Let’s cut the crap – chances are that if you live in Australia and wanted to play Star Wars: The Old Republic, you probably just bought it from Amazon or something and used an overseas server. Well, instead of losing even more sales to online vendors, EB Games has decided they’re also going to cut the crap and have started selling imported copies in store.
Alright, so that’s not the reason they’re giving, but one can assume it was at least a motivator. “As no official release date has been announced for Star Wars: The Old Republic in Australia, EB Games has seen it in the best interest of our customers to make available imported copies of the game from today to avoid further disappointment felt by the game’s avid Australian fan base.” An EB Games spokesperson told Kotaku AU – which is also a fair enough call as, yeah, we have been shafted.
“Should customers require assistance with any issues, there are a variety of ways to reach customer service overseas without the need to incur any cost including blogs, forums and email via Bioware’s world-class online support centre,” said the spokesperson.
So what can you do if something does go awry, like if your key hasn’t been added to the database yet and you can’t just get one through Origin because it’s region locked? “The Retailer has an obligation to fix the problem, and consumers only have to deal with the retailer as far as this is concerned,” Said a NSW Fair Trading rep. “The retailer must offer a refund or an exchange and consumers don’t have to accept the exchange.”
This is really good news for those Australians who can’t download the client in full due to a downloadable data cap, with caps of more than 70 or so gig a month winding up pretty costly depending on the provider and the plan.
Star Wars: The Old Republic has been given a March window for release in Australia and New Zealand, but no official date as of yet.
