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General discussion (archive)The Witcher 2: update of our Geo-IP policy(282 posts)(282 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
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 30, 2011
Sorry to bother everyone... I'm still confused. I tried to read through the thread, but I'm a bit slow. I'm not too familiar with different regions, versions, and pricing.

I live in the US. If I buy TW2 on January 3, will it be the exact same version of the game as if I bought it on January 2?

Thanks spindown :)
v
Post edited December 30, 2011 by AdamR
Posted December 30, 2011
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AdamR: Sorry to bother everyone... I'm still confused. I tried to read through the thread, but I'm a bit slow. I'm not too familiar with different regions, versions, and pricing.

I live in the US. If I buy TW2 on January 3, will it be the exact same version of the game as if I bought it on January 2?
Yes. Only people from countries that don't pay in US dollars will be affected by the new regional pricing. And the game is only censored for people in Australia and New Zealand.
Post edited December 30, 2011 by spindown
Posted December 31, 2011
Well I'm just happy cdp didn't do as most publisher do:
23.99$ = 23.99€ (meaning we'd pay the equivalent of 31,05$)
Posted January 01, 2012
I'm not too concerned about GeoIP. Whatever GoG says, I'm definitely not posting this from the UK, and I know I didn't bother using one of my overseas identities to sign in here, because Commonwealth countries censor the crap out of their media on a routine basis. Never mind Germany -- it's not a real game until it has the Blood Is Red, Not Green patch installed, am I right, friends?

It's cheap and easy to be from another country on the Internet. Look into it. It's more trouble than stripping DRM from a retail-store game, but not much. -- Even Google has an off-center scattergram idea of where I am, when I'm not even making an effort; I'd hate to depend on The Evil G for an alibi in a criminal trial. GeoIP can probably be spoofed. Just spitballing here, but I think it's a fair guess.

FWIW, the language in the USA version of Iron Storm is seriously filthy whether the speaker is German or Russian, and the only way it's censored is with vaguely accurate subtitles (when they appear at all). Is this true everywhere? "Dude, that's totally not what the guard just said. Not even. I mean, damn."
Posted January 01, 2012
GOG should stick to their guns and refuse to sell The Witcher 2. The entire model depends on community goodwill which is quickly being eroded. I certainly am pissed off about this. How long before further compromises are made? With an attitude like this, I certainly wouldn't be surprised if a form of DRM started worming its way in later down the track.
Posted January 01, 2012
Please don't overreact. It's just natural for a company to help, promote goods from their sister / parent company.
Posted January 01, 2012
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jimbostyx: GOG should stick to their guns and refuse to sell The Witcher 2. The entire model depends on community goodwill which is quickly being eroded.
Since the beginning it was stated that Witcher 2 was an "exception" and not a normal GoG release. And even then the region restriction is neither CDP nor GoG decision but a court decision on which they have no control.

The only thing you could blame CDP of would be to have not checked thoroughly enough their contracts to make sure that they were authorized to release W2 the way they did, and again they made this mistake while trying to be more "customer friendly" so you can hardly hold a grunge against them about it .
Posted January 01, 2012
:( BAD BAD BAD BAD, especially because some silly editors (like Sega) apply the German fascist censorship here in Switzerland... my God I hope everything will not be fucked up.
Posted January 02, 2012
Always interesting to read peoples opinions and interpretations of the situation presented here. I'll throw in my 2 cents worth.

Implementation of Geo-IP is a court decision to give companies a peace of mind that users aren't liars; GoG trust us, but other companies are under the impression we lie, cheat and steal on a daily basis. They do it to continue to provide everyone with the products they've purchased. For GoG, it was a matter of doing the least damage; implementing Geo-IP will annoy people under principle, refusing to would mean removing The Witcher 2, which means Everyone who purchased it has lost access to their merchandise; something which goes against GoG's morals more than having to track someone's location so the Eye of Sauron doesn't send the Nazgul at them.

Despite that, GoG compensate for when they're legitimately unable to make prices uniform. It's more expensive in Australia? Here, have some coupons that provide you some credit equal/near the difference. Frankly, I don't see what peoples issue is here.

People are hyped on the principle but are underwhelmed by the practical. GoG are following their principles in as practical a manner as they can. They continue to give everyone access to the merchandise they've purchased, they continue to work hard to provide us with free goodies and a friendly approachable face who listen to our concerns. And they continue to fight the good fight, even when their own users accuse them of falling or are absurdly indifferent.

GoG are still hands-down the best digital distributor we have. If I could shake hands with everyone of them who make it possible I would.
Posted January 02, 2012
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TheFrenchMonk: As TheEnigmaticT is currently stuck in the marvelous (*cough cough*) Paris Charles-de-Gaulle airport with no access to the Internet, please let me clarify what using Geo-IP means for future (starting from today) purchases of The Witcher 2.
Il est encore en vie!
Posted January 03, 2012
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jimbostyx: GOG should stick to their guns and refuse to sell The Witcher 2. The entire model depends on community goodwill which is quickly being eroded. I certainly am pissed off about this. How long before further compromises are made? With an attitude like this, I certainly wouldn't be surprised if a form of DRM started worming its way in later down the track.
If you're seriously pissed off at GOG for this then you're being incredibly stupid. This is a court order, not their own choice. They basically have two choices with this court order. Piss off everyone who bought Witcher 2 from them by taking it off the site so they can't download it again, or annoy some people by adding GeoIP for ONE game.

If they were adding this for all their games, maybe you would have a reason to be upset. As is, however, they are doing the bare minimum to comply with a court order. I can't hold this against GOG. If you're going to blame anyone, blame Namco Bandai for taking this to court in the first place.
Posted January 03, 2012
Geo IP , does have it's flaws. Know one site that uses it but not for prices. They use it to show what time a web chat show will be on. and sometimes it makes a mess. Heck I go to CNN sometimes from Iowa... and it tells me I seem to be outside the states. o_O since when was Iowa part of another country. don't think the politicians for the last several months would like that. :P Gotta love courts that are way behind the times making rulings they don't understand..
Posted January 03, 2012
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DarkUltima: Despite that, GoG compensate for when they're legitimately unable to make prices uniform. It's more expensive in Australia? Here, have some coupons that provide you some credit equal/near the difference. Frankly, I don't see what peoples issue is here.
Perhaps I'm not interested in store credit obviously but rather merely the non gouged price. Regardless I and others have mentioned the use of US VPN's a few pages back and GoG have remained silent on the issue by not replying which I will interpret as them not caring. An annoyance to be sure, but I'll continue to not be ripped off.
Posted January 03, 2012
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DarkUltima: Always interesting to read peoples opinions and interpretations of the situation presented here. I'll throw in my 2 cents worth.

Implementation of Geo-IP is a court decision to give companies a peace of mind that users aren't liars; GoG trust us, but other companies are under the impression we lie, cheat and steal on a daily basis. They do it to continue to provide everyone with the products they've purchased. For GoG, it was a matter of doing the least damage; implementing Geo-IP will annoy people under principle, refusing to would mean removing The Witcher 2, which means Everyone who purchased it has lost access to their merchandise; something which goes against GoG's morals more than having to track someone's location so the Eye of Sauron doesn't send the Nazgul at them.
To be fair, we those of us in the Crappy Hemisphere were (subtly) encouraged to lie about our locations in order to get the non-censored version of TW2...

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DarkUltima: Despite that, GoG compensate for when they're legitimately unable to make prices uniform. It's more expensive in Australia? Here, have some coupons that provide you some credit equal/near the difference. Frankly, I don't see what peoples issue is here.
Although the price issue is infuriating, the main issue was the quality of the product. In Australia and New Zealand, our higher purchase price bought a censored version of the game. This is particularly infuriating to New Zealanders, as we have never had a law banning the sale of R-rated video games, so changing the location was not so much a lie, as a work-around for the problem caused by the distributor.

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DarkUltima: People are hyped on the principle but are underwhelmed by the practical. GoG are following their principles in as practical a manner as they can. They continue to give everyone access to the merchandise they've purchased, they continue to work hard to provide us with free goodies and a friendly approachable face who listen to our concerns. And they continue to fight the good fight, even when their own users accuse them of falling or are absurdly indifferent.
As it's only those of us who live in low-population countries at the end of the Pacific Cable who are affected, it is no surprise that there has been no mass uprising. You yourself say you "Frankly [...] don't see what peoples issue is here". Anyway, I'll stop moaning now because I need to pack my possessions into boxes, as I'm moving to Britain. Not just so that I can play with Triss's digital boobs, though they are a contributing factor. (Actually I seem to already have an uncensored version of TW2 on my hard drive somehow. Well, I'm told Britain is nice anyway.)

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DarkUltima: GoG are still hands-down the best digital distributor we have. If I could shake hands with everyone of them who make it possible I would.
There we agree. I may even make a trip to Poland for that purpose.
Post edited January 03, 2012 by BreathingMeat
Posted January 03, 2012
I see peoples points better in relation to my own original opinions.

I'm not sure if I said it before but I'm under the impression people's grievances are against the wrong targets.

I harbour more against those who manipulate and coerce GoG into bending their own rules just to be as faithful to their customers as possible, almost as much as I harbour a grudge against my own government that decides I as a 22 year old cannot determine myself what content I am willing to expose myself to in the video games I play.


Maybe it's just me though.
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This is my favourite topic
Community
General discussion (archive)The Witcher 2: update of our Geo-IP policy(282 posts)(282 posts)
(282 posts)