Region should be country of Distribution, not country of Manufacturing

[user7]

I was discussing with Jackal a point of what region should be assigned to entries.

I believe country of manufacturing is a bad way to assign region, example:
https://www.ebay.es/itm/274285642923
"Assembled in Germany" manufactured in Germany, yet Distributed only in Spain. Should this be Germany or Spain? I would think the answer is simple - Spain.

There are countless other examples of games being manufactured in one location, but distributed specifically in others, and they are correctly given the Distribution region.

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An example of contention:
https://redump.info/disc/72412/
This is a USA-exclusive packaging, it was never released in Europe this way - period. Since the disc is region free it likely matches content with the other regional packages. So it would make sense to me mark region as USA (or even possibly World if we want to get ahead of ourselves assume all regions match).

However it's marked as Europe? Why? Because it was manufactured there? If manufacturing was the deciding factor of region, we should mark all PS2 discs as "Austria" region, as that's where they're made. "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire: Irish Edition" region? It should be Austria of course (according to this bad logic).

I rest my case. Jackal asked me to post this for your feedback - what is the rule for regions, where they're made or where they're distributed?

[Jackal]

So the barcode is Dutch, the disc was made in Germany.

For normal (licensed) console titles, the region is easy to determine.

For unlicensed discs and some PC discs, determining the region can be a challenge.

Is this a European release exported to the US, albeit with different packaging?

If it's a US release, then why is the barcode European?

My solution would be to leave region (Europe) and comment as is.

[wiggy2k]

yeah, Ignore that bad logic, if you go my manufactured region then all discs mastered by nimbus should be assigned to Wales.



** EDIT **
ah, but speaking of Unlicensed discs, quite often they come in a choice of packaging styles (speaking specifically of the Dreamcast stuff)
you can order some of them in EU/USA/Japan packaging but they will all be manufactured in the same place, so i guess the home region would take precendent then or as User7 says, 'world'

a very recent example is Xeno Crysis from BitMap Beureau
https://shop.bitmapbureau.com/collectio … &pid=1

you can order with any of the 3 region styling but they will be all manfactured in the same place and i guess the discs are the same contents (until proven otherwise).

[user7]

>you can order some of them in EU/USA/Japan packaging but they will all be manufactured in the same place, so i guess the home region would take precendent then or as User7 says, 'world'

I really don't understand how this differs from say PC pressed games that might be sent around the world or to different, specific countries.

>So the barcode is Dutch
Same with many Action Replays. Same barcode worldwide, different executeables.

>, the disc was made in Germany.
All PS2 made in Austria, unless you agree all PS2 should be marked as Austrian region, this argument is inconsistent.

>Is this a European release exported to the US, albeit with different packaging?
This package was ONLY sold in USA. So no, it wasn't a "European release" since it was never released in Europe.

[sadikyo]

In my opinion, Region [as it relates to game releases] should be distribution, not where it was manufactured, assembled, etc. 

If a game was ONLY sold in a certain region, and we have proof of that, then that country is where the region should be.  If it is sold in multiple regions (without packaging variance), that is another story.

I don't know the details about this particular example, nor am I an expert in unlicensed, but if it truly was only distributed in the USA, then it should be USA Region and not Europe.

[wiggy2k]

I really don't understand how this differs from say PC pressed games that might be sent around the world or to different, specific countries.

Good point, I agree.

there was a couple of my own dumps that I didnt understand the region of when added, namely
https://redump.info/disc/64771/
and
https://redump.info/disc/69152/

One was bought from a US seller and the other  a Japanese auction.
but i guess if they were manufactured in france for worldwide distribution then that was the region assigned to the disc.

[user7]

Ditto with some E3 (a USA event) marked as Europe:
https://redump.info/disc/58185/
https://redump.info/disc/58184/
https://redump.info/disc/70199/
https://redump.info/disc/57767/

[Jackal]

>So the barcode is Dutch
Same with many Action Replays. Same barcode worldwide, different executeables.

>, the disc was made in Germany.
All PS2 made in Austria, unless you agree all PS2 should be marked as Austrian region, this argument is inconsistent.

I meant to say that the combination of a European barcode and European disc should mean that the dump gets Europe region.

Ditto with some E3 (a USA event) marked as Europe:
https://redump.info/disc/58185/
https://redump.info/disc/58184/
https://redump.info/disc/70199/
https://redump.info/disc/57767/

Fixed, but they were all submitted that way by you.

yeah, Ignore that bad logic, if you go my manufactured region then all discs mastered by nimbus should be assigned to Wales.

Nimbus isn't exclusive to Europe. USA discs with IFPI L125 are from a facility in Charlottesville USA. I don't remember any European manufactured Nimbus discs with non-Europe region?

So we have a couple different cases:

- PAL or NTSC-US console discs manufactured in for example Japan, in the case of Nintendo games.
- Datel unlicensed stuff released with the same barcode worldwide and all manufactured in Europe. However, the USA releases have USA specific information on the box and the mastering ringcode contains USA or NTSC and the discs are region locked.
- USA manufactured IBM PC stuff released in other regions, for example some Asia/Pacific EA releases, and some early Activision games (MechWarrior 2, Pitfall Europe). The barcode and box/covers indicate the correct region.
- Web order (Unlicensed, Kickstarter etc.) stuff where the same disc is sold from a central place and distributed worldwide.

With these exceptions in mind, I think this would be the correct way to determine a region?
Was a disc manufactured for release/distribution in a specific region (excl. World, so Europe / USA / Asia, etc.)? If so, then that region should be assigned, if not then the region of origin should be assigned.

And this is basically the rule that we've been applying so far?

By this logic, a game would only get (World) region if there's different discs from different regions with matching dumps, like we have with Xbox (360) and some other systems.

You can't go assigning (World) regions to these Web order discs just because they are distributed worldwide. They are still products of a particular region/country of origin. The ringcode and barcode clearly indicate a specific region.

But the reason why this topic was created is yet another different case, where we have a web order game with European ringcode and barcode that is sold with different artworks, supposedly for different regions. However, if I ordered the game from the US, I would still get to choose the artwork? And anyone from anywhere could order any artwork variation? So I fail to see why it should get (USA) region then.

[user7]

>However, if I ordered the game from the US, I would still get to choose the artwork?
No, the USA packaging variant had been distributed to USA-based webshops. I would have to import from a European seller if I wanted the European packaging.

>And anyone from anywhere could order any artwork variation? So I fail to see why it should get (USA) region then.
You would have to import it. So the second sentence is an incorrect premise.

[Jackal]

>However, if I ordered the game from the US, I would still get to choose the artwork?
No, the USA packaging variant had been distributed to USA-based webshops. I would have to import from a European seller if I wanted the European packaging.

>And anyone from anywhere could order any artwork variation? So I fail to see why it should get (USA) region then.
You would have to import it. So the second sentence is an incorrect premise.

If this is really the case here then I guess USA region makes sense. Updated the region and comments for that dump.

If there are any other dumps left that are worth discussing, post them here.