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Old 09-28-2010, 02:16 AM   #1
bbesse
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Kindle Games in Canada? (Apparently NOT!)

I reside in Victoria, BC, Canada. I have had my Kindle 3 (WiFi) for 2 weeks now and love it so far.
I saw an article on Engadget about Scrabble from Electronic Arts and decided I wanted it.

When I went to the Kindle Store on my PC, I found the game but is showed "Pricing infomation is not avalable". The games "Every Word" and "Shuffled Row" show the same thing.
When I tried to find it on the Kindle store from my Kindle and I can't find it.

Is this a Canadian thing? Or is it a temporary thing? If it's the first, I am on the verge of sending the Kindle back with a jar of Vaseline with explicit instructions on how to use it.

So in a more polite voice, has any other Canadian user seen this? I have posted a question to Amazon and am awaiting a response.

Thanks in advance for any thoughts,
"Frustrated in Victoria"
...Brent...
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Old 09-28-2010, 05:13 AM   #2
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I live in BC too.

You can change your Country of residence to the US of A in the 'Manage your Kindle' section and download the games, then change your country back to Canada. That's what I did.

Hope that helps
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Old 09-28-2010, 08:17 PM   #3
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I am up in Courtenay and seen this as well. I'll add an email to see what they say. I don't really want the games all that badly, but I would like to know what the logic is behind the geo-restriction.
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Old 09-29-2010, 02:22 AM   #4
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Old 09-29-2010, 11:12 AM   #5
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Originally Posted by Dwayne_Matheson View Post
I don't really want the games all that badly, but I would like to know what the logic is behind the geo-restriction.
Licensing and publishing rights for the games. Wanting to test the waters with games in a single region before expanding to other regions.
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Old 09-29-2010, 11:54 AM   #6
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I heard back from Amazon.
They said Electronic Arts are not allowing Scrabble to be sold in Canada. "Not Our Fault".
Well, OK, Amazon can hide behind that statement, but I can buy the E.A. "Official Scrabble App" from iTunes Canada. So they license it for one device and not another. Wierd.
I am gonna change my Country and see if I can get it.
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Old 09-29-2010, 12:02 PM   #7
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I'm seriously thinking of permanently switching my store location to U.S.
Not only do they get the games, they have a lot more books which are cheaper in general. I'm not really a big fan of exclusive Canadian content anyway (not that there's all that much).

Last edited by ChaoZ; 09-29-2010 at 12:06 PM.
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Old 09-29-2010, 12:46 PM   #8
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Quote:
Originally Posted by bbesse View Post
They said Electronic Arts are not allowing Scrabble to be sold in Canada. "Not Our Fault".
Well, OK, Amazon can hide behind that statement, but I can buy the E.A. "Official Scrabble App" from iTunes Canada. So they license it for one device and not another. Wierd.
Yes. It'd be licensed per device and per region. Most media e.g. films, music, books and games are done like that.

Amazon isn't hiding behind that statement. It isn't Amazon's fault if the publisher doesn't want it to be published elsewhere. Amazon can't just publish it without permission.
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Old 09-29-2010, 04:07 PM   #9
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It's nothing against Canada. As far as I'm aware, Scrabble and the other word games are only currently available in the US.

I live in the UK and they are not available to me either. I'm not going to bother to change my country just to get some games even though they do look pretty good. I'm sure Amazon want them to be available to all countries asap. It's down to the publishers yet again!
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Old 09-29-2010, 06:41 PM   #10
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Come to think of it though, wouldn't they have to localize the games for Canada? Your spelling is different than the US, after all. Not dramatically so, like the UK, but still, probably require different dictionaries and such.
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Old 09-29-2010, 07:34 PM   #11
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Thats a good point JeremyR, I find that with quite a few word games. Realistically though it should be as simple as changing the dictionary file, or if EA was really smart they'd use whatever the native kindle dictionary is to generate it's word lists so then it wouldn't matter either way.

It never ceases to amaze me how so many companies just throw away potential revenue by not releasing certain items to Canada (or online sites that won't ship to us), unless I misunderstand capitalism isn't the whole goal to sell as much to as many people as possible?

I'm sure eventually they'll be made available here however I still can't think of a good excuse why they weren't simultaneously released in the US and Canada. EA sells a lot of stuff north of the border (Tetris on my phone for example) so it's not like they don't know how to handle the paperwork.
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Old 09-29-2010, 10:51 PM   #12
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Tiersten View Post
Licensing and publishing rights for the games. Wanting to test the waters with games in a single region before expanding to other regions.
Good points all. Still, as a good neighbour (even though your dictionary says this is incorrect) I think they should release it to me as a favour.

And by the way, is the colour grey not gray!

Ah, this is too much fun
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Old 09-30-2010, 11:17 AM   #13
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All good points about dictionaries, spelling etc.
For the hellovit, I just bought the "Official" EA version for my iPhoney 4 from iTunes Canada.....
So why not the Kindle version is Canada.
I am goig to politley BLAST EA now...
...Brent...
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Old 06-18-2011, 05:10 PM   #14
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Lightbulb Kindle Games in Canada? (Apparently NOW!)

Quote:
Originally Posted by TheKindleWorm View Post
It's nothing against Canada. As far as I'm aware, Scrabble and the other word games are only currently available in the US.

I live in the UK and they are not available to me either. I'm not going to bother to change my country just to get some games even though they do look pretty good. I'm sure Amazon want them to be available to all countries asap. It's down to the publishers yet again!
Sorry, I know this thread is old, but you might want to know that there's a few games available in Canada, and probably the UK and other countries. Lol, it would be funny if they weren't available in the US (international exclusives ). jk, I'm all about global equality. Any who, just search for 'canada kindle games'. I only play hangman by blufi on occasion, but there's a few others people might like. But please be cautious, as I noticed some publishers will make it seem like you're getting a kindle game, but what you really get is a book with no games and just a link taking you to a website where you can play through the experimental browser (and only if you have Internet access at the time). Very not cool in my opinion, however I did get a refund which was nice, but it was still a huge waste of everyone's time. From my personal experience, you can easily spot real games by looking for two things. Under the product's details, ensure the File Size is "400 KB" or larger, and always get the free sample before buying. If you can't play any part of a game in the sample, it probably means it's a trick and you would essentially be buying a link to a (possibly temporary) website address and won't be sent any game at all to your device. To avoid this, I disable wireless after the sample is sent to my kindle. That way I know if I can play it offline, or whether it's sending me to a website to play. I just don't like the latter type because it quickly uses up my precious battery. I was stuck at school with a dead battery once because I was playing a sudoku game before class, so now I'm more careful and only use the browser for wikipedia, google, forums (mainly this one now) and keep wireless disabled in between.

I was going to write a quick review of the games available to us outside the US, since I couldn't find one (this thread is the closest I found), and I keep reading complaints from people who are unaware they exist, although they might be new. But school is taking up most of my time lately so I'm writing this as I may never get around to writing reviews. In the mean time, try searching the Store built into your Kindle (I've noticed that it only searches and displays items available to you). Try searches like "kindle games worldwide", "interactive games", "interactive ebooks", etc. (but heed the aforementioned red flags to look for). I'll post back here if I ever get around to writing a review, or if you want to write a review, please let the rest of us know here. And always remember, the Kindle is designed for reading. If you want a game by Electronic Arts, get a X-Box.

(P.S., I can't imagine EA is behind the country restrictions, the customer service at Amazon is in the dark as much as we are. I imagine it is the same reason that the Kindle wasn't offered outside the US until later; they legally have to get permission from the international mobile carriers they use to connect Kindles to their Whispernet service. Hence, this is why you can't get an audible book through 3G. Amazon and publishers would want everything available to everyone in the world because it simply means more money for them. But they have to obide by their legal contracts with the mobile operators. So where I live, it would mean that both Rogers and Bell Canada would have to agree to let Kindle users receive large files and use network applications in an unlimited capacity, which they may not agree to because Amazon probably isn't going to pay a higher licensing fee to them unless they determine that there are enough Kindle users in a country and that they are willing to buy the active content so that overall sales will increase significantly higher than the liabilities such as the increase in licensing fee, operator quid pro quo, and other time/costs. Furthermore, mobile carriers will consider that it may lead to less people using and paying for 3G web access with them directly. Thus, it's not down to publishers, Amazon, or even 3G operators being against Canada, the UK, or any country. If you can come up with a business model that is financially beneficial to the corporations that must legally sign off on it, and won't upset any major stakeholders, they’ll do it! If I had to guess, I’d say Amazon is at least waiting until the peak amount of Canadians own Kindle before they make a deal with Rogers and Bell and pay a higher licensing fee. These are all wild guesses, my point is that we should not trust anything coming from a customer service representive. They deal directly with customers so they only know information which is also released to the public website and strictly kept seperate from any internal operations. Sorry for the rant, I asked Amazon a technical question a while ago and still keep getting the same generic response back which is barely related to what I asked. So in the last email I asked if I was talking to a real person. I still don't know, it's been weeks and I still haven't received a response.)
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Old 10-21-2011, 01:50 PM   #15
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Can I change back....

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Originally Posted by xnowimcoolx View Post
I live in BC too.

You can change your Country of residence to the US of A in the 'Manage your Kindle' section and download the games, then change your country back to Canada. That's what I did.

Hope that helps
If I do this.....will it take the games off my kindle if I change back to Canada settings? I do purchase books off of amazon, so don`t I need to change back to my proper address to use my credit card? I`m just thinking that if I do change my address back, once I connect to 3G it will take the games off. I know this is an old thread, but I just ran across it and was wondering if you knew the answer to this question. Thanks for your time.
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