Our equivalent of ebay is called Trademe (Trade Me).

So the story goes: I've been trying to find a disc version of Dragon Age Awakenings for AGES. Can't buy it new anywhere, can't DL off PSN because I lack the HDD space.

So finally I come across a listing on Trademe for Awakaneing and I'm all woo fukin hoo! I'm getting this thing no matter what. I get pushed all the way to $15 (It's $37 on PSN), with postage it's $20. But it's MINE!!!! Yaaaaay.

The listing on Trademe says " Dragon Age awakening. Disc in exclellent condition. Comes with Manual." No photo. But the seller has 96% positive rating.

I get the game after a few days. No manual, just some EA leaflet mentioning a bunch of EA games. No worries I don;t need a game manual. I slip that baby into the slot...

"Game requires DA:O game data, please insert DA:O disc" (paraphrasing) comes up on screen (see thread) http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread.php?id=162380&page=1#

WTF? I say. Maybe it's corruption. I uninstall the DA"O game data and reinstall. Same problem.

"Wait a minute" I think. What region is Awakening from? *looks at game case, sees some Chinese Characters, looks some more, sees it's NTSC format (we are PAL), looks some more, game case mentions Singapore.* So this is from SCEA region! My DA:O I bought here so it's SCEE region. I go online, bioware forums confirm game data from different regions are incompatible. So games are not truly region free.

I e-mail the seller, say that they should have declared Awakening was from SCEA and I want a refund. At first he's all, OK sorry you are having problems, I'll refund. I send him my bank account details for the refund. Then he e-mails back accusing me of lying about the game not working and that I just want to get money out of him. He threatens to post negative feedback on trademe about me.

ARSEHOLE!! I have a 100% positive rating you bastard!! I go on to the bioware forum and copy a number of posts that talk about this exact issue. Aparently in Europe quite a few people bought DA:O and didn;t want to DL Awakening from PSN, so they imported Awakening only to find it doesn't work. Lucky for me no matter what cock-up you make there's always others who've made the same cock-up and they go online to talk about it, like I am doing now.

I was not at all abusive in my e-mail back to the guy suggesting he reconsider his position. I laid out the evidence for why I'm right and I said all I wanted was my money back. I haven't heard back from him yet, but if he doesn't agree to the refund I'm going to be pissed. People shouldn't sell an out of region game that requires game data from another game to be playable. Chances are very slim that anyone will have the original game from that region. Even if a game doesn't require another game's data, and out of region game won't work with in regtion DLC either. So out of region should always be declared when trading games.

It's not too expensive a lesson, I'm mostly mad on principle, and I get mad when people call me a liar.

And I'm still shit out of luck for being able to play Awakening, because there's still no discs available anywhere, and I still don't have the HDD space to DL the game.

That sucks! :(
Why don't you threaten to post negative feedback about him?

Well that sucks, if you really want to play the game maybe you can try and import the NTSC version?

Resell that one and try to get the right one. Post negative on him and be done with it.

Sucks to hear your troubles. I didn't have a good experience the two times I used ebay. First time I purchased Metal Slug Anthology (Wii) and the seller said disc is in good condition. The first one I get the disc is completely scratched and it even has trouble (usually can't play the last game or so on the disc, there are a lot of Metal Slugs on disc). So I go after another one that says good to excellent condition. I get the disc and it is just barely better than the previous one. It actually plays all the games on disc but still the condition sucks.

I also had a bad experience on Amazon once. I received Mario Golf GBA and see something crossed off with a marker on the label. I usually like my labels on games looking nice so I started rubbing it and it started coming off. Well I rub all of it off and what do I see? Says not for retail use or something like that... I put it in my GBA and see that it is just a demo version for in store demos. I can't make my own character, I can't progress past the first level, basically I can barely do shit. I was pissed that they sold me a demo (never had a GBA demo cart before though) and contacted the seller. They stated oh we didn't know it was probably Gamestop selling it to us like that, blah blah blah. They offered for me to send it back or whatever and send a legit copy. I was fed up with the whole thing and just gave them a bad rating. Someday I will get the retail version of Mario Golf on GBA...

There is a reason why I usually buy all my games new on Amazon or (heaven forbid an actual store).

Why the HELL didn't you get Dragon Age: Ultimate Edition? It comes with the original, the expansion and all DLC content. You can also continue with your previous save. I've actually skipped Awakening and waited for the Ultimate Edition so I could have the entire game in one package for cheaper if you count all the DLC.

really sucks, sorry. :(

No point in re-selling as the game is worthless here. No one's going to have the NTSC of DA:O.

I can't import the NTSC of DA:O because the point of getting Awakening is to play using characters I've played through DA:O. And to carry forward the Awakening stuff to DA2 and DA3, of which I have the PAL version of DA2 and I'll be buying the PAL version of DA3.

Oh I'll post negative feedback all right, I might even email the website admins and ask them to give him a warning over not disclosing the out of region status of ther game. If he doesn't change his mind and do the refund.

Not available to puchase new on disc now, and wasn't out at the time I bought DA:O. But yes, I have been scouting for Ultimate Edition. I'm just not keen on effectively buying DA:O twice.

I had this problem when I got Burnout Paradise. I was trying to save money, so I imported the game from Singapore and saved myself ~£10. I really enjoyed the game, but for some reason the copies are incompatible any DLC I tried to buy...

I can't say I understand the need for all these restrictions and they all get really complicated with these online stores and their region limits. What happens if someone moves country?

Anyway, I'm sorry you got screwed... I would say get a bigger hard drive, but some saves can't be copied and have to be transferred directly, so that might not work either