seriously?

[skorpion352]

is it seriously that difficult to run competitions for those of us in oceania? this game is 4 years old now and i cant remember a single competition that turbine has run that those of us in oceania are elegible for. 5 minutes on google or wikipedia should be enough to tell you want rules/laws you need to follow. when are we going to get some competition love?

yes im angry.

rant over, you can go back to ignoring us once this thread gets buried

[DemonicLemming]

And if you got it, the Canadians would be mad. Then the Mexicans would be mad. Then the Panamanians would be mad. Then the Ecuadorians would be mad.

There's a lot more to it than someone at corporate doing a Google search to see what applicable Aussie/Kiwi rules apply.

[DarkCntry]

You know, there was a thread already opened about this.

Despite what you may believe, it is not a simple thing to institute an international contest that fits to the laws and regulations of every corner of the globe.

For example, in Oceanic regions things differ between federal laws and laws like ACT. At the very least, you need to have a permit to function lotteries from almost every region in Australia, which adds up quite a bit of paperwork and fees.

[Reximus]

If you want your country to be able to participate, petition your Government to change the laws.

[BeerOps]

If you want your country to be able to participate, petition your Government to change the laws.

Change what laws? Gambling is legal in Aus, Lotteries are legal in Aus, Competitions are legal in Aus.

I dont get your point.

I do get DarkCntry's points though. While it my be expensive to implement applicable rules for other countries, we are funding that exact thing by subscribing to this game and/or buying from the LOTRO Store are we not?

[DarkCntry]

I do get DarkCntry's points though. While it my be expensive to implement applicable rules for other countries, we are funding that exact thing by subscribing to this game and/or buying from the LOTRO Store are we not?

Factoring in the cost of subscription, the cost of purchasing TP and other store-based objects, it still doesn't reach the requirements to fund the ability to administer contests internationally.

Figure this, Australia alone charges a fee for each region to obtain a permit, each of those regions each have guidelines and standards to follow. Canada is similar, places like Quebec actually have outlawed a lot of contests like this and to make a contest feasible to run in these areas requires so much more than money.

Hell, it's one of the reasons even large international companies (see: Sony for example) don't have very many international contests, and even the ones that do hold a lot of caveats for winners in various areas of the globe.

[BeerOps]

Factoring in the cost of subscription, the cost of purchasing TP and other store-based objects, it still doesn't reach the requirements to fund the ability to administer contests internationally.

Figure this, Australia alone charges a fee for each region to obtain a permit, each of those regions each have guidelines and standards to follow. Canada is similar, places like Quebec actually have outlawed a lot of contests like this and to make a contest feasible to run in these areas requires so much more than money.

Hell, it's one of the reasons even large international companies (see: Sony for example) don't have very many international contests, and even the ones that do hold a lot of caveats for winners in various areas of the globe.

Fair points.

I guess we will just have to rely on lotteries unless they nerf them to be US only.

[Sapience]

You know, there was a thread already opened about this.

Despite what you may believe, it is not a simple thing to institute an international contest that fits to the laws and regulations of every corner of the globe.

For example, in Oceanic regions things differ between federal laws and laws like ACT. At the very least, you need to have a permit to function lotteries from almost every region in Australia, which adds up quite a bit of paperwork and fees.

If you want your country to be able to participate, petition your Government to change the laws.

Dark is essentially right and Reximus' suggestion is good but not terribly practical. At the end of the day, this is not unique to Turbine or US companies. All countries and the companies that operate within them are required to operate within certain legal parameters. As Dark points out, sometimes those laws aren't consistent, even within the same country, r require multiple fees to be valid in all parts of a country. Making a contest legal in one place may very likely make it illegal in another.

Gambling may be legal in a given country, but it's always regulated. Then there's the semantics of things. Is it a sweepstakes? A lottery? A raffle? A Game of chance? A game of skill? Every country defines those things just a little differently. In one country a game of skill may be the only legal way to have a contest, but in another that is an undue burden and only raffles or sweepstakes are legal thus making it illegal in the other country.

Assuming you can wrangle through all of that, there is the issue of international shipments, taxes, import duties, and an endless stream of other fees and costs. In most countries passing any or all of these fees on to the winner immediately violates laws prohibiting any fees being associated with the contest. Believe it or not there are laws that consider requiring a mailed entry to be an entry fee as the envelope and stamp are costs the contestant is required to pay to enter.

We certainly understand that this can be frustrating, believe me. I have personally tried to enter a contest recently for a very nice gadget that was being offered by a major electronics retailer only to discover I was not eligible because I was from the US and the retailer was only offering the giveaway in Canada. They have stores in the US, but the offer was not available here (As an aside it was also not available to Canadians who happen to live in Quebec).


As for the in game prizes awarded by the lotteries, unless some government somewhere suddenly decides to pass a law, they're not going anywhere.