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General discussion (archive)The Witcher 2: update of our Geo-IP policy(282 posts)(282 posts)
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Posted December 23, 2011
GOG.com Implements Court-Required Changes; Uses Geo-IP to Determine Location for Witcher 2 Purchases

If you’ve been paying attention to news about the CD Projekt RED group, you’ve possibly heard that a French court made a judgement about a few things that were in dispute between CD Projekt RED and Namco Bandai Partners. Most of the decision doesn’t influence GOG.com, but one of the rulings from the court does: according to the findings of the court, the method that we have been using to determine what location a game purchaser is located at when they buy a copy of [url=http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/the_witcher_2]The Witcher 2 (and, as such, what version and price they are presented with) needs to be changed.

GOG.com has stated for a long time now that we believe that the best security is asking only for the minimum of information that we need to successfully transact business with our customers. Our opinion is still that including things like determining your location via Geo-IP, because there are several possible flaws with that system. However, in order to keep selling The Witcher 2, we will need to implement a Geo-IP based system for determining your location, per the orders of the court.

We will be implementing this system immediately; you will see that your local currency’s price is now featured on the product page when you visit it, based on your IP address. Since we've already announced the price for this game would be the same flat price everywhere during the Holiday Sale (which ends on January 2nd, 2012, at 23:59 EST Time), we’re not going to change the pricing for the Witcher 2 until this sale ends.

We remain committed to user privacy and keeping your information as safe and secure as we can. Further, while your profile’s location is, by order of the court, determined via Geo-IP when you purchase a copy of The Witcher 2, you can still set your country location for the forums as you would like, and your location doesn’t matter for buying any other games on GOG.com.

If you have already purchased your copy of the Witcher 2, we won’t be changing anything on your already-bought copy, just as if you had a boxed copy on a physical shelf instead of a virtual box on your GOG.com shelf.

If you have any questions about this, please feel free to ask it the comments below, or (if you’re a journalist) drop us an email and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can.
Posted December 24, 2011
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jefequeso: Guys... you're overreacting again.

Also, why are some people taking about boycotting GOG? As far as I know, they had absolutely 0 control over any of this.
Keyword again. I admit sometimes I get mad too easily but crap, not for stuff like this. Must be hell living with members who snap over the littlest things.
Posted December 24, 2011
I am kind of worried now. I live in the UK but I am currently on holiday in Austria. I bought The Witcher 2 while in Austria. What implications does this have for me?
Posted December 24, 2011
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Future_Suture: I am kind of worried now. I live in the UK but I am currently on holiday in Austria. I bought The Witcher 2 while in Austria. What implications does this have for me?
No implications at all.
Posted December 24, 2011
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Future_Suture: I am kind of worried now. I live in the UK but I am currently on holiday in Austria. I bought The Witcher 2 while in Austria. What implications does this have for me?
Absolutely none. It is not retroactive and only thing that changes through geo-ip is pricing and censorship(in those countries where aplicable). You could worry about the data taken through geo-ip, but I think that gog.com is worthy of our trust.
Post edited December 24, 2011 by Nettle
Posted December 24, 2011
Thank you for trying to do the right thing GOG.

For all of you saying boycotting Namco Bandai would make a difference, you are sadly mistaken. All publishers act in the same way, and the problem is not the digital copies but the physical copies.

There's a clause in these publishing agreements which prohibit the digital version from being sold for less than the physical versions. And that is where all the price differentials come from.

If there were no physical copies than a publisher would be much less important and developers would have more sway to get things like a constant world wide price.
Posted December 24, 2011
I think after reading this thread with interest , I have come to the conclusion that there is nothing GOG can really do about this except maybe remove the Witcher 2 from their catalogue , but that would be bad for business and bad for us as customers, So I personally have no problem with this ... however because of the appalling bully tactics by CD Projekt RED group , it would probably leave a bad taste in my mouth if I still went ahead and bought it , so I may just wait and see what happens , I can not buy a game from a company that openley uses intimidation and downright appalling tactics like this to extort money from people who may not have even downloaded their game in first place.

Still love GOG though and will carry on supporting them , its just a little sad that they are associated with a disgusting company like CD Projekt RED :(
Post edited December 24, 2011 by summitus
Posted December 24, 2011
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Paul_cz: No implications at all.
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Nettle: Absolutely none. It is not retroactive and only thing that changes through geo-ip is pricing and censorship(in those countries where aplicable). You could worry about the data taken through geo-ip, but I think that gog.com is worthy of our trust.
Thanks, guys. That's good to know. Since Austria is the much smaller, German speaking neighbour of the ever so censor happy Germany, I was pretty worried.
Posted December 24, 2011
It's a shame that things have to be this way, but I understand that CDProject/GOG has no real hand in all this.

An even bigger shame is the amount of complaining in this thread. Most publishers or digital distribution platforms wouldn't even take the time to explain things like GOG did here. And I'm glad they did.

Even though I already own the Witcher 2 here on GOG, it's still a shame this has to happen when CDProject clearly put a lot of time into making it a fair and pretty much DRM-free product. I hope this doesn't discourage them for doing it again the future.
Posted December 24, 2011
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Fred_DM: so, all of this is because of Namco-Bandai? i guess it's time for CD Projekt to ditch that sad lot and distribute their next game exclusively through GoG.com, on their own. is that possible?

customer-unfriendly and money-hungry publishers have pushed around developers and customers alike for way too long.
I would love for that to happen and I would put even more effort into spreading awareness of GOG and their very gamer friendly policies. =]
Posted December 24, 2011
It might be interesting if someone addresses in detail what the introduction of Geo-IP to The Witcher 2 changes for every region. Please? Someone asked earlier in the thread and was completely ignored.

So far what I've gathered is that Australia will be monumentally screwed, and with them New Zealand and the rest of Oceania apparently, with a higher price and censored/cut version, right?

In Europe the game also has a higher price, but how will the game itself be affected? Germany is notorious for censoring games, so I'm guessing they're going to have a cut version? And the rest?

The US keeps the price, but I'm unsure if there are any differences in regards to the version they get. Witcher 1 was cut/censored in the US (or was that just the retail version? I forget), what about Witcher 2 was it also cut/censored?

I didn't see any mention of what happens to Asia, Africa and South America. How are us folk from the third world affected by this?
Posted December 24, 2011
Like some of you might know.. Witcher 2 was the reason I joined in here or shall I say that I found this site because of that. Last minute pre-order.
Back then It didn't cost me much less than in elsewere but there were those couple of games that came with it (which I chose poorly of course).
Anyway, after sales I don't login but just go and look at the € price tag. A bit curious.
If it is just one game which I already bought months ago, it's not a big deal.
If there will be many others unfairly priced, that's not good.

Also, some french court? Weird world.
Posted December 24, 2011
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Metro09: If Valve did this people would scream bloody murder but since it's CD Projekt/GOG people will praise them.
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Lovag: Steam already has region locks in place and their conversion ratio is unfair.
Their conversion ratio is indeed a joke. I recently noticed that some games aren't just priced at the same number while in different currencies, but some games are priced at a lower number in a lower value currency to boot. For example, some game on Steam was recently priced at 2.49$ and 3.99€. What?
Posted December 24, 2011
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jefequeso: Guys... you're overreacting again.

Also, why are some people taking about boycotting GOG? As far as I know, they had absolutely 0 control over any of this.
GOG made tons of profit from the sale of the witcher2. Also, CD Projekt is GOG's parent company. So it makes sense to boycot GOG in order to put pressure on both GOG and CD Projekt.

Aside from the Geo-IP and 'same price everywhere' issues, there is the greater issue that GOG's parent company hire some mafia-tactics company to issue threats to gamers. This is not OK in any context. This is borderline criminal activity. To send a letter to someone asking them to pay hundreds of euros or risk being prosecuted for tens and hundreds of thousands of euros and be ruined financially... this is not a laughing matter!

CD Projekt and GOG must learn that something like this must never again be repeated .. or even considered.
And until they learn that they won't see one cent more from me.

I still support the great business model that GOG has and their philosophy in general, but I think that standing by and accepting evil acts only leads to the propagation of evil.
Posted December 24, 2011
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Lovag: Steam already has region locks in place and their conversion ratio is unfair.
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Future_Suture: Their conversion ratio is indeed a joke. I recently noticed that some games aren't just priced at the same number while in different currencies, but some games are priced at a lower number in a lower value currency to boot. For example, some game on Steam was recently priced at 2.49$ and 3.99€. What?
Steam is unfair even beyond the meaning of the word but at least when games are in sale, they cost what they supposed to cost originally when they were new and shiny. =)
Still there are 3 or 4 of those thousands of games which are cheaper with euro.

Edit: And it's almost time to check those todays deals.
Post edited December 24, 2011 by Antimateria
Posted December 24, 2011
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shadi.lahham: GOG made tons of profit from the sale of the witcher2. Also, CD Projekt is GOG's parent company. So it makes sense to boycot GOG in order to put pressure on both GOG and CD Projekt.

Aside from the Geo-IP and 'same price everywhere' issues, there is the greater issue that GOG's parent company hire some mafia-tactics company to issue threats to gamers. This is not OK in any context. This is borderline criminal activity. To send a letter to someone asking them to pay hundreds of euros or risk being prosecuted for tens and hundreds of thousands of euros and be ruined financially... this is not a laughing matter!

CD Projekt and GOG must learn that something like this must never again be repeated .. or even considered.
What are you smoking? This Geo-IP tracking was put into place because of NamcoBandai (Retail publisher for TW2) not liking how GoG/CDProjekt are selling the game for less then retail, because they aren't getting a cut from the GoG sales.

Also, Did I read a different statement then everyone else? I didn't see anything about threatening customers, or mafia tactics at all. NamcoBandai won a suit with a french court and as a result, the court ordered GoG/CDProjeckt to put this system into place...

If you are that butt-hurt about it, just don't buy more copies of TW2, the statement even says this is only in effect for new purchases of TW2 post holiday sale. All other titles are still being sold as normal.
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General discussion (archive)The Witcher 2: update of our Geo-IP policy(282 posts)(282 posts)
(282 posts)