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General discussion (archive)Witcher 2 Censorship - New Zealand is NOT Australia !!!(163 posts)(163 posts)
(163 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted May 06, 2011
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StingingVelvet: Man, I'm starting to think the whole Witcher 2 thing is tainting GOG a bit. Regional pricing, regional versions, "not DRM" patch client, etc. etc.. A lot of, in my opinion, anti-GOG stuff going on at GOG because of this game.

Not that I am actually riled up about it. I couldn't care less since I am buying a boxed copy in the US. Just saying it seems like this might have been more trouble than it was worth?
I'm holding off with my planned GOG copy... though I've already preordered the CE, so I'll get that as soon as it's released, but I'll wait with the GOG release until some restrictions are removed, the price lowered enough, or I get fed up with the discs, depending on what happens first.
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eyeball226: Hmmm, I thought that Namco Bandai owned Atari now...
Atari sold off their European parts to NB, unless I remember wrongly
Post edited May 06, 2011 by Miaghstir
Posted May 06, 2011
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SLP2000: Problably because they are the same market.
I think so.

Publishers still divide the world into "markets", regions if you want.

Atari Europe (sic) operates 4 markets : Northern Europe ( reference country = UK) , Southern Europe ( France), Eastern Europe (Germany), Australia & New Zealand.

Hence NZ ends up being enforced Australian regulations, whereas I get German ones.
Posted May 06, 2011
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eyeball226: Hmmm, I thought that Namco Bandai owned Atari now...
No, they just own portions of its international distribution "network".
Posted May 06, 2011
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PhoenixWright: The obvious answer is that money is far more important than art, and that compromising on principals is "more important" than someone not getting to play the game at all.

GOG would cut the game in half if your country's limitations prevented it from being too long, apparently, and prevent high graphics settings if your country's limitations prevented them from looking too good.

And yes, one of GOG's main draws was the availability of games without any consideration of which content went to which country. Shame on anyone who is supporting this nonsense, especially if you have no idea what it's like having content filtered before it gets to you. This is very offensive to the progress GOG was making in the game industry. What once looked to be the best release of a modern AAA game ever is sounding worse by the day, and it's a very sad thing. Piracy of The Witcher 2 is infinitely more justified than a game which has DRM because of this, and I'm very sad to say it.
About the piracy thing, you're wrong.

About all else, I for one was disappointed to see my copy of Witcher Enhanced Edition came with censorship of the sex cards in place. But alas, this is all the fault of moralist regulators that get elected to prohibit the distribution of certain films/games/music assuming that certain minorities might be offended by its content. Thus, new-zealanders everywhere just got protected from that allegedly offensive content, which must probably be the computer-generated graphic presentation of violence, sex and the consumption of in-game fantastic non-existent drugs.

So, to summarize:

1. CD Projekt makes great dark-toned fantasy RPG with characters engaging in dubious activities that in real life would be a threat to society (same thing happens in any shooter game);
2. People you elected to choose what you can or can't do say you'll be offended by seeing the 3D projections of aformentioned activities on screen;
3. Great dark-toned fantasy RPG by CD Projekt gets banned.

Now you HAVE to wonder wether or not these regulators enjoy gaming/music/films.
Post edited May 06, 2011 by RafaelLopez
Posted May 06, 2011
Wow. Gratifying to see that the community cares about what happens to little old NZ.

I'd like to take a moment to clarify that I personally am not choosing to boycott the game, or to pirate it. I'm just asking them to explain why the GOG copy has to change for NZ users when it could easily get an R18 rating here. I know the most likely answers to the question - costs involved in submitting multiple versions to the classification authorities, and Namco Bandai not wanting people to have an "uncensored" option and losing sales - but why speculate when I can just ask them direct?

I appreciate that the price for NZ users to pre-order from GOG.com has not changed yet (it has on steam) and I would like GOG/CD Projekt to extend the same courtesy of advance warning to NZ customers should they have to change the price here as well. It's easy for NZers to get their backs up if they think they are being ignored or treated as a "suburb of Australia".

I would like to support the Devs and buying it from them direct means they get the whole $$ purchase price. I also quite like GOG and find them pretty good as a digital retailer overall.
To their credit any pre-orders placed before the price hike will be honoured at the $45 USD price, and anybody buying at the new Aussie price will get a store credit on GOG.com for the difference.The answers they have given in the DRM thread show me that some of the annoying rigmaroles that other publishers put us through after giving them our money are sensibly dealt with.

GOG have always tried to be responsive to their users, I figure that since I would prefer a non-censored version I can ask them some difficult questions to see if I can get them to change their plans.

So once again GOG.com / CDProjekt - please explain?
Posted May 06, 2011
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eyeball226: Mmm... this all sounded so fantastic back when TW2 was first announced to be coming to GOG.

What's the point of it being here if it's not DRM free, isn't available universally worldwide and isn't the same price worldwide? CDP might as well have sold it from their own webpage.
I think this was in some respects an accident. The censorship issue and cost are ones which they might have expected had they more experience with new games. With old ones the regions where they'd need to be censored are much more well defined.

But yes, it definitely is unfortunate. If it turns out to be a server problem as cogadh points out, I'd like to see them just not carry a copy on that server, although I doubt that that's reasonable.
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MaxNormal: Wow. Gratifying to see that the community cares about what happens to little old NZ.
We definitely do care. We also care about the Aussies here that are getting screwed over by their elected officials. And for us Americans who frequently have to put up with games where the sex aspect gets dumbed down or censored.

The reality is that in a democracy a huge number of people can end up living under laws that are not of their liking.

Worse though are cases like this where people living in other countries suffer for this sort of silliness in other countries.
Post edited May 06, 2011 by hedwards
Posted May 06, 2011
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iuliand: It is not like it is massively censored. Just a quest where you can't have sex as a reward, big deal.
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nondeplumage: Censorship is always a big deal. It's only not if you're not aware how badly it's been abused to fuck people over, and proof that morally confused righteous assholes think they can invent victimless crimes.
This is not that kind of censorship. It is more like visual censorship. And it is imposed by the Australian law in order to protect the feeble minds of their teens.
Posted May 06, 2011
I too am very displeased with this. To lump an entire country into the same bracket as Australia is idiotic. We have a robust and accomidating ratings system. Unlike Australia we have an R18 rating for video games. Please GOG have some respect for our sovereignty
Posted May 06, 2011
Looks like this goes well pass good old games, as the NZ suppliers of physical copy's at least some are getting the Oz version, so I'm assuming that all of them are.

D2D simply lists it as not being available in Australia or NZ and steam seams to be applying the price bump
I'm getting quite disheartened at what is happening to this DRM / region free release
Posted May 06, 2011
I just don't get it. We hold different laws and have an R18 rating.

On top of this, the whole selling sex for favours/money is actually legal in New Zealand. Prostitution is legal and fairly normal thing in New Zealand and has been so for years.... which is bonkers considering the real act is actually legal but the video game version isn't...... WTF?
Posted May 06, 2011
Is it that the people who are distributing it to Australia are the people who are distributing it to New Zealand as well?
Posted May 07, 2011
It's probably a cost-effective thing. Since there's been no explanation, I can only assume that because of our countries being so close to each other, it's just cheaper and easier to ship the one copy to both countries, and the digital version censored to prevent people all going retail. Probably the same reason the publisher has artificially inflated the price of the GoG version for Australians as well, so that there's more incentive to buy the actual physical copy.

I think anyway, I'm no business major, or why a publisher would be so eager to push the physical copy.

In any case, I apologize to the new zealanders on two fronts:
- That our separate nations, while close both physically and culturally, are often mistaken for each other
- That it's gotten so bad that our shitty laws are now beginning to affect you guys
Posted May 07, 2011
GoG I am disappoint.
Posted May 07, 2011
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PhoenixWright: Piracy of The Witcher 2 is infinitely more justified than a game which has DRM because of this, and I'm very sad to say it.
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TheEnigmaticT: I was unaware that piracy was ever "justified". It can be, perhaps, "rationalized", but that's rather different.
Yet it's okay for GOG to rationalize breaking with its stated principles?

Anyway, I don't understand why GOG can't offer the uncensored version for download to Australian (and NZ) customers while CDPR's physical distributor offers the censored disc version for sale in Australia. Appealing to an "unfair advantage" doesn't make sense; how is censored versus uncensored any more of an advantage than DRM versus DRM-free?

As the OP phrased it:

Please Explain.
Post edited May 07, 2011 by ddmuse
Posted May 07, 2011
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TheEnigmaticT: I was unaware that piracy was ever "justified". It can be, perhaps, "rationalized", but that's rather different.
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ddmuse: Yet it's okay for GOG to rationalize breaking with its stated principles?

Anyway, I don't understand why GOG can't offer the uncensored version for download to Australian (and NZ) customers while CDPR's physical distributor offers the censored disc version for sale in Australia (and NZ). Appealing to an "unfair advantage" doesn't make sense; how is censored versus uncensored any more of an advantage than DRM versus DRM-free?

As the OP phrased it:

Please Explain.
In a way GoG already broke some promises they made with the new wave of Atari games they've been releasing. They said we'd find out what all of them were on the same day, but they told us a white lie and only slowly released them over the course of a few weeks. That's false advertising.
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Community
General discussion (archive)Witcher 2 Censorship - New Zealand is NOT Australia !!!(163 posts)(163 posts)
(163 posts)