So there's a separate Australian version... Will it be clearly labelled as such, so that if someone gets incorrectly flagged as Australian then they can know beforehand and sort that out with support before payments are made.

I already have the game so it won't affect me, but someone else could get caught (for example, DotEmu was flagging me as European until I contacted their support to get that fixed).

Thank you for fighting so hard for your customers.

Aww, man this sucks, but at least the damage is contained to TW2 and is not site wide.

I hope that once the contract ends this can be remedied. I'm also boycotting Namco products as of today.

I don't remember reading this, but I'm curious how this applies to gifting. What if I buy and gift the game (from US) to someone who lives in another region (say Australia)? Do they get the version I paid for or do they get the version that they would get had they bought the game?

Agreed. I'm amazed they ended up dealing with Namco-Bandai in the first place. I thought GOG was founded on an understanding of the evils of fighting back against piracy and the burden of publishers, yet here we are. CD Projekt is sending out threats demanding exorbitant reimbursement, and GOG themselves have found themselves prey to the will of one of the worst publishers there is. Incredible, isn't it?

Now that Bamco has managed to have their way with GOG, what's to stop any other players from deciding that they want regional pricing and censorship? With the advent of new games on GOG, and CD Projekt's own game falling prey to the very sort of thing GOG was founded to avoid, I can't help but worry that there's a real chance of this snowballing into something ruinous.


It certainly doesn't help that TheFrenchMonk's post doesn't exactly clarify whether the version is determined by the Geo-IP of whoever the buyer is at the time of purchase, or the Geo-IP of the person actually downloading the game. I would assume it to be the former, like every other digital download store, but again, the answer was vague and I'm not particularly optimistic right now.

Either way, this sucks.



Sorry, TheFrenchMonk. I love GOG. That much should be clear. I'm sure you can see my account information, and the ridiculous amount of games I've bought here, but that's the thing; I've invested in GOG, and mostly pre-ordered The Witcher 2 out of a desire to support a DRM-free store that provided equal pricing and content to all of it's users. One that knew that the best strategy to fight piracy was simply to ignore it, that piracy doesn't mean lost sales, and that customers must be treated equally. I am now filled with a sense of regret over that decision.

The fundamentals by which this site was founded now has an exception. These fundamentals are now subject to change, and they can become little more than a guideline, a suggestion, an ideal.

Why did you make a deal with such twats like Namco?
When they wanted such things in the agreement, you had to give them a finger and not sign it. I am sure you would find better distributors instead of NB.

That's understood and I sympathize with your disappointment. My post wasn't meant as a reproach, I was just voicing my concerns. If I have a gripe, it's not with you guys but with the industry at whole. I'm pretty sure that GOG will stay the best DD service around for a long time, I just would hate "best" to mean "the least evil", and partly against your will and basic principles. The introduction of newer games seems to come with the risk of introducing other unwanted side-effects like this; but of course this one lost battle doesn't take away from your past victories and I'll continue to put my hopes in your resistance and perseverance.

To conclude with a French image, you're like that small village of indomitable Gauls that still manage to defy the mighty Roman Empire, because they stick to their pride and values, their community spirit and a magic potion full of secret ingredients. And by Toutatis, these Romans are crazy! Don't let them take over! ;)

You know, I think you can't blame industry to try and get more money: that's what they do.

The ones to blame here are the french judgment and government (and I know what I'm talking about...) for issuing such stupid decisions. I think this is part of their whole "trying to fight piracy and keeping good relationship with industries" -- our president really like his friends.

I'm sure GOG will do everything to keep their future release as DRM / limits free as they can (and try avoiding different version), and this is the best they can do.

You can't ask GOG not to follow Court rules.

And as someone said before, there are many solutions to bypass this kind of filter...

physical retail is the problem, i'm afraid. you can't put boxes and collector's editions on the shelves world-wide without a publisher with massive distribution channels that can move serious volume.

in this case i'd say CD Projekt should stick with digital distribution for their next game. they could use their own distribution channel (GoG) and be completely independent of the likes of Namco-Bandai or Atari.

there's a reason why companies like Paradox are going the digital route...

that's pointless in this case. if GoG has to enforce regional pricing and availability then they'll have to make sure their customers agree to it, through the Terms of Agreement/License. by circumventing regional restriction you violate the terms you agreed to and risk your account. this goes for all digital distributors which have to enforce regional restrictions and pricing.

If Valve did this people would scream bloody murder but since it's CD Projekt/GOG people will praise them.

The EU or whole Europe? We're not in the EU nor use the Euro as our currency, so where you'd you guys put us? Deal breaking would be if I have to pay $55 for a game when the US-based customers pay $40 for the same thing.

THERE IS NO JUSTIFICATION TO MAKE THE GAME MORE EXPENSIVE FOR EUROPEANS. NONE. THE BANDWIDTH COSTS THE SAME, EVEN IF ONE FROM MARS IS DOWNLOADING THE GAME.

^ yey, my own warranty-like sentence.

By the way, the game costs $40 at GamersGate, and I don't see why GOG cannot sell it at the same price.

So you're saying that you preordered TW2 here to support this and that and now you're filled with regret because of this geo-ip pricing... but during preorder time the pricing here was determined solely by geo-ip! They removed it only for some time and now brought it back due to court ruling.

So basically the situation from your perspective didn't change a thing, yet back in a day you were supporting GOG and now you're filled with regret? Weird...

Namco?

Eat a bag of dicks!

I assume CDP will never do bussiness with those twats again, and rightly so.

Steam already has region locks in place and their conversion ratio is unfair.

This is a good question, and I too would like an answer to it. Not that it'd apply to me as I did already buy the game, twice (physical CE, and GOG).

EDIT: That is, if anything has changed since the last time I read an answer to the same question - which said that the receiver would get their applicable version, not the giver's.