Has anyone read the editorial on the death of the import scene over at our friends at Eurogamer?  I found it very moving, especially as I was thinking about the very same thing recently.

Personally I only got into the import scene very late.  I had no disposable income of my own, or any pocket money to speak of, so I don't have any stories from the SNES/Saturn/N64 days.  I only got into it with the DS, (and to a lesser extend the GBA).  The early days of the DS was Japanese import heaven for me.  I made the most of my DS's and PSP's region free nature with websites like Liksang and playasia.

Things for me started to slowly die when Sony closed Liksang by filing law suits against them in something like 100 countries (for having the audacity to sell japanese psps to europe).  Then playasia stopped shipping sony games, and they got really expensive.  Also customs started to charge me on most all of my packages which was annoying.  So importing got more expensive and more difficult.  The nail on the coffin has probably been the region lock on the 3DS *shakes fist at Nintendo*

But there are a lot of positive reasons why the need to import is no longer as big.  Most companies are getting better at universal releases.  Europe is no longer the red headed stepchild of the gaming family.  We get most games here, and mostly at the same time.  And they are no longer botched with inferior graphics and refresh rates.  Most japanese games get released to the west.  We are getting games like Rhythm Heaven and all kinds of weird and wonderful space shooters released here (or in downloadable form) and we can purchase them for a fraction of the price it would cost to import, which I think is nothing short of amazing.  (I got Radiant Silvergun on XBLA for 1200 MSP, there are people who had to miss payments on their mortgage to get a Japanese Saturn and a disc of the game just to play it - and while I know that was then, this is now ... I still think it is absolutely fucking amazing and I was full of awe to get to play the game)

On the whole, I miss being part of the import scene, but the positive changes in the way games are released worldwide goes a great way towards making up for it.

phantom_leo said:

I'm playing The Witcher 2 at the moment, and I must say, I REALLY like Geralt as a character! It's also a game where I don't feel too bad being a little naughty! There's no one in the game so far who is Black and White, everyone's a little tainted, so I don't feel as guilty when I do somewhat questionable things!

**I just gave two Rogue doctors over to a Vengeful Wraith whom they tortured to death. They were then eaten by a group of dead patients...

...and I don't feel bad about it at all!**

I am really curious why Vader ---HATED--- this game as much as he did...

I will see you back here in a few days after some glitch and you will say you will never play the game again.

I've only imported probably less than 20 times. It was more for things that were quirky, like some of the Series 2000 games, or for things that were way cheaper and more readily available in Japan (like NEOGEO controllers, WonderSwans and the like).

What playing:

Beat Red Dead. Mrs Aspro is now playing it. We play completely opposite, as I;ve gone into before.  This is her first GTA-style game, it is a good introduction to the controls.

"Beat" 999. Got to one of the endings at least. Will see what replay "with memories" is like. If it's cool I'll try another series of rooms this time, if not, then I now at least know what it is.

Started DQ9.  I was putting this off until I beat 7 and 8, but seriously, that;s not going to happen until they make them hand-helds, so I am trying 9. So far so good, nice conventional JRPG so far.

Resumed Borderlands.  I am playing it solo. It's a pretty dull experience sans co-op. It feels like a game where the difficulty was balanced for co-op and now you are playing it yourself.  I really have to finish this this week though. The fact that I've beaten Gay Tony, Bioshock, RDR and 999 since I started Bordlerands should pretty much tell you my experience with it.

aspro said:

"Beat" 999. Got to one of the endings at least. Will see what replay "with memories" is like. If it's cool I'll try another series of rooms this time, if not, then I now at least know what it is.

"With Memories" means when you start the game again and you replay a scene you already have played, the choices you made previously will be greyed out so you can choose a different path...

...and you can advance the text.

I've only been playing TF2.

bugsonglass said:

Strictly speaking you import pretty much everything nowadays though don't you?

For us in Europe, getting US versions of things - which until recently were (and in some cases still are) superior, released way earlier, or had no EU equivalent  - was very much part of the import scene.  Though Japanese stuff was always more exotic.

LOL very true. I've never thought about it like that.  These days I try to get by buying non-region locked games (PS3, PSP, DS).  Though yeah, just this week I imported the US version of Mass Effect 3 for 360 and the new Growlanser PSP game from Hong Kong.

Reminds me of the time when the FBI were interviewing me about an associate (doing a background check) and they asked me if he had any associations with foreign nationals and I was like, "not to my knowlege" (when of course I was a foreign national).

Ravenprose said:

Heh, I got into import gaming with the Saturn too. I had Xmen vs. Street Fighter, Vampire Savior, King of Fighters '97, and Street Fighter Zero 3. Awesome games.

The last import games I bought was Ouendan  1&2.

Wish I could give you more than +1 for the Ouendans!!

HEY NOW! Slow down there buckaroos! Can we at least be excited for the beautiful, HD, Aksys fighter that is coming out in TWO DAYS before we get excited for the NEXT one?!