I hope my reply didn't come off as snarky or condescending. I was just having fun with a meme.

No but a word of warning, try to avoid discussing such things in the forums.

Many have openly discussed this option in the past - nobody got banned from GOG or had their games revoked for it.

Don't confuse some legal mumbo jumbo, that got written in a ToS only to put GOG on a (theoretical) legal safe side, with actual legal meaning.

Using VPNs is legal in most countries.
And GOG knows, where the money is made.

GOG's part in a region block is done, as soon as they prevent a user from accessing a region blocked game, by ordinary means.

By doing that, they already abide to the demand (by a country or a CR holder), to region block certain games.

GOG is NOT an extended arm of other countries' law authorities, much less is GOG enforcing other countries' laws.

There is also no country in this world, that would expect GOG to do so.

And that goes double, if the region block is "only" requested by an CR holder - which holds zero legal authority, besides the right of any CR holder, to decide in which countries they want to sell their games, and in which they won't.

Are you saying that if I use a VPN to buy this hyped game even though I am in JAPAN and the publisher is in JAPAN then GOG could be affected?

As far as i see it, GoG is simply adapting to the publishers (in some cases it could even be a certain Country) wishes and as long as the ones with even more leverage, i guess i do not need to tell the name, is not against this sort of practice... then there is no one that could say "no", except the one with the biggest leverage, just to state an "easy fact".

Now as far as i can say: The Asia regions has been "locked out", this is not new to GoG, it is the same everywhere. It seems like Konami does not want to provide a English version in any of the Asia-regions including Japan. This is not even unique, it is a practice used by many Japanese publishers. For whatever reason, they simply want to keep the Asia market separated from the "English territory", for this reason even the Japanese voice has been removed... so Japanese text only, it seems.

The "law situation" is always difficult but in general i do recommend simply NOT to unnecessary offend some parties involved if there is no real chance of improving the current situation. It is okay to express the "discomfort" regarding region locks (somewhat a low grade DRM i say) but there is no need to escalate it further by discussing some possibly illegal tasks. The right-situation is not clear... true because there are many different parties involved with different views, including the own country: Yet this is simply not the right place bringing it up because a lot of political views involved... and escalations for no reason... or no possible solution.

People can be sure, it is not toward GoGs interest because they lose a important market... and it is some sort of DRM practice, based on the account at least.

More likely it is toward the interest of the biggest PC platform, as they openly... since the very beginning, was supporting any sort of DRM methods including country locks... even between different EU countries which was even considered illegal, so they had to revoke it by a EU law enforcement. So yeah.. Gabe Newell is not the most innocent CEO on earth... but this is simply how it currently works, no need to bring it up "way to loud"... if so... you (people) should point at the ones who truly could change matters.

Ultimately, simply enjoy the game, yes it is a great game, indeed.

At this point, i still want to thank Konami for making it happen... a (mostly) DRM free release and even for the "fair pricing" in my country, which is less than 10% away from US prices... so, it seems fairness and not to much greed is still possible for many publishers.

Just don't bring too much attention to it boyo.

When we're talking about the copyright holder literally saying you can't have the game if you're in a certain place, I'd say there's no "low grade" about it.

Low grade because we have a mix between "no DRM" and "full DRM", based on the account and its location, somewhat a hybrid or "low grade". Indeed, to those affected it is surely "full scale", i absolutely agree... i just state a "general" condition as a whole.

Fact is... Japanese gamers, in their own country, are in many cases forced to use "Japanese only games", simply a version of a game that has been made for "Japanese only". This is not new at all... in the history of video games, there has been many games that has been labeled "Japanese only", it was always some sort of "locked out" market... locked out toward the rest of the world. In many cases the Japanese themself was supporting it, because "outsiders, gaijins" was incompatible. To some extend, it has been somewhat accepted even outside this regular "online environment" affecting offline games or games with only limited online functions for even more reasons: Publishers simply want to avoid any Japanese (and some other Asian nations) able to get foreign territory games, because for Japan they seem to use "special rules" and "special prices" to be blunt... as it seems to grant them more money this way, to tell it in the most direct way possible, and nope... their country is surely not against because "protectionism" is deeply rooted at certain places... including protecting their surely valuable "entertainment industry".

To GoG it surely is a difficult decision, either accept this sort of "hybrid DRM" or simply avoid getting any of those games... I guess, because GoG got MANY western, especially US gamers, they surely rather chose simply to go along with it, else they fail to support their most important market.

Do I have to say it? Instabuy :)

I was investigating this "region lock" issue even more but, no matter how much i read about, only few official stuff is known, actually close to no statement from Konami.

The only thing i can say, again, is this whole "JP and/or Asia market issue which in many cases has been split apart from the "western market". In general not much more than this. However, since the raise of Steam as a big platform, the region lock which can now be done in the most easygoing way possible (no need to use hardware support anymore, the account will handle it all) and with the full support from this platform, even some specified single countries could be "locked out" at their fingertips, apparently Ireland as an example. In this case against EU law, and not sure it is still being executed because Valve/Steam (together with the publishers involved) was already losing a court case.

Sources:
Region lock:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Steam/comments/2zplhp/why_cant_metal_gear_rising_be_purchased_in_asia/

Failed Geoblocking court case, considered "against the EU law":
https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/16to07m/valve_fails_to_get_out_of_paying_its_eu/

I think, internally, Konami had the intention to release 2 or maybe even 3 different versions with "own market rules" and with a Japanese voice included for the Asia/Japanese version. For some reason they fail to execute it and the only "finished version" left is the western version, for countless of years. So, internally there seems to be some "clusterfuck" with different parties which for some reason simply either can not agree on the terms or can not get it done how it was intended.

In the end... the gamers in Japan and Asian nations are the ones who simply have to deal with this... if we like it or not, At least the western GoG version was possible, which i do consider a important step already.

I am actually quite pleased that GOG was able to release MGRR. It is a PS3 era game, but crucial in the fact that not only is it a Konami title, but it is also a Kojima Productions title. This paves the way for other great titles from Konami/Kojima such as Castlevania Lords of Shadow and Castlevania 2 from the same era. Who knows...we might even get MGSV Ground Zeroes and Phantom Liberty. One can hope.

As for people lamenting that MGRR has no extras over the STEAM edition, I rebut that GOG need not have made any changes as this runs on modern systems, isn't really ancient in age, and the issues with the game (resolution/framerate) are not OS related, but rather poor coding from Platinum games. Those issues can be overcome though with minimal effort.

Al in all, a stellar title, a stellar release, but a high price.........that I consider a future investment for Konami allowing more titles to be released here in the near future.

Excuse me for being blunt, so i am not exactly "riding this hype train", even though it is indeed a "Platinum Games" with "Kojima" being a important force on its development, so it surely is real stuff in theory.

However, it can be seen as some spin off from the Kojima-Productions, rather light hearted, yet still great. The music... the OST, is surely one of the greatest thing in the game history, so those who got good ears may not be able to resist.

The issue i actually got is the bad PC port conditions, and Konami did not improve a single thing in all those years... so technically the GoG version is still the "good old Steam shape", with removed DRM, thats it.

Now what is the issue? This is simply a somewhat cheap port taken over from the PS3 source with close to no settings at all, simply they way it mostly was performing on a PS3. Indeed, even on PS3 it was already very smooth because it was one of the games with great optimization... and i dare to say, it was probably even running better than on most PCs because the settings are somewhat screwed up. Either 30 FPS only or have to use windowed mode with still frame spikes because it does somewhat limit itself to 59 FPS; and the border will not go away without some external tool (do not ask me what to use, best is not having the need at all). Ultimately, simply a lot of "screw ups" in order to get it to run properly.

Now, i dont know if any good mod might become possible, or is even available already, but this surely would be a high demand here.

Basically, it is a bit challenging because it need several fixes at once:

-Support for custom resolutions above 1080P
-Support for stable 60 and preferably even 120 FPS (without drops)
-Support for borderless windowed mode

For the custom resolution above 1080P this may be useful, but all the other tools are just not working properly or a nuisance to me (always have to boot it up at game start). https://www.nexusmods.com/metalgearrisingrevengeance/mods/1

Perhaps Konami should ask https://games.ph3.at/ for tuning it... it surely will run awesome after. Konami simply is a, currently, somewhat problematic company but they surely got many awesome games.

Sure, i still got me the game, less because of the "what a awesome condition", more because i want to support releases here.

I have a bit of a problem when it comes to blade mode and precision cuts. It seems that sometimes when moving the pane I can cut just by letting lose of the stick (as it is described in the vide I linked above) but sometimes I have to actively move the stick to the other side of the pane to make him cut. Is this the way it is supposed to be?

Edit: Nevermind. Used type B controller and cut by using a button. Works fine now :)

And now... Mass Effect? AC Black Flag? Octopath? Street Fighter 5 ?! Rise!

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