Debating PSO2 "Global Support"

Back in September of last year, Phantasy Star Online 2 officially became a reality. When news of the game broke, the community quickly picked up on the phrase "global support", a vague term shown in the game's initial trailer.

Shortly after the announcement, I blogged a little about my desire to see international servers for the game. Some time later I wrote about the potential implications console releases of PSO2 would have for that "dream".

Now, those posts have somehow fueled the debate thanks to this thread over at PSO World (hi, everyone! Thanks for reading!) Apparently I insinuated that Sega's failure to provide international servers for PSO2 would be the game's death knell in the West. This is not quite what I said, but it's not too far off. (I do stand by my comment that the game should be PC-only, though.)

If Sega eventually does decide to separate US/EU players from the Japanese, that doesn't mean that the Western version of the game will be dead on arrival. However, I do think that segregated servers would only serve to cement PSO2's status as a niche online game, at least in the West.

Why? If past history is any indication, there's no reason to believe that Sega will run PSO2 any differently than it did Phantasy Star Universe. For US/EU players, that means trickle-down content updates that the Japanese game received 18 months ago. That means second-class support from Sega of Japan. That means pissed off US/EU players berating the Sega of America GMs, who unfortunately are at the beck and call of their Japanese masters. It all equates to players leaving the game in droves, just as they did with PSU several months after that game's release.

Of course, there's no guarantee that anything like that will happen. I can only speculate based on past experience. Maybe Sega's business model for PSO2 will be vastly different, but if that's not the case, players will let their wallets do the talking and leave. And those that have been through the process before with PSU will leave even more quickly because the outcome is predictable.

I've already seen plenty of comments on PSU forums where players have said they would play on the Japanese server if region-separated servers become a reality. If that doesn't tell Sega what should be done, I don't know what will.

Finally, I should mention that I only make these comments because I want PSO2 to succeed. I sincerely hope that Sega makes all the right decisions and gives us a visually engaging, addictive, fun-to-play online game that every player worldwide can enjoy together on the same servers. Yes, I've been highly critical of Phantasy Star Universe on this blog, but only because I am disappointed that the game did not live up to its potential due to circumstances that were preventable to begin with. While most of that was Sega's poor management of the game, I don't hate the company, nor do I hate PSU. I just don't want PSO2 to suffer the same fate. One of the best things Sega / Sonic Team can do for the community in this regard is provide international servers.