While i share your dislike of regional restrictions. I can imagine that the server/upload capacity required to provide the game to the entire world at once would be way to expensive. Of course this could be alleviated by using p2p technology. And then there's all that stuff with the different publishers, contracts, laws etc. They apparently think it to big a hassle.

If it's too big of a hassle, let others do it properly

I tend to agree with getting rid of regional lockouts. Even region based pricing would be preferable (as long as its not TOTALLY out of wack like reaching 50% + kind of proportions)

Btw aLap nice healing ribbon icon

Spoof your IP, buy and download, smile.

While the cost/benefit situation may be true, consider the fact that Stardock DO provide many titles, including their own, for worldwide digital distribution. In that sense they already have the infrastructure to support worldwide sales. (I assume this would be scalable as demand increases) It is simply a matter of licensing restrictions which the boxed publishers impose.

While I haven't tried it, I was under the impression that the Impulse regional settings are based on the address which you have to provide as part of your Stardock account.. Meaning no such workaround would be possible. (psst: PM me if I am (happily) wrong )

I know for me the joy of digital distribution is having a single store/catalogue that can act as a library for all of my games, including up to the minute updates and patches for titles purchased. When certain games are unavailable on Impulse this destroys its overall usability.
While Stardock has mentioned they want to support registering games which have been purchased at a retail store, meaning that Impulse can then catalogue a gamer's entire library of titles, this doesn't address the issue of people who can't acquire a physical boxed copy at all in their region. 

Here's my vote for international availabilty on as many titles as possible and impulse's support of international users by filtering options for games which are not available in their region.

As a lazy person, i'd rather find another place to buy it from. Like Steam just informed me that they have RE5 Pre-order sale like Impulse, it's few euros more expensive, but it IS available for Europe. I'm not going to get though, seeing how RE4 PC port turned out.

The Stardock Store is not integrated with your account, it honestly has no freaking idea where you live - except for the IP.  Now, one thing I've noticed is that it is so lazy, that it doesn't even check the IP you come from - the Stardock Store accepts or rejects based on the TLD of your reverse DNS!  So all you'd need to do is get your ISP to set your rDNS to something ending in ".com" (I noticed this because it refused to let me buy NA only games from a computer physically located in Dallas, TX - just because the rDNS was set to the company domain which ends in ".nz" since that's where the HQ is).

(I'm tempted to add "so screw you EA, Activision, Ubisoft, Kalypso, and Atari")

Ahh. Well ain't that just annoying. Still, Impulse seems to be making inroads into publishers more traditional thinking over-time. Hopefully the situation will change. 

Reeeaallly? ^_~ Nice work Detective Kyanar.

I would say that regional pricing is less of a problem than not being able to buy a game at all. For a game that I really like, I wouldn't mind paying a bit more, as long as it could be made available. It's weird to be faced with a supplier not wanting my money.

I don't intend to become a pirate, though jumping through hoops like this when there's this local cheesy market or that shady torrent, taunting me with a pirated version a few days after release... it's a ridiculous conundrum (considering my location and the lack of retail choices here).

Even ordering a retail box from abroad is a chore. When I do find one store that can send to my location, it's either a 30-day wait for normal mail or a bundle of cash for express mail. Either way, it's a loss in time and money when considering that shady alternative mentioned above.

Oh, btw, let's not mention hypothetical platform workarounds in detail. This is a public forum. 

It's the internet, there is always a way to fool software.  Go forth and to hell with restrictions! BE FREE MY PEOPLE! ...cough...bored at work.

But the problem is that you should mind.  They're not charging you more because it costs them any more to get it to you, they're charging you more just because ... well, to be honest there is no valid reason for it.

For physical products, I fully understand that it will cost more - there's a much greater real cost to get it to you as it has to be shipped and packaged, and ordinarily reclassified and so forth.  However, there is no reason for a digital download which costs the same amount to get it to Kazakhstan as Wisconsin to cost twice or three times the price.  The majority of countries don't even require the product to be rated by their classification authority if it is not directly marketed within the country!

The reason they don't release in asia, etc, is piracy right?  But it doesn't make sense digitally...maybe they have to pay a certain amount of money to go through redtape and don't think they'll make it back in sales.

Well, that's sort of how Supply and Demand economics work, isn't it? Unfortunate, but that's just the way it is.

...and in there comes Piracy.  Tis a balancing act indeed.