The internet makes me feel old sometimes. Earlier today I was discussing earlier websites that I designed in the mid-90’s and how discussions online centered around newsgroups and AOL chat rooms with a friend, and that made me feel kind of old. Now today, thinking back to how what seems like very recently 4chan seemed to be where most of the popular internet memes, horror stories and online activists came from. The thing is, that is so 2011, right? Somewhere along the way, things shifted over to Reddit, and Reddit has quickly become the internet’s bright shining star, a beacon of truth in an otherwise muddy and strange world that we live in.

The reason I’m referring to this is because it looks like users on Reddit from Russia have caused a pretty big stink over some of the region lock-outs in Borderlands 2. Borderlands 2 is one of this fall’s hotly-anticipated games, with gamers worldwide excited about the launch of the game and eagerly-awaiting booting it up for the first time and delving in. It looks like users in the Eastern part of the world might have some difficulties with this, though, as 2k Games has pulled a fast one on the fans in Eastern Europe and Russia. It appears that players in the Ukraine, Lithuania, Estonia and a few other countries will be receiving the Russian version of the game, which means that it will be in Russian and not the native tongue. I can’t imagine being Lithuanian, speaking Lithuanian and being given a Russian game entirely in [apparently poorly-translated from English] Russian.

That would be like a game from Eastern Europe that is hotly-anticipated in North America and shipped to North America in poorly-translated Spanish because Central and South America have a higher concentration of Spanish speakers. On top of the language barrier, it appears that the games are region-locked, which hinders the ability to play the game online with players outside of the region and due to DRM-issues, even playing the game if you are outside of the country. Steam users can’t pre-load the game like everyone else can and it is uncertain how future DLC will work for them.

You can read the whole saga here, and how 2k Games has replied and how this will be handled moving forward.