Gaming problems South Africans face

Compared to what it was like before, we’ve got it pretty good here in sunny South Africa.

Games arrive on time; the best collector’s editions and biggest sales reach our shores; and we’ve even started to make waves in the games development scene with the likes of Broforce, Stasis and Desktop Dungeon, among others.

But it goes without saying that we still get the short end of the stick when it comes to gaming as well as industry trends?

But perhaps the biggest collection of issues we face are all related to South Africa’s weak Rand, terrible internet infrastructure and general lack of investment in a number of key areas..

For South Africans, the struggle is real; here are some of the times where we lost the battle against the big, wide world.

PlayStation Plus price hike

A good portion of the PlayStation 4 experience is online play. Call of Duty: Black Ops III, Star Wars Battlefront as well as virtually every other recently released PS4 title relies on some sort of an internet connection.

There is one issue, however; you need a PlayStation Plus subscription in order to do this. This would be fine if it was not for the price hike that the service received late last, almost doubling the price of the subscription at every tier.

You now pay well over R700 for a 365-day subscription, and close to R100-a-month for a month-to-month plan.

Xbox owners, fortunately, have avoided price hikes for now, but the Rand is at a new low and I can’t imagine Xbox Live Gold maintaining that R50-a-month price tag.

If you consider that a US subscription costs $9.99 a month, there’s little doubt that a price hike is on its way. And it’s bad news in a country that is slowly going broke.

The price of recently released games

In 2016, if trends continue the way they are, we will see game prices reach an all-time high as games reach well over R1000 for a new release.

Granted, games have gotten more expensive internationally as well, but even when prices don’t rise in the US, the cost of the Dollar does. That inevitably results in more expensive games.

This means that you need to budget even more for games than ever before. Dark times indeed.

Steam’s use of the Rand

I was overjoyed when Steam made the change to our local currency, the Rand, especially seeing as it meant price drops.

But with those delectable price drops came licensing issues and the inability for us to purchase a number of games.

Although most of the games are available once more, you might come across a few that you cannot purchase, many of which are games we would love access to once more.

We were aware of the issue, but it’s taking a lot longer for the games to become purchasable again than we anticipated.

Poor internet connectivity

As one of the most poorly connected countries, it’s a right nightmare to keep up with updates, the increase in game sizes and maintaining decent pings.

Poor internet has also been the reason Titanfall never launched locally; that our competitive gaming scenes are far behind the times; and our interaction with gamers from faraway lands is so traumatising for both parties.

Worse than that, games like The Elder Scrolls Online: Tamriel Unlimited have virtually unplayable PvP modes, and even our local servers have connection woes. I can’t even play Star Wars Battlefront without connection issues.

What are your most common complaints regarding gaming locally? Do let us know in the comments and forum.