Megarom, distributor of Blizzard titles in South Africa, has informed MyGaming that the physical retail release of Diablo III is now an uncertain prospect.
This is due to intervention by the Film and Publication Board of South Africa, the statutory body responsible for regulating games and other media for release in the South African consumer market.
The FPB is consulting with the Department of Communication (DoC) regarding the real-money online auction system featured in Diablo III, which the FPB believes may be in contravention of Chapter VII of the Electronic Communications and Transactions (ECT) Act 25 of 2002. This section of the act deals with consumer protection for electronic transactions.
“The FPB will be assessing the compliance of the product [Diablo III] in terms of chapter VII of the [ECT] act,” the FPB said in a press statement. “Until we are certain that the real-money trading system in the product is compliant, we cannot rate and approve it for release in South Africa.”
We contacted the FPB for comment on whether this process is likely to be completed before Diablo III’s May 15 launch date, but received no response by the time of publication.
It is unclear how this will affect copies of the game bought digitally.
More information on the FPB regulatory process and contact details can be found here.
Loading ...
Don’t feel bad if you got fooled – I was the guinea pig and he got me good 😛