LOTRO for all??!!

[Mians]

I love LOTRO, to be able to be in the world I love so much is amazing... Turbine did a good job with Middle earth, but since the migration from Europe it went down... the lag is terrible... especially in the moors.. and the latest... Yay a competition!!! then read the rules.. only US can submit???!!! for real??? you exlude all other countries again.. what if Europe and other countries stoped paying for LOTRO... then it is all up to USA to keep Tolkiens world going... The world of Tolkien belong to the whole world, not just US... sorry to say but as a EU player we got so much more support ingame, with events and competitions when we was at CM.. do you want to loose your players? or gain more? give equal to those outside US

[Gardhik]

It's not that Turbine don't want to have the all world to participate.... but there are several strong laws in each country which prevents Turbine to do a world contest. It's especially true in France for example

[Mians]

then bring servers back to EU as they where... it is unfair to do a competition for just one part of the players and not the rest

[Yula_the_Mighty]

then bring servers back to EU as they where... it is unfair to do a competition for just one part of the players and not the rest

It would take more than moving the servers back to somewhere in Europe. Turbine would have to license the game to a European operating company.Transfer the former EU servers to the new European operating company. That would mean you would lose access your NA characters and servers. I do not see Turbine going that route. Most the local operators (China, Europe, Japan and Korea) have been shut down by Turbine. Only Russia with its one server is left.

I suppose Turbine could run a European only contest. I suspect it would be expensive due to the need to hire folks that are familiar with EU law to set up the contest. Write the documentation. Pay the fees. Translate the rules into the required languages.

[Khafar]

I suppose Turbine could run a European only contest....

...which would probably cost at least several times as much as a U.S. contest to operate - contest law is still on a country-by-country basis.

OP: it's pretty much a matter of financial feasibility. Creating a contest which complies with the laws for all the countries where people play LOTRO is prohibitively expensive, and sometimes those laws are in direct contradiction with each other from one country to another. If it makes you feel any better, the state of Rhode Island in the United States is routinely excluded from contests by U.S. companies. Why? Because their laws are too costly and painful to abide by.

Khafar

[Harbut]

besides the yanks would stop winning everything *grins*

Its a bugger of a deal and we've been having the same argument for years but end of the day theres not alot that can be done so we just have to suck it up

[Iktomi]

It's not that Turbine don't want to have the all world to participate.... but there are several strong laws in each country which prevents Turbine to do a world contest. It's especially true in France for example

It's not just other countries. Even here in the USA, companies have to deal with 50 different state laws, so they use the out of "void where prohibited". Which usually means that even if they don't specify it, usually the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations can't be apart of the the contests either if the total value of all the prizes together are greater than $500 dollars, because of the rules companies have to follow to make the contest legal there are just not worth the effort due to the low population.

Just a bit of extra useless but vaguely relevant trivia there.

[Loreineth]

give equal to those outside US

Talk to your lawmakers. It's your own countries' and/or other countries' laws and the blanket EU laws that make it unfeasible for Turbine. Good luck.

[Nymphonic]

besides the yanks would stop winning everything *grins*

I love inter-culture humor. Being married to someone from another country, I get it all the time.

[Navhar]

This is hilarious.... Why then every other MMO is not having any problem with worldwide contests? Even free to play ones? Where do they get all the "money" you say it's needed to pay international lawyers?

[Lilka]

This is hilarious.... Why then every other MMO is not having any problem with worldwide contests? Even free to play ones? Where do they get all the "money" you say it's needed to pay international lawyers?

Go on then, what MMOs and what prizes? In-game digital prizes (which are for all LOTRO players) or real-life ones? Of what value?

[Kerin_Eldar]

It's your own countries' and/or other countries' laws and the blanket EU laws that make it unfeasible for Turbine.

Actually, no, there are no 'EU laws' that pertain to things like this .. as evidenced by how Trion, Blizzard, Square Enix, etc. who have the will DO create competitions for most EU countries which don't have asinine 'gambling' laws.

Turbine not doing it is simply lack of will, clearly others DO have the will.

[Edrogar]

Actually, no, there are no 'EU laws' that pertain to things like this .. as evidenced by how Trion, Blizzard, Square Enix, etc. who have the will DO create competitions for most EU countries which don't have asinine 'gambling' laws.

Turbine not doing it is simply lack of will, clearly others DO have the will.

OK so the Gaming license which was issued under the UK gambling act 2005, that i used have to have when i was running my business in the UK didn't exist, good to know

Believe me, what you are being told about various laws in europe prohibiting competition worldwide is absolutely true, even the Euro-Millions lottery was on the verge of being cancelled before it started because of the prohibitive laws, fortunately they were able to work around them and pay the costs (that is why the euromillions tickets were double the price of the normal lottery). It's exactly the same with mmo competitions and so far has been exactly the same in every game i have played.

To start with you state blizzard as doing worldwide competitions.. i happen to know for a fact they don't, Blizzards online games are all separated into EU and US servers, these servers are owned and operated by different offices of Blizzard registered and based in different locations, effectively two separate companies owned by the one parent company, when they run competitions the EU office will run an EU competition and the US office will also run a separate US competition, this looks to the customer like its one competition run by one company, but it's legally two companies running similar competitions in different parts of the world, and thus they can do it.

This however costs a lot of money to do as you have to have two registered offices in separate countries, a cost that blizzard is already footing because it is hosting the EU and US separately already. Turbine would not be able to do this, the only way they could is if they had a hosting company running the EU side like they did with code-masters, unfortunately at this point that would not be a financially sound choice either.

[MessyR]

So just stop the US competitons and alls fair?

[cossieuk]

Warner Bros have offices all over the world and run competitions all over the world, why cant Turbine just use them sice they are all one big happy company

[Kerin_Eldar]

OK so the Gaming license which was issued under the UK gambling act 2005, that i used have to have when i was running my business in the UK didn't exist, good to know

What relevance has that to anything I said about EU-wide laws which were being asserted to exist that prevents Turbine running competitions in the EU?

You go on to cite the Lottery, proving my point quite clearly, there ARE ways to implement EU-wide (with a few restrictions) competitions GIVEN THE WILL.

And you're wrong about hosting. Square Enix servers are ALL IN JAPAN, yet they have competitions for NA and EU players as well as their indigenous Japanese players.

Q.E.D.

[Acasta]

Mmm...

It occurs to me that instead of "investing" the money in odd contests, it would be better spent fixing game bugs.

Sue

[Edrogar]

What relevance has that to anything I said about EU-wide laws which were being asserted to exist that prevents Turbine running competitions in the EU?

The Uk's gambling act was amended in 2005 to include EU legislation, legislation tha is EU wide.

You go on to cite the Lottery, proving my point quite clearly, there ARE ways to implement EU-wide (with a few restrictions) competitions GIVEN THE WILL.

No, not given the will, GIVEN THE MONEY, Camelot doubled the price of the lottery to cover the cost, i hardly think Turbine would double the prices in LOTRO to cover it.

And you're wrong about hosting. Square Enix servers are ALL IN JAPAN, yet they have competitions for NA and EU players as well as their indigenous Japanese players.

All the servers may be in the same place, but Square Enix have main offices in Japan, Europe, US and China and thus have all the lawyers and infra-structure in place to deal with the various laws, Turbine doesn't because they have always relied in the past on subcontracting the hosting of games outside the US.

Europe
2nd Floor, Castle House, 37-45 Paul Street,
London EC2A 4LS, U. K.
Japan
Shinjuku Bunka Quint Bldg. 3-22-7 Yoyogi,
Shibuya-ku,Tokyo 151-8544, Japan
North America
999 N. Sepulveda Boulevard,
3rd Floor, El Segundo, CA 90245, U. S. A.
China
Room716, Golder Plaza, No.10 Huayuandonglu,
Haidian District, Beijing, CHINA 100083

[Edrogar]

Warner Bros have offices all over the world and run competitions all over the world, why cant Turbine just use them sice they are all one big happy company

WB may be the parent company, but because of the way that a lot of international laws work Turbine is treated as an individual company and thus would have to operate completely out of its own offices or sub-contract, all of which would cost them money. I suppose they could sub-contract WB's offices, but i'm sure there's a whole load of legal &&&& involved there too.

[0Pinger]

Any competition that is open to one German by German gaming law in the EU has to be open to All Germans no matter if they play the game or not. So the whole German population can enter a competition if a single German can enter it.

That is why cockupmasters took so long to get the euro Collecters lifer competition completed. It was suppose to be only 5000 entrants, but because of German gaming laws that wasn't possible as the CE was sold in Germany.

That is why

[Edrogar]

Any competition that is open to one German by German gaming law in the EU has to be open to All Germans no matter if they play the game or not. So the whole German population can enter a competition if a single German can enter it.

That is why cockupmasters took so long to get the euro Collecters lifer competition completed. It was suppose to be only 5000 entrants, but because of German gaming laws that wasn't possible as the CE was sold in Germany.

That is why

Yup, that's one of the annoying ones and i think one that is applicable to a lot of europe, i know it is in the UK too, check any cereal box or crisp packet competition in the UK and quite a bit of the EU, they always have a number or address to contact so you can enter the competition without having to purchase the product.

[Khafar]

For those interested in some of the issues involved, these three blog posts might help... here, here, and here.

The bottom line is that "financial feasibility" is always going to determine the boundaries of a contest like this, and that's going to vary by the type of rewards and by their budget for running the contest. I mean, if it'll cost you $1K to run a contest with a $100 reward in the United States (where half your customers live) and $50K to run the same contest world-wide... you're probably going to run it in the United States. "Fairness" isn't worth 50X the cost.

What are the real numbers? I have no idea. But you can bet Turbine does. If it were easy and cheap to run world-wide contests, they'd do so.

Khafar

[Sapience]

Any competition that is open to one German by German gaming law in the EU has to be open to All Germans no matter if they play the game or not. So the whole German population can enter a competition if a single German can enter it.

That is why cockupmasters took so long to get the euro Collecters lifer competition completed. It was suppose to be only 5000 entrants, but because of German gaming laws that wasn't possible as the CE was sold in Germany.

That is why

This is one good example. Another is the fact that certain countries actually require that winners come from that country (which makes any contest almost universally illegal in all other countries).

This question comes up every time we do contests that we have to limit. It's not unique to Turbine, or even US companies. I've been locked out of contests in the UK, Canada, Germany, Italy, and Japan all because.. I live in the USA. And these are companies that have world wide presence (one was a major US retailer in fact, but the contest was Canada only).