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.
Atari sold off their European parts to NB, unless I remember wrongly

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.

No, they just own portions of its international distribution "network".

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.

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?

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.
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.

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.

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

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

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?

Is it that the people who are distributing it to Australia are the people who are distributing it to New Zealand as well?

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

GoG I am disappoint.

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.