There's black hole here too, you know?

by Diego "Quicksand Of Shadows" Ferreira

I'm always hearing that PAL gamers live in black hole, because there's never enough games being released. They don't know the luck they have. Well, let me tell you something, how about living in place where there's never a new game being released at all? Ok, maybe I'm exaggerating, but that's not too far from the truth and I will tell why.

Here in Brazil, we have quite a substantial gaming scene. But officially we only have Nintendo releasing their games and products here, but they're not much. Don't expect to see here Skies Of Arcadia, or other high profile game, although Mario is a high profile game and it's the only one we got here. The rest are games either we never have heard or that don't deserve much attention. Oh, we also have officially the Dreamcast here, but, since it's a dead system... I'm not counting it. We're getting the leftovers from other countries.

For people to buy games they have to rely on importing them, at much higher prices, and our currency is worth at an average of 3 times less than the dollar. Imagine how much we have to spend to buy games. So, the majority of the gamers turn on to piracy, and that's a shame. Sony once thought they could bring their PSOne and afterwards the PS 2, but the main reason they pointed out for not bringing their systems here, is obviously, the piracy. Actually, the most pirated system is the PlayStation. They're practically everywhere. Unofficially.

I realize that here is not the only country that has piracy issues, and for the record, I do not support piracy by any means, and I only have official products. But, here is the main problem to not getting any new games. I know that this site is named RPGamer, and we're all supposed to talk about RPGs, but since there was recently a debate on piracy, I thought I should give my two cents.

Maybe I will sound pessimistic, but I doubt that Sony will ever bring here their gaming systems. It's sad, but if by any chance they decide they should bring them here, I believe it'll be nearly impossible to convince people to buying the now official product instead of the pirated one. As usual the main issue is pricing, even though bringing them here would drop prices, still, obviously, the unofficial will always be much cheaper. And here money is always an issue, since, well, Brazil is known for the worst income distribution, but that's another problem.

Oh, for the record, even though I didn't talk about RPGs, that's my favorite gaming genre. So if you have any doubts, want to know more about here. Hit me at