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General discussionRegional Locked Games on GOG(743 posts) (743 posts) 
(743 posts) 
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This is my favourite topic
Posted February 27, 2015
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PaterAlf: You might be right if the game would be released today. But a 15 year-old-game on a foreign internet store? It's too much of a niche product to be even noticed.
dunno, i'm not a lawyer. can't really say how big the danger is.
In any case, since GOG is the one carrying the legal risk, it's definitely their call where to draw the line.
And if that means that banned titles are a no-go, while +18 titles are allowed, than thats how it is.

@john_hatcher, going from my interpretation of the law, I would agree that there still is a legal risk with the way they are handling +18 titles. But I tell you what, I'm not going to complain and try to convince them to stop selling those as well ;)

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PaterAlf: As I said in another thread: It's self-censoring, because the developers and publishers want to avoid legal discussions about what is art and what is not. It's just an act of cowardice.
of course it is self-censoring. And blaming the publishers instead of GOG makes at least somewhat sense.
I personally would love to see some public/political discussion on how we handle these matters in the media in general. But then, isn't it a bit unfair to just expect publisher to lead this discussion? Shouldn't the main impulse come from us, the gamers, the readers, the general population?
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immi101: There is a reason why game developers these days don't even try to publish such contents in germany. Instead the game is censored before the german authorities even look at it.
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Klumpen0815: No, there is no reason for it anymore.
The reason for preemptive self-censoring was, that publishing games was really expensive on physical mediums and losing all this money for nothing and probably having to pay for getting the stuff from the market again was a problem.
With digital distribution, there are not millions of CDs pressed anymore and put into nice little boxes with nice little booklets that cost a lot of money in big numbers. All they'd have to do today is pulling the plug by not distributing anymore.
sure,
just put a game in the store that you know for sure will be declared illegal. Then when court order comes and the game has to be removed, you just tell your german customers:
"sry, please be patient. "
"We will now set our developers to work on a censored version."
"Yes, we knew this would happen, but uhm ...."

sounds like a good business plan. I wonder why no publisher does this?
Post edited February 27, 2015 by immi101
Posted February 27, 2015
high rated
It seems like GOG are destroying their own vision for a gaming platform more and more. I am disgusted by this change.
Posted February 27, 2015
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immi101: sounds like a good business plan. I wonder why no publisher does this?
Because the risk of the court deciding you were acting in bad faith is astounding with that as a buisness model.
Posted February 27, 2015
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Paul31286: It seems like GOG are destroying their own vision for a gaming platform more and more. I am disgusted by this change.
I don't think it is in the power of GOG to decide on regional lock of games.

Yes they have the power to refuse games that have regional locking, but if the game was sold to many customers and suddenly some country decide such game is illegal to be sold in their country...... What can they do?

Pull the game away from all customers they paid for it and anger them in the process? I won't be happy with that even if they refund me.

I don't think this has anything to do with GOG, it is more on our country policy.
Posted February 27, 2015
I'll add that as much as I complain and as much as I think this is a load of horseshit, I'll still shop GOG over Steam or glorified Steam key resellers.

Since we can't say "In GOG we trust" anymore, this better damn well be worth it.
Posted February 27, 2015
Regional locks suck!
We all know that.
But still, a game available for most is better than a game not available at all.
If most of us are able to get it here, it is still better than no one being able to get it here.
It blows that people aren't able to get them legally "Because politicians said so!".
Posted February 27, 2015
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benmar: It blows that people aren't able to get them legally "Because politicians said so!".
This is what "democracy" is made for, right? *mind blown*
Posted February 27, 2015
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benmar: It blows that people aren't able to get them legally "Because politicians said so!".
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Klumpen0815: This is what "democracy" is made for, right? *mind blown*
Democracy is rule of the majority. If the majority decides something idiotic/distasteful (or simply gives power to someone who makes idiotic/distasteful decisions), well...
People tend to forget there is a simple solution to the "politicians are assholes" problem : Stop voting for assholes ^^
Post edited February 27, 2015 by Kardwill
Posted February 27, 2015
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IAmSinistar: But when it comes to replacing games with censored versions, I'm thinking of the more subtle changes here such as when content is dropped and we only find out because it shows up in MaGog's logs. I suspect replacing a version with a censored edition would fall into that category and GOG would make no announcement of the change, except possibly in the Update thread.
Even worse they change installers without increasing the version number. So you are at risk to overwrite old, good versions on download. GOG could learn a lot from about any Linux distribution about version handling and proper changelog files ...
Posted February 27, 2015
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Kardwill: People tend to forget there is a simple solution to the "politicians are assholes" problem : Stop voting for assholes ^^
Yeah well, I didn't. At the the potential assholes I voted for never won elections. So the solution is not so simple, right?
Posted February 27, 2015
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Kardwill: People tend to forget there is a simple solution to the "politicians are assholes" problem : Stop voting for assholes ^^
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toxicTom: Yeah well, I didn't. At the the potential assholes I voted for never won elections. So the solution is not so simple, right?
Got some problems? Well consider <span class="bold">this</span>.
Posted February 27, 2015
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Kardwill: People tend to forget there is a simple solution to the "politicians are assholes" problem : Stop voting for assholes ^^
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toxicTom: Yeah well, I didn't. At the the potential assholes I voted for never won elections.
Neither did mine, alas. I think none of the guys I voted for has ever been elected, apart from maybe one mayor. My vote seems to be some sort of kiss-of-death to political carreers.

But at least, I can then brag "Well at least, wasn't one of those who put this crook into power" when the winner gets caught red-handed. I'm still ruled by idiots and crooks, but I get to be smug about it ^^
Post edited February 27, 2015 by Kardwill
Posted February 27, 2015
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Kardwill: My vote seems to be some sort of kiss-of-death to political carreers.
Please come to Germany, a lot of people you should vote for. Start with Merkel.
Posted February 27, 2015
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toxicTom: Yeah well, I didn't. At the the potential assholes I voted for never won elections.
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Kardwill: Neither did mine, alas. I think none of the guys I voted for has ever been elected, apart from maybe one mayor. My vote seems to be some sort of kiss-of-death to political carreers.

But at least, I can then brag "Well at least, wasn't one of those who put this crook into power" when the winner gets caught red-handed. I'm still ruled by idiots and crooks, but I get to be smug about it ^^
Same here. The only one of the small parties I voted for that ever won anything (I think it was a single seat in the local parliament) got a free smearing campaign from the official media with it (that is owned by the two biggest parties) and can kiss its carreer goodbye since then.
Sadly enough, it was a party that was founded for privacy protection and less censorship...

So yeah, I can truly say: This isn't my fault!
Post edited February 27, 2015 by Klumpen0815
Posted February 27, 2015
Everyone who is disappointed like me should vote here:
http://www.gog.com/wishlist/site/vote_against_german_version_of_gog_with_censorship
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This is my favourite topic
Community
General discussionRegional Locked Games on GOG(743 posts) (743 posts) 
(743 posts)