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General discussion (archive)The Witcher 2: update of our Geo-IP policy(282 posts)(282 posts)
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Posted December 23, 2011
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.
Posted December 23, 2011
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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.
If the CD Projekt does not comply with, it's not enough to lose 1,000,000 euros, which is located in depositions in court, it will still have to pay a 10,000 euro fine for each day without geo location.

Sorry for my English.
Post edited December 23, 2011 by Maciekw
Posted December 23, 2011
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summitus: Why dont GOG just remove it from their catalogue ?
The reason that doesn't sound like a bad idea is because GOG are planning on releasing new games sometime soon and I think that a lot of publishers will try and use this crap as leverage to get regional pricing applied to their games also.
Posted December 23, 2011
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summitus: So is this DRM or not ? , I'm confused ( which happens easily at my age ! )
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Kabuto: It's not drm. Certain regions will only have access to a low violence version though as per the laws of their region.

As for asking if the $16 credit is gone, I don't see why that would be the case. Namco still get the same percentage. It's GOG that's being kind enough to have fair pricing as an incentive to buy here.
So if I still buy it here from GOG , who has my IP info , GOG or someone else ? ( sorry if my questions seem stupid to some people )
Posted December 23, 2011
Pursuing pirates, dancing with Bamco, and aside from TheEnigmaticT, most of the staff tends to be oddly quiet and aloof. Now we have a mandatory change to the Geo-IP as a result of GOG dealing with the likes of Namco-Bandai, and a game will be potentially censored for certain users based on location (GOG staff seems to currently be hush about whether Geo-IP setting or international trading can bypass said censorship), with Bamco as puppet masters pulling the regional pricing strings.

I see GOG potentially becoming much worse instead of better. I can't say I like that. I've invested too much in GOG to see them play games like this. Severing the arm that is The Witcher 2 may be far too much to ask, but in retrospect, perhaps GOG should have divided the site into a "Good New Games" for just this sort of situation. At the very least, I hope their contract with Namco-Bandai dies a quick death, CD Projekt avoids dealing with publishers with a track record of stupid mistakes (i.e. not publishing 90% of games outside of Japan), putting SecuROM in 14MB ports of Pac-Man, and, you know, benefiting from regional pricing schemes, copy protection, and physical/console game sales.

Not their best idea, that.


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summitus: So is this DRM or not ? , I'm confused ( which happens easily at my age ! )
You've been on GOG longer than I have... and you don't really even know what DRM is??
W-what are you?! How did you find GOG? How did you stay on the forums long enough to earn over 100 rep without discerning what digital rights management is? Just how young are you, anyway? o_o

I'm scared...
Posted December 23, 2011
As TheEnigmaticT is currently stuck in the marvelous (*cough cough*) Paris Charles-de-Gaulle airport with no access to the Internet, please let me clarify what using Geo-IP means for future (starting from today) purchases of The Witcher 2.

=====

The price is the same worldwide during our ongoing Annual Holidays Sales (ending Jan 2nd, 2012, 23:59 EST Time) i.e all users pay the equivalent of $23.99. Check it out: [url=]http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/the_witcher_2[/url]

On January 3rd, 2012 - when the above-mentioned promo is over - then TW2 will be priced at exactly the same level it was before our Annual Holidays sales started, which means $39.99 in the U.S, $54.99 in the E.U. and $61.79 in Australia.

Of course, gamers from the E.U. or Australia will still benefit from our Fair Price Package, which consists in compensating the price difference with the U.S. ($39.99) by offering them coupons to get free games on GOG for the same value. This way all users are provided with the best possible value for money regardless of their region :)

===

To sum up: the only change that we brought today is that Geo-IP (rather than the account specified in your Account Settings) will now be used to determine your location for future purchases of The Witcher 2 and as a matter of fact, the version and pricing you will have access to.

This obviously does not apply to the other 337 games we have on GOG, as these are available to all regions and users at the very same price ($5.99 or $9.99)

And again - if you already own The Witcher 2 on GOG - then we hope you enjoyed (or will enjoy soon) this game!

===

Hope this clarifies everything!
Post edited December 23, 2011 by TheFrenchMonk
Posted December 23, 2011
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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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Maciekw: If the CD Projekt does not comply with, it's not enough to lose 1,000,000 euros, which is located in depositions in court, it will still have to pay a 10,000 euro fine for each day without geo location.

Sorry for my English.
yes.
it is enough for them to lose all the money. all 1 million euros will be gone if they do not set geolocation.
if they set it up but are late a day they will lose only 10k. but if they do not set it up at all they will lose everything but they will not need to pay anything extra.
Posted December 23, 2011
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Kabuto: It's not drm. Certain regions will only have access to a low violence version though as per the laws of their region.

As for asking if the $16 credit is gone, I don't see why that would be the case. Namco still get the same percentage. It's GOG that's being kind enough to have fair pricing as an incentive to buy here.
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summitus: So if I still buy it here from GOG , who has my IP info , GOG or someone else ? ( sorry if my questions seem stupid to some people )
GOG knows your IP. That's it.
Posted December 23, 2011
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Skunk: Pursuing pirates, dancing with Bamco, and aside from TheEnigmaticT, most of the staff tends to be oddly quiet and aloof. Now we have a mandatory change to the Geo-IP as a result of GOG dealing with the likes of Namco-Bandai, and a game will be potentially censored for certain users based on location (GOG staff seems to currently be hush about whether Geo-IP setting or international trading can bypass said censorship), with Bamco as puppet masters pulling the regional pricing strings.

I see GOG potentially becoming much worse instead of better. I can't say I like that. I've invested too much in GOG to see them play games like this. Severing the arm that is The Witcher 2 may be far too much to ask, but in retrospect, perhaps GOG should have divided the site into a "Good New Games" for just this sort of situation. At the very least, I hope their contract with Namco-Bandai dies a quick death, CD Projekt avoids dealing with publishers with a track record of stupid mistakes (i.e. not publishing 90% of games outside of Japan), putting SecuROM in 14MB ports of Pac-Man, and, you know, benefiting from regional pricing schemes, copy protection, and physical/console game sales.

Not their best idea, that.


avatar
summitus: So is this DRM or not ? , I'm confused ( which happens easily at my age ! )
avatar
Skunk: You've been on GOG longer than I have... and you don't really even know what DRM is??
W-what are you?! How did you find GOG? How did you stay on the forums long enough to earn over 100 rep without discerning what digital rights management is? Just how young are you, anyway? o_o

I'm scared...
Dont worry its may age ... I put the Tea bags in the Freezer yesterday and my Dogs got Cat Food for their supper ..... but dont gloat too much , it comes to us all ........

I'm 54 btw .... :p
Posted December 23, 2011
so, all of this is because of Namco-Bandai? i guess it's time for CD Projekt to ditch that sad lot and distribute their next game exclusively through GoG.com, on their own. is that possible?

customer-unfriendly and money-hungry publishers have pushed around developers and customers alike for way too long.
Posted December 23, 2011
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TheFrenchMonk: As TheEnigmaticT is currently stuck in the marvelous (*cough cough*) Paris Charles-de-Gaulle airport with no access to the Internet, please let me clarify what using Geo-IP means for future (starting from today) purchases of The Witcher 2.

=====

The price is the same worldwide during our ongoing Annual Holidays Sales (ending Jan 2nd, 2012, 23:59 EST Time) i.e all users pay the equivalent of $23.99. Check it out: [url=]http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/the_witcher_2[/url]

On January 3rd, 2012 - when the above-mentioned promo is over - then TW2 will be priced at exactly the same level it was before our Annual Holidays sales started, which means $39.99 in the U.S, $54.99 in the E.U. and $61.79 in Australia.

Of course, gamers from the E.U. or Australia will still benefit from our Fair Price Package, which consists in compensating the price difference with the U.S. ($39.99) by offering them coupons to get free games on GOG for the same value. This way all users are provided with the best possible value for money regardless of their region :)

===

To sum up: the only change that we brought today is that Geo-IP (rather than the account specified in your Account Settings) will now be used to determine your location for future purchases of The Witcher 2 and as a matter of fact, the version and pricing you will have access to.

This obviously does not apply to the other 337 games we have on GOG, as these are available to all regions and users at the very same price ($5.99 or $9.99)

And agan - if you already own The Witcher 2 on GOG - then we hope you enjoyed (or will enjoy soon) this game!

===

Hope this clarifies everything!
Great. So Aussies go back to being price gouged AND screwed by censorship (granted this isn't GOG's fault... )
At least my copy was gifted from outside the twilight zone (thanks again KtC! :) )
Post edited December 23, 2011 by Bigs
Posted December 23, 2011
I gotta be honest here, the massive price for video game in Australia ad E.U. are quite ridiculous. Fortunately GOG.com offer free games as compensation. But i guess the game is censored version for Aussie and NZ?
Posted December 23, 2011
For customers within EU you could consider a binary approach that should be legal as well as more integrity friendly. Just make a check if the IP is within EU or not and if it is within EU you should not have to go any further. In fact segregating customers within EU by countries is direct in contradiction to EUs goals and could be itself be seen as against EU law.
Posted December 23, 2011
What a crock of shit. Pardon my French.
Posted December 23, 2011
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TheFrenchMonk: To sum up: the only change that we brought today is that Geo-IP (rather than the account specified in your Account Settings) will now be used to determine your location for future purchases of The Witcher 2 and as a matter of fact, the version and pricing you will have access to.
I'm not very interested in buying TW2 at the moment and I have no clue if there is censorship involved with this title at all, but in general I find the highlighted detail ("the version") to be a pretty significant change, even more so than the pricing (of which you say it won't change, at least unofficially). The changes do not bode well for the future, and I really hope TW2 will stay the only game affected by this court decision, especially with the "newer old" games coming to GOG, as announced.

Not that the GOG community wouldn't find ways to circumvent all this but it would make this place much less open, cosy and welcoming.
Post edited December 23, 2011 by Leroux
Posted December 23, 2011
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wormholewizards: I gotta be honest here, the massive price for video game in Australia ad E.U. are quite ridiculous. Fortunately GOG.com offer free games as compensation. But i guess the game is censored version for Aussie and NZ?
The problem is that Australia doesn't (as of yet) have an 18+ rating for video games, whereas New Zealand does. The thing is that Namco, as the regional distributor, groups the releases for Aus/NZ together, which means that NZ, since they don't have the market size of Aus, get our watered down censored releases the majority of the time.

Regional pricing is a whole other can of worms... and I don't want to get the blood pressure up before I go to bed :P
Pages:
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This is my favourite topic
Community
General discussion (archive)The Witcher 2: update of our Geo-IP policy(282 posts)(282 posts)
(282 posts)