European Discrepancy for a Euro Member to look at [TJ]

[James]

http://www.rfgeneration.c...nfo.pl?ID=E-087-S-02040-A

This Spore Creatures, while having a part number ending in SCN, is also a UK release. So it Should be:
Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and United Kingdom.

[James]

Can someone fix this?

[TraderJake]

There you go, people had a chance to say something about this, and they did not, so now it has the UK Flag as well.

[Tan]

Out of curiosity and this is a question to all European members, do retailers import games from other countries or shift stock from one to another? Reason I ask is because I know depending on the retailer, games with specific Canadian packaging and those with a general North American packaging, can both be found here. That's why there are few truly US games in the database.

I also know that it happens in the Middle East, parts of Asia and Australia. So perhaps the same applies to Europe as well? James' Spore entry could very well be a Scandinavian release that was shipped to the UK but not native to the UK. There may be other copies of Spore from other retailers that have the UKV part number on them.

Regardless, it won't affect submissions too much. If a collector buys a new game in their own country/region and adds it to their collection, it'll have the proper flag. But and I stress this because it's very important, if they bought the game used, the origin of the game's initial purchase location will be called into question. Who knows if Joe consumer bought a game in Italy and brought it back to France and traded it in? The only sure things are the ones that members bought brand new in store personally.

[Sirgin]

That's not an easy question to answer, Tan. But I'll give it a shot.

Here in Belgium there isn't really a clear system that games get released in.

Even if I take PS2 games as an example, there still isn't much consistency to be found. Maybe some consistency can be found when looking at games of the same publisher/developer; but I haven't researched that yet.


Categories:

1. Some games will only have English text on the back, usually because the game is only playable in English (games that have much dialog like Final Fantasy XII come to mind).  Either the developer/publisher thinks it's not worth of dubbing it in all these languages or there simply isn't enough room on the disk to put multiple languages on there. However it's not the same as the UK version because the game will have a PEGI rating and not a BBFC one.

2. Some games come with multiple languages on the box itself. Some are just English-Dutch-French. Others can include German, Spanish, Italian, etc...
Manuals will usually feature the same languages as the back of the box, so if there's 6 languages on the box, the manual will be in 6 languages. These games will usually have the option to select one of those languages. Sometimes this will change the language used in menu's/subtitles. Other games will have dialog in all languages, too.

3. Some games are sold in two versions here, even in the same store. This is because of Belgium's special situation of two languages being spoken roughly evenly. A good example would be the Harry Potter game I bought recently:

Harry Potter en de Orde van de Feniks would be the title of the Dutch game. Box text and manual will also be in Dutch. (I bought this game)
Harry Potter et L'ordre du Phénix would be the title of the French game. Box text and manual will also be in French.
The discs in these games, however, are identical. You can select English, Dutch, French and some other languages with both versions, so the only difference is the cover/title/manual.
Next time I'm in a store I will check whether they share Part Numbers/UPCs or not. I think sometimes they are identical, but I can be wrong.


PS: Now I think about it, some FF games have Dutch box-text and manuals, but the games are in English...I don't know what category that fits in.


Examples:

Final Fantasy X (PS2)
[img width=400 height=547]http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/games/E-072/bb/E-072-S-00130-A.jpg[/img]
This scan has English text on the back but not a UK flag indicating it as a UK game. I have a different version of the game, with Dutch text on the back.


Final Fantasy IX (PSone)
[img width=400 height=349]http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/games/E-061/bb/E-061-S-04160-A.jpg[/img]
This scan has Dutch text on the back. I have the exact same version which I bought in Belgium. Note that the flag of the Netherlands is used to indicate the Dutch language, not that it's been released in the Netherlands. A Belgium flag will never appear on a game because Belgium is a country, not a language. A Playstation (2) game sold in Belgium can have either a Dutch flag, a French flag, a UK flag, multiple flags or no flag at all.
A member from Belgium/Netherland must've supplied this scan because you can't find this version anywhere else.


God of War [Platinum] (PS2)
[img width=400 height=571]http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/games/E-072/bb/E-072-S-02080-B.jpg[/img]
This scan clearly is a UK version of this game because of the BBFC rating and UK flag. My version has the same title but multiple languages/flags on the back and a PEGI rating.


Metal Gear Solid (PSone)
[img width=400 height=349]http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/games/E-061/bb/E-061-S-06760-A.jpg[/img]
This scan has no UK flag on it but English text. I have a version with Dutch text-only but the game itself is in English. This game is not aimed towards the UK market because you can see the "ATTENTION" text in the red box which is French text. Sometimes games have this, even when they have Dutch text on them. The Dutch Playstation magazine I read has demo's with boxes that have that same French warning on them.


Star Ocean: Till the End of Time (PS2)
[img width=400 height=567]http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/games/E-072/bb/E-072-S-00980-A.jpg[/img]
UK and Dutch flags on the back but only English text.


Rayman M (PS2)
[img width=400 height=569]http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/games/E-072/bb/E-072-S-00170-A.jpg[/img]
UK and Dutch flags on the back; text in both languages.



Conclusions:

It's a nightmare! There's no standardisation whatsoever; as a result every publisher just does what he sees fit.
Also note how all these examples are submitted as regionwide releases yet none of them are.
I haven't found a scan of a game that features more than 2 languages, but once I'll get a scanner I'll be able to show you one.

I hope now that you (Tan) have some more insight in the situation and the sheer scope of the problem. It will be a diabolical work to set everything straight and it'll take a long, long time. However I'm up to the challenge.

Note: Pfew, it took me 45min to write this post...longest post ever? Yes sir!

[AndyC]

Out of curiosity and this is a question to all European members, do retailers import games from other countries or shift stock from one to another? Reason I ask is because I know depending on the retailer, games with specific Canadian packaging and those with a general North American packaging, can both be found here. That's why there are few truly US games in the database.

I also know that it happens in the Middle East, parts of Asia and Australia. So perhaps the same applies to Europe as well? James' Spore entry could very well be a Scandinavian release that was shipped to the UK but not native to the UK. There may be other copies of Spore from other retailers that have the UKV part number on them.

Regardless, it won't affect submissions too much. If a collector buys a new game in their own country/region and adds it to their collection, it'll have the proper flag. But and I stress this because it's very important, if they bought the game used, the origin of the game's initial purchase location will be called into question. Who knows if Joe consumer bought a game in Italy and brought it back to France and traded it in? The only sure things are the ones that members bought brand new in store personally.

I have only ever seen one different regional release of a game over here and that was in the second hand bin in Game. It was for a FIFA game and was from Spain. I do not believe we get releases from any other countries in the UK. Probably mainly due to the fact that most Britons can only speak English and no other language. Other European countries are better educated in languages and will have a grasp of English even if it is not their first language.

The issues with European regional variants has been touched on many times before and I cannot see a proper answer to the problem, especially in the current setup of the database. The most accurate way would be to list the laguages on the box, languages on the disc and any other related information. It is impoible to know which country a game has been released in difinitively.
I live in the UK, specifically England. I would imagine that all games released in the UK also get the same release in Ireland, I don't know this for definate but I would make an educated guess that they do. \i would imagine various other countries will get this same release whilst others won't. As stated previously the only way to know would be to have a member situated in every country in Europe able to check each release. Not likely to happen.
Unfortunatley guessing will not solve this problem. 

[Sirgin]

I live in the UK, specifically England. I would imagine that all games released in the UK also get the same release in Ireland, I don't know this for definate but I would make an educated guess that they do. 

That's probably correct in like 98% of the cases but (for example) I remember ga5ket saying that Ratchet & Clank: Quest for Booty (of however it's called) did not see a physical release in the UK yet it did in Ireland.

In other words: even making that assumption is one too many, sadly.

[AndyC]

The way I could see this being resolved would be a massive reworking of the database.

I would have one listing per game where ever it was released. From here we would list all known variants of the game using the information we have. We don't definatley know where games are released but we do know the information listed on the boxes. Use this to distinguish each variant. These could include different language on the boxes, different prints/ covers, different re-releases or any thing at all which makes each release different from another one.

If you want to add game to your collection you click on the variant you own, which would be clearly identifed with scans and relevant information. If someone is not too bothered about the specifics of whether there game is a specific variant they could have the option of simpy adding the generic title (ala IGN).

[TraderJake]

Not to place a damper on things, but we have reworked the database more than enough times. We will not be recoding the database nor making massive, massive changes to the games and hardware databases.

[Sirgin]

Not to place a damper on things, but we have reworked the database more than enough times. We will not be recoding the database nor making massive, massive changes to the games and hardware databases.

That won't be necessary TJ, don't worry.

What should be done (in theory) is adding the different versions of each game to the database and, once we feel we have enough "specific" entries, give the collectors a few weeks to switch their games over to the correct versions and then delete the regionwide European entries.

It'll be a very slow process, though.

[AndyC]

That's exactly what will need doing. No recoding necessary just one hell of a lot of work changing almost every single European entry.