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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.
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TheFrenchMonk: ...
So there's a separate Australian version... Will it be clearly labelled as such, so that if someone gets incorrectly flagged as Australian then they can know beforehand and sort that out with support before payments are made.

I already have the game so it won't affect me, but someone else could get caught (for example, DotEmu was flagging me as European until I contacted their support to get that fixed).

Thank you for fighting so hard for your customers.
Post edited December 23, 2011 by Barefoot_Monkey
Aww, man this sucks, but at least the damage is contained to TW2 and is not site wide.

I hope that once the contract ends this can be remedied. I'm also boycotting Namco products as of today.
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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.
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Leroux: 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.
You know Leroux, we (as GOG) are the first people to be disappointed with that decision. Still - being a responsible and professional company - we did need to respect the court's decision and apply the requested changes.

However, we are still more than committed to making digital distribution a better place and provide gamers with the fairest possible offer (hence offering DRM-free titles only, along with tons of goodies, a fair pricing policy, and a lot more). Who thought for example that EA's classics could be DRM-free one day? :) See - we are really fighting hard to make gamers (as well as good-hearted developers and publishers) happy and I think we proved that at numerous occasions.

Amending our geo-IP policy for The Witcher 2 is a disappointment, yes, but it does NOT mean we will give up that easily. As we mentioned many times recently, we will release newer games in 2012, and those will undergo the usual GOG treatment : DRM-free + fair price policy + tons of goodies and value added.

We are stubborn and will always do our best for gamers. We proved that hundreds of times in the past, whether distant or recent. Be (more than) sure we will keep on fighting for you guys in the future ;)
Post edited December 23, 2011 by TheFrenchMonk
I don't remember reading this, but I'm curious how this applies to gifting. What if I buy and gift the game (from US) to someone who lives in another region (say Australia)? Do they get the version I paid for or do they get the version that they would get had they bought the game?
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Fred_DM: 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.
Agreed. I'm amazed they ended up dealing with Namco-Bandai in the first place. I thought GOG was founded on an understanding of the evils of fighting back against piracy and the burden of publishers, yet here we are. CD Projekt is sending out threats demanding exorbitant reimbursement, and GOG themselves have found themselves prey to the will of one of the worst publishers there is. Incredible, isn't it?

Now that Bamco has managed to have their way with GOG, what's to stop any other players from deciding that they want regional pricing and censorship? With the advent of new games on GOG, and CD Projekt's own game falling prey to the very sort of thing GOG was founded to avoid, I can't help but worry that there's a real chance of this snowballing into something ruinous.


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Bigs: 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! :) )
It certainly doesn't help that TheFrenchMonk's post doesn't exactly clarify whether the version is determined by the Geo-IP of whoever the buyer is at the time of purchase, or the Geo-IP of the person actually downloading the game. I would assume it to be the former, like every other digital download store, but again, the answer was vague and I'm not particularly optimistic right now.

Either way, this sucks.



Sorry, TheFrenchMonk. I love GOG. That much should be clear. I'm sure you can see my account information, and the ridiculous amount of games I've bought here, but that's the thing; I've invested in GOG, and mostly pre-ordered The Witcher 2 out of a desire to support a DRM-free store that provided equal pricing and content to all of it's users. One that knew that the best strategy to fight piracy was simply to ignore it, that piracy doesn't mean lost sales, and that customers must be treated equally. I am now filled with a sense of regret over that decision.

The fundamentals by which this site was founded now has an exception. These fundamentals are now subject to change, and they can become little more than a guideline, a suggestion, an ideal.
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TheFrenchMonk: <snip>
Why did you make a deal with such twats like Namco?
When they wanted such things in the agreement, you had to give them a finger and not sign it. I am sure you would find better distributors instead of NB.
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TheFrenchMonk: You know Leroux, we (as GOG) are the first people to be disappointed with that decision. Still - being a responsible and professional company - we did need to respect the court's decision and apply the requested changes.
That's understood and I sympathize with your disappointment. My post wasn't meant as a reproach, I was just voicing my concerns. If I have a gripe, it's not with you guys but with the industry at whole. I'm pretty sure that GOG will stay the best DD service around for a long time, I just would hate "best" to mean "the least evil", and partly against your will and basic principles. The introduction of newer games seems to come with the risk of introducing other unwanted side-effects like this; but of course this one lost battle doesn't take away from your past victories and I'll continue to put my hopes in your resistance and perseverance.

To conclude with a French image, you're like that small village of indomitable Gauls that still manage to defy the mighty Roman Empire, because they stick to their pride and values, their community spirit and a magic potion full of secret ingredients. And by Toutatis, these Romans are crazy! Don't let them take over! ;)
You know, I think you can't blame industry to try and get more money: that's what they do.

The ones to blame here are the french judgment and government (and I know what I'm talking about...) for issuing such stupid decisions. I think this is part of their whole "trying to fight piracy and keeping good relationship with industries" -- our president really like his friends.

I'm sure GOG will do everything to keep their future release as DRM / limits free as they can (and try avoiding different version), and this is the best they can do.

You can't ask GOG not to follow Court rules.

And as someone said before, there are many solutions to bypass this kind of filter...
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klaymen: Why did you make a deal with such twats like Namco?
When they wanted such things in the agreement, you had to give them a finger and not sign it. I am sure you would find better distributors instead of NB.
physical retail is the problem, i'm afraid. you can't put boxes and collector's editions on the shelves world-wide without a publisher with massive distribution channels that can move serious volume.

in this case i'd say CD Projekt should stick with digital distribution for their next game. they could use their own distribution channel (GoG) and be completely independent of the likes of Namco-Bandai or Atari.

there's a reason why companies like Paradox are going the digital route...

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cycyx: And as someone said before, there are many solutions to bypass this kind of filter...
that's pointless in this case. if GoG has to enforce regional pricing and availability then they'll have to make sure their customers agree to it, through the Terms of Agreement/License. by circumventing regional restriction you violate the terms you agreed to and risk your account. this goes for all digital distributors which have to enforce regional restrictions and pricing.
Post edited December 23, 2011 by Fred_DM
low rated
If Valve did this people would scream bloody murder but since it's CD Projekt/GOG people will praise them.
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TheFrenchMonk: Hope this clarifies everything!
The EU or whole Europe? We're not in the EU nor use the Euro as our currency, so where you'd you guys put us? Deal breaking would be if I have to pay $55 for a game when the US-based customers pay $40 for the same thing.

THERE IS NO JUSTIFICATION TO MAKE THE GAME MORE EXPENSIVE FOR EUROPEANS. NONE. THE BANDWIDTH COSTS THE SAME, EVEN IF ONE FROM MARS IS DOWNLOADING THE GAME.

^ yey, my own warranty-like sentence.

By the way, the game costs $40 at GamersGate, and I don't see why GOG cannot sell it at the same price.
Post edited December 23, 2011 by kavazovangel
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Skunk: I'm sure you can see my account information, and the ridiculous amount of games I've bought here, but that's the thing; I've invested in GOG, and mostly pre-ordered The Witcher 2 out of a desire to support a DRM-free store that provided equal pricing and content to all of it's users. One that knew that the best strategy to fight piracy was simply to ignore it, that piracy doesn't mean lost sales, and that customers must be treated equally. I am now filled with a sense of regret over that decision.
So you're saying that you preordered TW2 here to support this and that and now you're filled with regret because of this geo-ip pricing... but during preorder time the pricing here was determined solely by geo-ip! They removed it only for some time and now brought it back due to court ruling.

So basically the situation from your perspective didn't change a thing, yet back in a day you were supporting GOG and now you're filled with regret? Weird...
Post edited December 23, 2011 by d2t
Namco?

Eat a bag of dicks!

I assume CDP will never do bussiness with those twats again, and rightly so.
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Metro09: If Valve did this people would scream bloody murder but since it's CD Projekt/GOG people will praise them.
Steam already has region locks in place and their conversion ratio is unfair.
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adambiser: I don't remember reading this, but I'm curious how this applies to gifting. What if I buy and gift the game (from US) to someone who lives in another region (say Australia)? Do they get the version I paid for or do they get the version that they would get had they bought the game?
This is a good question, and I too would like an answer to it. Not that it'd apply to me as I did already buy the game, twice (physical CE, and GOG).

EDIT: That is, if anything has changed since the last time I read an answer to the same question - which said that the receiver would get their applicable version, not the giver's.
Post edited December 23, 2011 by Miaghstir