No, I don't think he's saying that. You can legally go from Germany to another country, buy an indexed item and then take it back into Germany provided you aren't going to further distribute it when in Germany. I don't know if GoG does do payment location checks as I've not run into these myself, but for users registered in certain jurisdictions they might do it. However, there are quite a few payment options that you can use and I'm sure that at least some of these won't be linked to Germany/Australia.

Technically, using a VPN falls under the "a bit dodgy" category as the user would be physically in Germany and subject to German laws when making the purchase (even though the purchase itself would be carried out via a third country). It would be an interesting one to see argued in a court of law.

That being said, the restrictions are pretty dumb - anyone within a half hour drive of the border could easily get in their car, drive to e.g. Holland, access the internet via a Dutch mobile phone provider and just buy the game legally.

Yeah, weird. According to the Brothers Grimm, that's a pretty traditional finisher, fit for children even.

Gawd, I am not telling you that at all.
I'm just telling you how the system generally works.
Whether GOG stick to the letter of that I don't know. A store like Amazon certainly does.

And for sure, if you visit in person, you are there buying locally.

Digital can be and often is a different matter, and VPN can only disguise your IP, it cannot for instance disguise the country listed on you Visa Card or what is reported by PayPal, etc. So if any store checks for that, and sticks to the letter of the law regarding that, then you are out of luck.

I am certainly not saying I agree with any region nonsense, because I don't.

You sound like you have tried that, so I will take your word for it, though I have some questions.

I imagine it is short-lived though, as cookies are a requirement these days, and I imagine you get the Cookie Agreement query again.

Do you just clear GOG Cookies or all your cookies?
And if just GOG Cookies, what do you use to make that simple and quick?

So basically you are logged into GOG, and then clear your cookies, then I imagine you have to logout and log back in again, because until you do that GOG already have received the cookie information.

I would have thought that upon logging into your account, that GOG then recognize you and your country, to show correct prices etc. I would have also thought that using your account would require automatic cookie acceptance too ... but maybe not.

GOG certainly have the odd loophole, that I have experienced by receiving Gift Codes for games not available to me in Australia. Maybe the cookie scenario is another one?

But I've yet to hear of someone from Germany for instance, claiming they got a banned game by using a VPN.

I've certainly tried the Opera browser which has a VPN (kind of) ability built in, to grab a few banned demos at GOG, but that failed ... and those require no payment. It was having to login to my account that appeared to make it fail ... and there was no cookies at play.

Is that 99% a fact or just a guess, because that is not my experience with Amazon, and I have always found other stores like Kobo or Google Books or Apple to follow suit with what is available to me for purchase.

I made an account with the US Amazon store years before the AUS Amazon store came into existence, and I never swapped over, so my account is still with the US Amazon, and I see the odd ebook not available to those with an AUS Amazon account.

However, many many ebooks available to those living in the USA are not available to me living in AUS. I know this for a fact, having on many occasions checked using VPN. But often I don't even have to do that, because if I have a direct link, as regularly provided to me by the BookBub site, I just see a message at Amazon where the ebook price and purchase button usually are, that says THIS EBOOK IS NOT AVAILABLE TO YOU.

If I had to hazard my own guess, it could be as high as 50% of ebooks available to those in the USA, are not available to me in AUS ... or if they are, the price is often two or three times dearer, well over what you could allow for cost of living differences and GST.

All to do with region nonsense and special publisher deals.

P.S. It might be a bit different for those living in some other countries, but here in AUS we have a small number of big publishing companies, that call all the shots, and they are still living in the dark age when it comes to ebooks, and local bookshop protectionism. I have a friend in India for instance, that gets less restrictions than I get, so it could well be the same in places like China, Britain, etc.

Steam actually does this. Apparently your account is tied to the physical location you created it in. Which means that, if you have an account that was made in Germany and that you made purchases with and then went to France, once you log in you get the gutted German storefront.

Just use a private browser window. That will automatically require you to log in and create a temporary set of cookies for whatever country you selected in your VPN.

I have of course tried that, even using the Tor network.

I have had better luck using the VPN that the Opera browser provides, but still no banana. As soon as I login, GOG seems to know instantly (without cookies) where I am from when it comes to purchasing ... even if a free demo. Unsurprising really, as it would be stored in my profile, and not reliant on IP.

For sure, and a similar thing happens for Americans when traveling abroad.

If I was able to acquire an American credit card, which requires an American home address, then I would be able to fool the Amazon system. There are those from AUS etc who have spent some time in the USA and done that, and continue even though they are now back in AUS etc.

I could of course, get an American friend to take out a credit card account for me, but it would always be in their name, and liable to penalties for me or them if found out. In reality, I would never truly own any ebooks purchased that way, not in a court of law, so I might as well have gotten pirate copies.

That's weird because I was able to buy Stranglehold simply by "relocating" to Austria for a moment. All I needed was a run-of-the-mill VPN and a private browser window...

Does Opera have a VPN location setting? For speed, a lot of VPNs just default to a local server, which works okay for anonymisation, less well if (for whatever reason) you wish to appear to be in a different country.

I know that some websites also maintain a list of blacklisted IPs, which tend to be VPN servers. Let's say you were watching a player from a hypothetical state funded national broadcasting corporation which didn't have adverts - there's a constant battle between the servers changing IPs and the system catching up...

It has a limited selection, one of which is Americas, another is Europe, and another Asia. Beyond those three I don't really recall, but there was at least one other, and I think Europe might have had a slightly different name, Asia perhaps too.

I think they may regularly change what the IP is, and I have certainly come across instances where the one I have used has been blacklisted, usually defeated by selecting another for a while and then changing back, so likely dynamic.

That said, it worked as far as being able to view a game page I normally couldn't at GOG. Just the moment I logged in, everything changed.

It occurs to me now, that I probably selected No Cookies, in fact I feel fairly certain I always did that, instead of allowing them for the new IP. If so, then maybe that was a mistake on my part. Still I have had issues with GOG before, which I use via PayPal, and did not want to have that messed up again, so just being cautious.

That seems... stupid. Very stupid. I can't believe that they haven't been sued over that. I can go to Switzerland to buy Swiss goods, but if I'm shopping online, I'm still buying my home local? That's absolutely ridiculous.

From what I have read, Opera's VPN is not a true VPN, though they call it that, and it has limited location choices, just being a few generic ones, though as I stated earlier, is likely dynamic with IP.

It certainly is stupid from our, the customer's perspective, and totally annoying.

However, if they could have been sued, that would have happened long ago.

Region zoning has been around a long time, even before DVDs I believe.
When it comes to books and ebooks for instance, it is all about deals with publishers, where only certain publishers are allowed access to Aussie markets. The whole thing stinks, as there is a pretense going on that books and ebooks are the same product, when apart from subject matter they are vastly different mediums. And many readers, especially older persons need the benefits an ereader gives ... font size etc.

In Australia, we are often not allowed access to an ebook version, only a physical book version, yet the ebook version is sold in the USA, often by more than one publisher.

I and many others now only want to buy ebooks, we are digital readers, but the big publishing houses here often say too bad ... if you want the book you have to buy the physical one ... and that often goes on for years. I am pretty sure they only start to relent when enough physical books have been sold, initially with very high ebook prices, then eventually with more reasonable ones ... if you are lucky.

They promised years ago, when ebooks first started to gain mass appeal, that they would protect local bookstores, and they have stubbornly adhered to that stupid nonsense, instead of moving with the times. Of course, the few big publishing houses here had a lot of power and control back before ebooks appeared, especially with pricing and other market controls. In fact, when I first started doing online purchases, it was for physical product that was either not available in AUS or very hard to get ... mostly talking about books and CDs and DVDs. In fact I nearly got everything I had wanted for years during that period, before things went digital. I have a lot of secondhand hardcover books from American and Canadian libraries.

It was also back in that period, that many gamers realized we were being taken for a ride here in AUS with game prices, that were often twice and even three times what you would pay in the USA. There was at one point a public outcry, and a supposed investigation, but like with shonky fuel price investigations, nothing came of it. The Music Industry in AUS also did a similar protectionist deal with the Government over CD pricing for imports.

P.S. I am not against protecting local stores, but in many cases it should be a phasing out kind of protection, not to continually make those old style or limited stores thrive at the expense to consumer's options and choices. Certain types of physical books will always have a large demand ... children's books for instance, and books where even a large tablet/ipad cannot do justice.

It wouldn't need to be quite that drastic. A lot of American credit card companies allow for the purchase of gift cards with a set amount assigned to them, such as $10, $25, $100 etc. for a slight purchase fee of a few dollars, that work exactly like credit cards for online purchases but don't require a line of credit or verified personal information.