How many staunch region-free advocates own any of the following?

https://www.gog.com/gamecard/commandos_ammo_pack
https://www.gog.com/gamecard/commandos_2_3
https://www.gog.com/gamecard/hotline_miami_2_wrong_number
https://www.gog.com/gamecard/quake_ii_quad_damage
https://www.gog.com/gamecard/quake_iii_gold
https://www.gog.com/gamecard/return_to_castle_wolfenstein
https://www.gog.com/gamecard/wolfenstein_3d_and_spear_of_destiny

Do they boycott all regionally restricted titles on Steam?

No, I want GOG to do age verification for those games (in that case most of the games would be completely legal to buy in Germany) or at least give us the censored version (which would also be legal).
I even boycott Steam. ;)

It doesn't bother me too much I suppose, though I have a hard time seeing what games it would "lure" here - it seems like a very small niche.

Though I'll openly admit when it comes to GoG, the things I'm interested in are

1) DRM Free and

2) The account system

Beyond that, I know people were up in arms about regional pricing and such but as far as I was concerned all it did was... get a ton of amazing games here. Of course, my water mark is that listed above. So I can see why someone would say "I'd rather NOT have GAME X than Regional Pricing" in the same way that I'd say "I'd rather not have GAME Y than DRM" ...

well I can't "quite" see it ;) as DRM seems a lot more of an intrusion than paying a few bucks more / less up front for a game... but you get the idea ;)


*EDIT* LOL for "thinks" and "w(h)ere ;)

It seems many Japanese publishers would be open to releasing their games here but, for whatever convoluted reasons, don't want their games available to their own countrymen via GOG. In that scenario, why deprive the rest of the world DRM-free versions of these games because of one country?

Says the poster, who based on their geographic location, would rarely have the necessity to resort to a VPN to purchase region locked games. If you written a multi-platform, easy to follow, step-by-step guide on using a VPN that is publicly hosted and freely accessible please feel free to share it.
As opposed to a, "I don't care if significant portions of other geographic locations can't easily have it, I just want more games!" type attitude?

Because Japanese publishers are not very bright these days. Though that's like saying grass is green to me, lol. :P

I was going to post the same, i remember back then when people (not here) were ok with the Nintendo Humble Bundle being available only to North and South America and wondering how interesting would be to see their reactions if it was the other way around.

Btw, did gog or any publisher even said that those games aren't available here to due to region restrictions or is it all speculation?

I thought the catch is that they can't be advertised / put on display -- you have to specifically ask for a restricted game by title -- thus, no online sales evar. Is it wrong?

And how do they do age verification online?

Well they already did so for their own game The Witcher 3 along with a whole bunch of others so I'd say it would be a given to implement the same for other publishers if regionally restricted games become more common on GOG.

Why reward a publisher that so staunchly seems to want to engage in such anti-consumer practices?

Well I know I can get Hotline Miami 2 gifted to me if i really want it, so it's not a guarantee.

You make it sound like this has never happened before or doesn't happen now. It's just that most people in the US could give a damn about certain games (like some sold for a japan only audience) and even so, there are ways to get them anyway.

Nobody is going to do it for a game that is mass market (which I'm not sure there are any that exclude the US) because of potential $$$ lost.

I'm curious about where forum users lie, so for curiosity's sake I made a Straw Poll: http://strawpoll.me/6844126

So just show me the gamecards when I search for the game and only after the age verification (that would be the same like asking for the game in a retail shop). And there are some accepted ones for Germany, e.g POSTIDENT.

Oh, no. I think that is an extremely bad idea. I expect the indirect and direct consequences to affect more users and at the same time more severely than there are people who would benefit from getting censored versions easily.

As you said before, we are allowed to buy most regionally restricted games as adults but the existence of censored versions makes it harder to actually get an uncensored version.
If many games would get censored version for specific regions (I think that's already the case for the Witcher 2/3), accounts might get limited to a certain region or downloads won't be available in certain countries - Both make it impossible to buy a/play your game even if it would be legal. Many people will buy a game without knowing that they don't get all the content and even if it were be legal they couldn't ever gain access to that content on their account once they pressed the download button.
Gifting will most likely be restricted.
We won't be able to know for sure anymore whether we get all the content, languages etc- we probably won't get all the content.

The way regionalised versions are currently handled is extremely anti-consumer because we aren't informed properly (and you can't expect the ones trying to make money to inform customers properly), there are often no legal reasons for the censorship because most censored games mustn't be sold to minors in the first place.

It depends on whether the game has boobies in it or not.