(Can't seem to edit my former post - always get a server error - so I'll do it here:)
Edit:
In regard to your
"similar restrictions of physical goods would never be accepted?"
Really? Then why were there regional pricing for physical games long before digital distributors existed?
I thought you meant regional restrictions, like the regio codes (on physical objects like DVD's, for instance). I note now that you seem to use 'regional pricing' as a substitute for regional-based restrictions. You DO realise that's not the same, right? REGIONAL PRICING (aka, making it cheaper elsewhere) is not against the law, nor do I have anything against it. It's the
restriction of *buying* it at that price (or cheaper) - even when someone is reselling it, and
the restriction of *using* that bought product (aka, the regional codes) that are the point of contestation.
The fact that a company wants to sell their games cheaper in a certain region; fine, no prob. No doubt that happened with other physical goods too, sure. What is NOT an accepted practise, however, are the restrictions on buying and using them by the companies that sell those very same goods publicly on the free market through the means of their terms of service, as one gets now with digital companies.
I just want to point out that I specifically said: "*
similar restrictions* of physical goods would never be accepted"
While you answer with:
"Really? Then why were there
regional pricing for physical games long before digital distributors existed?"
But regional pricing does not necessarily mean regional restrictions. You can price a good at regional prices, and yet allow others to buy it at the same price, and without restricting its use. In that case, you have a regional based price, without regional restrictions, so your reply isn't really relevant to what I said. Because even if there were regionally priced physical games (like boardgames?), I doubt any of them were not allowed to be bought by rich Westerners, nor that they had a term of service you could only play that boardgame in India, and not anywhere else.
Feel free to provide some legally-binding examples where normal physical games were publicly and commercially sold on the free market in a country, yet forbidden to be bought by non-locals at that same price, which was solely due to the terms of service of a company (and not done by the state or by the goal of charity), before the advent of the digital media.
