Do PC games have region coding? end stupid qeastion

[Wraithen]

Wow, this is my first ever new thread… I feel all goose pimply… or something. Just so you know, I did do a search for this, but was surprised to find nothing on the matter… anywhere. This leads me to believe that the answer is common knowledge and I’m about to be laughed off the site for ever.

However

This place has the best serious : flamer ratio on the internet so I thought I’d risk it:

If I imported games from America, would there be any problems playing them on my UK PC? I’m pretty sure most regular software is compatible but don’t know whether Games have region coding like their console equivalents. I also noticed that even though I set my DVD drive to region one for DVD’s, it still runs Far Cry quite happily… so tell me… if Half Life 2 gets released in the US first in spite of all the continuous release statements… can I import? (this would stand for any other great games too)

There, that wasn’t so hard. At least I didn’t have a reputation here to ruin.

 

[gh0st]

dont be so afraid of posting here, truly stupid posts are created every day by people who have been here for months.

afaik, there are regional coding for pc dvd's. this would follow a trend set by xbox, ps2, and dvd movies. it would just be my guess.

 

[Daegon]

No.

However all DVDs have region encoding. Except for the ones that don't. (see how I gracefully covered my butt there?)

 

[psyno]

More importantly, you won't need to buy any physical media at all to play HL2. You can just download it over Steam.

:cheers:

 

[Wraithen]

Sorry, but I'm staying away from steam until I get broadband, besides, I very much doubt they could squeeze my limited edition plush headcrab through steam no matter what my conection. And even if it wasn't the special edition... I wanna hold that box in my hand and sit through the installation so I know I've gotten something tangible for my money.

The question also stood for other cool releases... I won't say the D word in this place but them darn yanks get most of the fun toys first.

:sniper: "UK release schedules"

 

[Black-Falcon]

Okay I know this from first hand.
While I was on a trip in the UK I bought Vietcong. It works fine on my machine in America. The only thing is that you had to download the UK patches, but in the case of Steam though, it would be able to distinguish between the versions, so in short you'll be fine...