SEGA Bans International Players From Phantasy Star Online 2

Terms and conditions changed overnight.

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SEGA Bans International Players From Phantasy Star Online 2
Been enjoying the Japanese version of Phantasy Star Online 2? Well, now you can't - reports are coming in that international players have been blocked from accessing SEGA's flagship MMO, a change that seemingly happened overnight.

The company updated its terms of usage for the free-to-play PC title, completely knackering any chance of eager fans outside Japan to get an advance playtest ahead of its 2013 Western release. "Connecting to the game server through the installed software is restricted to domestically located computer terminals.

"It's prohibited to directly connect to the server from outside Japan as well as to route a connection from outside the country through domestic computer terminals." Well, balls. It's unclear why SEGA decided to action this. Perhaps it wants all international eyes on the official Western launch next year.

Phantasy Star Online 2 was hacked last month, with the culprits moving non-playable characters around the game world at will. It's alleged that the people behind the prank were players from outside Japan - so the T&C change could have something to do with this, equally.

Source: Kotaku
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Comments

Ergo 8 Aug 2012 14:53
1/2
Nice. Cribbing headlines from Kotaku now? (Not literally, but in spirit.)

Since I just logged on 1.5 minutes ago, *nobody* is banned. This is exactly what was in the TOS for PSOBB and PSU on the Japanese servers.It's called SEGA covering their ass for a host of reasons.

Christ you guys know/are better than this...right?
intellisquid 8 Aug 2012 15:48
2/2
@Ergo
Glad I caught your post. I didn't know that this kind of announcement had shown up in prior PS games; that's kind of a comfort. You mind if I ask why they need to do this, if they don't plan on enforcing it en masse? I'm honestly curious about that, and have basically zero prior experience with Japanese MMO's. I'm just really hoping they don't plan on going through with the bans.
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