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GOG.com Implements Court-Required Changes; Uses Geo-IP to Determine Location for Witcher 2 Purchases

If you’ve been paying attention to news about the CD Projekt RED group, you’ve possibly heard that a French court made a judgement about a few things that were in dispute between CD Projekt RED and Namco Bandai Partners. Most of the decision doesn’t influence GOG.com, but one of the rulings from the court does: according to the findings of the court, the method that we have been using to determine what location a game purchaser is located at when they buy a copy of [url=http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/the_witcher_2]The Witcher 2 (and, as such, what version and price they are presented with) needs to be changed.

GOG.com has stated for a long time now that we believe that the best security is asking only for the minimum of information that we need to successfully transact business with our customers. Our opinion is still that including things like determining your location via Geo-IP, because there are several possible flaws with that system. However, in order to keep selling The Witcher 2, we will need to implement a Geo-IP based system for determining your location, per the orders of the court.

We will be implementing this system immediately; you will see that your local currency’s price is now featured on the product page when you visit it, based on your IP address. Since we've already announced the price for this game would be the same flat price everywhere during the Holiday Sale (which ends on January 2nd, 2012, at 23:59 EST Time), we’re not going to change the pricing for the Witcher 2 until this sale ends.

We remain committed to user privacy and keeping your information as safe and secure as we can. Further, while your profile’s location is, by order of the court, determined via Geo-IP when you purchase a copy of The Witcher 2, you can still set your country location for the forums as you would like, and your location doesn’t matter for buying any other games on GOG.com.

If you have already purchased your copy of the Witcher 2, we won’t be changing anything on your already-bought copy, just as if you had a boxed copy on a physical shelf instead of a virtual box on your GOG.com shelf.

If you have any questions about this, please feel free to ask it the comments below, or (if you’re a journalist) drop us an email and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can.
So if i'm getting it right, the price is now displayed in local money (€ for me), but GOG is just billing the equivalent in USD only during holiday sale.

When the holiday sale ends, The Witcher 2 will be sold for for 40 $/€ ?
Well, it's not like you've got a choice...
My international law degree is a but dusty (and non-existent), so I must ask: aren't you guys Polish? Why do the French have jurisdiction over you, and how could they force you to do business in a certain way in countries that are not France? Is it because of certain agreements as part of the European Union? Or is it because GOG.com is hosted in France? Are you able to appeal the decision? And isn't Geo-IP easily defeated by even an intermediate computer user who knows Google's URL? Why does this decision only affect The Witcher 2?

You fine fellows have said you are committed to offering your games at the same price for everyone, but isn't it going to be problematic, and possibly expensive, for you to keep track of the FOREX rates for every country you sell to? And does this mean that you're being forced to 'localise' your prices? For example, a new game in Australia costs around US$105 for no discernible reason, and part of the reason I love GOG and CDPR is that you guys don't price gouge us like Steam and EB.
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I bought The Witcher 2 on GOG.com because it was DRM-less, just like all the other products from the website. But now the CD Projekt RED is doing those bullshitting things like running around after pirates and tracking legitimate customers.

Can I return my purchase and have my money back? I don't want to support them anymore. :(
Two questions:

1) Is there a list somewhere of the correct regions/prices, so someone can know whether or not their location is being detected correctly?

2) What recourse do people have once Geo-IP detects their location incorrectly? Can they just contact support & they'll fix it, or...?
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Alenonimo: ...and tracking legitimate customers.
Well concerning the tracking part, it's not like it's their decision and it only affect new purchases not existing ones.
Use foreign proxy, set up new gog account just for TW2 game and grabbing various files and any updates, buy game and download files and updates, ???, profit?
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Glexn: My international law degree is a but dusty (and non-existent), so I must ask: aren't you guys Polish? Why do the French have jurisdiction over you, and how could they force you to do business in a certain way in countries that are not France? Is it because of certain agreements as part of the European Union? Or is it because GOG.com is hosted in France? Are you able to appeal the decision? And isn't Geo-IP easily defeated by even an intermediate computer user who knows Google's URL? Why does this decision only affect The Witcher 2?
it happened because they lost a case against a french based publisher, Namco. Since GOG sells games outside Poland, they have to abide by the ruling otherwise they would lose a million eur.
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Glexn: My international law degree is a but dusty (and non-existent), so I must ask: aren't you guys Polish? Why do the French have jurisdiction over you, and how could they force you to do business in a certain way in countries that are not France? Is it because of certain agreements as part of the European Union? Or is it because GOG.com is hosted in France? Are you able to appeal the decision? And isn't Geo-IP easily defeated by even an intermediate computer user who knows Google's URL? Why does this decision only affect The Witcher 2?
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lukaszthegreat: it happened because they lost a case against a french based publisher, Namco. Since GOG sells games outside Poland, they have to abide by the ruling otherwise they would lose a million eur.
I can see why they'd have to do it for French users, but why the rest of us? What beef did Namco have with GOG and CDPR?
... and that's why we can't have nice things
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lukaszthegreat: it happened because they lost a case against a french based publisher, Namco. Since GOG sells games outside Poland, they have to abide by the ruling otherwise they would lose a million eur.
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Glexn: I can see why they'd have to do it for French users, but why the rest of us? What beef did Namco have with GOG and CDPR?
I think it's due to Gog/CDPR dropping Geo-p tracking when TW2 went on sale here originally. I think Namco claimed it violated the contract they had with them.
Damn court ruling, hate geo-ip
Post edited December 23, 2011 by Agret
Well I was thinking of getting this but I dont think I will be now ,

Why dont GOG just remove it from their catalogue ? This seems to go against everything they stand for .

Or maybe I'm overeacting not sure with this really ... what does everyone else here think ?
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Glexn: I can see why they'd have to do it for French users, but why the rest of us? What beef did Namco have with GOG and CDPR?
because namco is publishing outside france too.

and the beef was over contract for xbox360 version of TW2. CDPR signed up with THQ but Namco had the right to get the contract. They wanted but CDPR did not want them. They sued. and also accused CDPR for other misbehavior like nodrm patch on TW2 or GOG selling cheaper copies in certain areas (like selling cheaper TW2 in Australia because while they have to charge Australians more they allowed us to bypass that by having gog drop geolocation.)