gamers, manufacturers may be realizing the extent of its potential as a platform.&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For years, Japanese game publishers have been region locking Steam releases of certain from Japanese users. This may be changing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":55,"featured_media":30077,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_gspb_post_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[17],"class_list":["post-31337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-japan-related-news"],"blocksy_meta":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Japanese publishers\u2019 habit of region locking games in Japan may finally be changing\u00a0 - AUTOMATON WEST<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"For years, Japanese game publishers have been region locking Steam releases of certain from Japanese users. This may be changing.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/japanese-publishers-habit-of-region-locking-games-in-japan-may-finally-be-changing\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Japanese publishers\u2019 habit of region locking games in Japan may finally be changing\u00a0 - AUTOMATON WEST\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"For years, Japanese game publishers have been region locking Steam releases of certain from Japanese users. This may be changing.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/japanese-publishers-habit-of-region-locking-games-in-japan-may-finally-be-changing\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"AUTOMATON WEST\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2024-05-23T08:57:05+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2024-05-23T08:59:04+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/20240424-30072-header.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1000\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"563\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Amber V\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@AUTOMATON_ENG\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@AUTOMATON_ENG\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Amber V\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Japanese publishers\u2019 habit of region locking games in Japan may finally be changing\u00a0 - AUTOMATON WEST","description":"For years, Japanese game publishers have been region locking Steam releases of certain from Japanese users. 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She grew up playing Duke Nukem and Wolfenstein with her dad, and is now enamored with obscure Japanese video games and internet culture. Currently devoted to growing Automaton West to the size of its Japanese sister-site, while making sure to keep news concise and developer stories deep and stimulating.","url":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/author\/amber-vjestica\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/55"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31337"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31337\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31350,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31337\/revisions\/31350"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30077"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}