I ordered Skyrim through Amazon in the US. Why? Because Im from the US originally but I live in Japan and they do not sell the English version of the game.

Unfortunately, my copy of the game is now made moot/worthless and not only did I waste the cost of the game but shipping too. Why? Because you are delaying the JAPANESE version of the game for a December 8th release. (Very dirty as well as its the ONLY country with this restriction). Attempting to register my ENGLISH version (which isnt being sold in Japan naturally) from the States gets a message of "The game is not yet released."

So while my friends and family rave and enjoy the game I've lost all enthusiasm for playing it. You've done me (and those Japanese folks who want to play when the rest of the world plays) wrong.

Dont say its a the Japan side's reasoning. I've already been made very clearly aware by the Japanese Bethesda customer service that its a US based issue.

4 Weeks I have to wait after having paid all that money and excitingly looking forward to the game coming. And only because my IP is from Japan. No other reason.

Its a challenge enough living overseas away from home and feeling second class because Im a foreigner here. Yet, it seems Im treated just the same by companies such as yours in the same manner.

Thank you for making me feel so disregarded.

Don't live in Japan then

Yeah Skyrim is released to South-East Asia 1 day after 11/11/11 while the aussies get theirs on their midnight. That alone was enough to make me upset, so I really feel for people in Japan who have to wait for more than an entire month.

It sounds like you should be able to play since you have the released American version of the game. Use a US based proxy so that your IP address appears to be in the US and it should work. I do it with Japanese proxies from the US to play online games like TERA

Since its tied to one's steam account that's grounds to get the steam account banned.

Besides, why should I have to stoop to their level of dirtiness?

You should contact Steam support. Normally they are pretty helpful about such things.

Steam doesnt make these restrictions. Bethesda did, unfortunately.

WTF are you talking about? Ever hear of Sofmap (ソフマップ)? How about PC.CHAOS (ピーシーカオス) ～?

There ARE PLENTY retail stores in Japan that sell un-translated version of Skyrim, or any US/Europe games.

Do I need to teach you how to google? Next time do some research before you complain.

ps. unless you care, I live in Japan too and got my copy from Akihabara.

Yeah, for a Japanese version. Since he got his US version, it should be no problem.

Should be and actuality are two different things unfortunately. Bethesda told steam to block all Japan IP addresses from access until december 8th.... not all Japanese language versions of the game. Either way its just wrong.

Hahaha owned

Nope sorry dont care. Not all of us live in(nor frankly want to) Tokyo.

Your cute offers to "teach how to google" aside, since Im not fluent enough in Japanese to read enough to use such sites and coupled with the fact that I dont live any where near any major place that has such retail stores that have enough folks that would desire English versions, I didnt know. But Im glad I didnt. And here's why:


So, just out of curiosity I looked at the price for the game from one of the sites you listed above(with help mind you from someone else just now):

7,180 yen for it. Hmm...

With shipping included from Amazon.com, I got it after converting from dollars to yen at around 5,865 yen. (My total was $76.02 with shipping included).

I hope you got yourself a better deal in Akihabara with yours that those "teaching" ones you were trying to show. Otherwise I think you got 2 reasons now to be unhappy.

But all of this is not relevant to the main issue that I was trying to discuss.

The issue is not with an "untranslated version" the issue is with DRM's access of the game being blocked by Steam until the 8th of December... for the Japanese language version release. Only Japan has this 4 weeks after "World Wide Release" hypocrisy.

Again, the point is that we in Japan(yourself included unless you cracked it) cannot access the game until December 8th because they are restricting the release in wait for the Japanese version. It is just simply wrong that its being done. Or are you trying to dispute that point?

Use a VPN to authenticate and then download, with or without a VPN. You aren't going to get in trouble for it, they can't tell you've used a VPN unless you're suddenly connecting from all over the world within short periods of time (and even then I don't think they do anything about it unless it's a recurring thing - I know lots of people who've never had an issue, and only one person who eventually had their account locked after their relatives were all sharing the account from all over the place - and they got their account unlocked again just by asking and saying that they used it while traveling or something). So authenticate and download with a VPN and then play in offline mode. Or authenticate with a VPN, and then wait a week to download it. You were obviously in the USA when you authenticated it, and traveled to Japan afterwards. Bethesda's restrictions svck, but in the end they're not an obstacle unless you let them be.

Would svck if the rest of Asia was this biased.

Problem is as stated in my first post that the discovery of the issue was upon applying the key. Its already attached and blocked on my steam account until the 8th. At this point I have only 3 options: taking it bent over by Bethesda, Bethesda in their graciousness and kindness unblocks this restriction, or obtaining another copy that gives me the opportunity to circumvent their dirtiness. I havent decided(of the 2 I have control over) which choice to make.

Getting my copy in Japan this week. Will probably have the same problem so this looks helpful. Couple of questions:

1) what is a VPN? How and where do I get it and use it to authenticate?
2) Does the Tech issues FAQ (http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1258133-installing-from-disc-instead-of-steam/) on how to avoid Steam authentication work in Japan? Or at all?

Ouch, you're going to pay the equivalent of 92 dollars for the game (in general) if bought in Japan.

VPN (from what Ive read on) essentially lets you look like you are accessing the internet via an IP that isnt your own and as well typically has other encryption(privacy) features. Cant tell you what ones to use but I think there's plenty of options you can find from a search. Someone on the steam forums said they circumvented via this method for other games but Ive not seen anyone stating such for Skyrim directly, though I haven checked thoroughly.

Seemingly the tech faq does not avoid this if this is the one you're referring to: http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1258133-installing-from-disc-instead-of-steam/

1. Game has to be authenticated on Steam. This will activate the block.
2. Game must have steam loaded to play. But..
3. Can be played in steam's offline mode.

Yeah the price svcks but I get paid in yen so as a chunk out of my salary it's not much more than I just spent on a new pair of cargo pants. It'll last longer too.

Are there free VPNs out there?

I don't see why they should have to wait a month :/

Just read this on the Steam forums and it might be of interest to those who purchased Skyrim via steam in Japan or who have gotten a retail copy otherwise from a retailer in Japan(tagle above seemingly for example):

----------------------------------------

This information might be a bit too late to come out for some people out there, but here goes anyway;

Accouding to Zenimax Asia General Manager twitter(http://twitter.com/#!/Tetsu_BethJPN),
Skyrim purchased from within Japan (IP-address wise) will be restricted to Japanese language only, and does NOT include other languages;
If you wish to play in English or any other languages, you have to import a retail copy from your desired region.

You can check which version you have by clicking "'s account" located on top right of Steam client.
If it says Skyrim(JP), then you have Japanese version and I guess it will update itself to Japanese version once the game officially goes out at Dec 8.

As long as you can understand Japanese, this won't affect you... well, aside from possible delay of release in patch and DLCs.
However, if you can't understand Japanese, this'll gonna bite you badly.

It's quite maddening to add that this announcement was twittered days after 11.11.11, by that time many people, including me, already pre-purchased the game and made irreversible mistake...
I do hope they'll reconsider what they're up to, because it's plain clear that this is one hell of bad marketing policy.

-----------------------------------------

This comes as no shock to me after the crap I dealt with with the JP Bethesda folks as I cited before and as well from this whole 4 weeks deal. Just seems you scraqe off one layer of dirt to find another one.

But it has to activate from Japanese based servers based off location. It doesn't matter what language version you have.

The whole thing on the locking (and now the new issue of the Japanese language only for steam and retail purchases from Japan) is 100% a Bethesda decision. Steam just facilitates Bethesda's wishes. I've a Steam support email confirming that the IP restrictions come directly from Bethesda and is something out of their hands. Japan Bethesda said the restrictions as well come from US Bethesda and is out of their hands. Thus the accountability rests squarely with Bethesda HQ on this.

That's messed up why does japan get it later?

Who's the actual idiot who said "Don't live in Japan then?".

Seriously, I've seen higher intelligence in a log. It does svck though

You're being extremely melodramatic. Calm down and stop throwing a pity party.

The most likely scenario is that Japanese localization took them longer than expected (Japanese is not an easy language to translate tens of thousands of lines of dialogue into) and instead of rushing it out in Japan with a shoddy localization they decided to delay the Japan release so that they were able to launch a quality product in that region.

Todd Howard isn't out to specifically make you feel like a second class citizen. You aren't the center of the universe. Living in Japan, you should be aware of the fact that most people living in Japan speak Japanese as a primary language and purchase software in, you guessed it, the Japanese language. Do you want Bethesda to rush out a badly-translated version of Skyrim just for you, the 0.5% minority living in Japan that doesn't want a product that's been translated into Japanese?

Besides, living in Japan you get access to HUNDREDS of amazing games that never get released AT ALL in the west, and you're griping about Bethesda taking an extra month to do Skyrim right in Japan? I guess by that logic, I'm entitled to sending Capcom hate-mail for denying me 3 Monster Hunter releases in a row just because I'm an American. You got a one month wait for an American game, some of us will never get to play the Japanese games we wish we could. Even when Japanese games come out here, we tend to get them several months or even years later than Japan does - MH3 had a ONE YEAR localization period. I think you made out much better than the rest of the world did here.

If the biggest complaint you have about gaming is that you have to wait 1 month for a foreign release you should be ecstatic. I've waited 18 months for Xenoblade and it still isn't here. Where are Monolith Soft's forums so I can go complain? Oh wait, they don't even provide me with those. Somehow Bethesda is the villain here though, to you... seems like a very entitled position if you ask me.