I dont understand what you mean by that, is it possible to clarify it please, I dont use Steam, but I'm very curious.

In Japan Steam has some very nasty region restriction lock, even if somebody from US or Europe gift you the game you might be unable to play it with a Japanese IP before it's unlocked there (which might be several weeks or months after release, if ever).

Ah, thanks for the clarification, I would have thought that was a Steam problem, not an Amalur problem though.

Thanks again.

Even if Steam's DRM make the region lock possible, the usage or not of said region lock is ultimately the decision or the publisher, and apparently some are more lenient than others.

Basically, the publisher asked Valve to place an IP block on Reckoning. Regardless of the country of purchase, it cannot be played from Japanese IP addresses. 38 Studios claim EA is the publisher and thus put the IP block on. Yet there is NO IP block on non-Steam versions -- the version published by EA.

38 Studios, according to Valve and EA, self published on Steam and are thus the publishers responsible for the only IP block on the game.

They have thus, taken people's money and left with a product that isn't usable. There are no warnings on the Steam store as the publisher generally has to add those. As such 38 Studios gave done nothing to resolve the issue or to prevent it happening to others.

It's a publisher problem. At least in the past publishers have owned up to placing IP blocks and have explained why and even worked to get them removed more quickly (2K for example, have been fairly good at this). But here, we have a publisher trying to blame an unrelated party and pretty much acting like douchebags,

Cool, thanks for the clarifications guys :)

oh they can but: and from article it seems that the IP is worth less than what the company owns to everyone else therefore they get zilch.
and RI would also sell all the assets anyway. from chairs to IPs and somebody would certainly buy it.

There's really a problem when selling half-a-million units is enough to kill a studio. No one should plan on a 1,000,000+ hit, ever, unless it's CoD or something.

I rented Kingdoms of Amalur and it made me realize, this game is what Bioware tried to make
Dragon Age 2 like and failed so bioware please make dragon age 3 exactly like dragon age origins and then some because don't make DA3 an hack n slash action RPG because we got Diablo 3 Torchlight 2 and Amalur to enjoy

Probably Schilling's fault. He most likely looked at WoW numbers then thought he could make an MMO that sold like that. Then he was told to start smaller and, looking at Skyrim numbers (or perhaps CoD if he was REALLY clueless), decided they'd do an RPG first. He probably didn't take a look at the amount of RPGs that fail each year, some of them pretty good titles in established franchises. Spending $100M on a new IP for a new studio is really a huge risk even if you have R. A. Salvatore crafting the IP for you.

I think they made a profit on KoA: Reckoning, but they've already invested a lot of money and gotten big debts developing a MMO for 6 years.
That's what put them in the red, not Reckoning.

I thought KoA:R was fun, but nothing really special, and I've heard 38 Studios weren't even the ones to develop it. They bought a studio that had made most of the game, but was struggling, then fitted it into Amalur.
In other words, 38 Studio is a company that has yet to produce a game, but that's spent 6 years and dozens of millions of dollars on a MMO, probably thinking they can be the ones to overthrow King WoW.

Nothing to mourn the loss of, really.

Did R.A. Salvatore write for Kingdoms of Amalur? I didn't know that. Cool if it's true.

He wrote the game bible sure but it's more related to the MMO that was orignally intended than reckoning... it's a shame we'll likely never see the MMO now

There is a very deep lore in the game, imparted through stones quests and texts, I imagine that was his main input.

Then again Salvatore could get permission to write books set on Amalur. I would definitely read that.