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Not impressed at all GOG. Changing your country post-purchase does nothing.
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Post edited May 11, 2011 by beedee
It has been suggested by the GOG staff, that the censorship is easily moddable, and "fan fixes" might hit the Intertubes soon after the game's release. Remembering how controversial the HotCoffee mod for GTA:SA was, I'd say that is quite a risk. And it shows how determined CDPR is to give us what they've promised eventhrough bending rules and loopholing arround contracts. These guys have serious cojones!
GoG doesn't make the rules... your country did. They have to comply with the law and the legal demands, so blame your government, not GoG.
Just started my preload and realised to my horror that I have the (AU) version (yes I live and purchased TW2 in New Zealand). What can we do to sort this issue out? The attraction of a DRM free game and bonus content is not worth this. Time to look into a refund. TW2 might just be joining my steam account after all.
Post edited May 27, 2011 by SamMikkelsen
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Murmaider: Just started my preload and realised to my horror that I have the (AU) version (yes I live and purchased TW2 in New Zealand). What can we do to sort this issue out? The attraction of a DRM free game and bonus content is not worth this. Time to look into a refund. TW2 might just be joining my steam account after all.
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SamMikkelsen: You could get a refund then change what country you live in via your settings... Presto! DRM-free version with no censoring.

Also, the censoring will be fixed by fans and all it does is remove the option to have sex or not with someone. The sex is mandatory in the censored version.
Mandatory sex? Well I better buy more copies...
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Murmaider: Just started my preload and realised to my horror that I have the (AU) version (yes I live and purchased TW2 in New Zealand). What can we do to sort this issue out? The attraction of a DRM free game and bonus content is not worth this. Time to look into a refund. TW2 might just be joining my steam account after all.
The New Zealand retail copies, New Zealand GOG copies AND New Zealand Steam copies of the Witcher 2 are all censored mate.

This was a decision of the publisher, not the developer CDPR and it was because they didn't want to stuff around with multiple versions or something like that.

Yeah, it's ridiculous.

And I'm sorry that you guys have the censored version and didn't change your country prior to purchase but yeah what can be said? They aren't going to refund you no matter what you do, no matter how mad you get.. They warned the entire community that the NZ and AUS versions would be censored
Post edited May 11, 2011 by Switch296
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Murmaider: Just started my preload and realised to my horror that I have the (AU) version (yes I live and purchased TW2 in New Zealand). What can we do to sort this issue out? The attraction of a DRM free game and bonus content is not worth this. Time to look into a refund. TW2 might just be joining my steam account after all.
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SamMikkelsen: You could get a refund then change what country you live in via your settings... Presto! DRM-free version with no censoring.

Also, the censoring will be fixed by fans and all it does is remove the option to have sex or not with someone. The sex is mandatory in the censored version.
The sex is not mandatory in the censored version, it is removed, this has been stated by the developers to Kotaku Australia. No idea where you got your information.
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TigerLord: GoG doesn't make the rules... your country did. They have to comply with the law and the legal demands, so blame your government, not GoG.
What are you talking about? New Zealand is not part of Australia. We have completely different laws and a proper R18 rating. I can understand why the publisher might source boxed retail copies from Australia since bringing over an uncensored batch from elsewhere would push up transportation costs, but for digital distribution this isn't acceptable.
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mirumu: What are you talking about? New Zealand is not part of Australia. We have completely different laws and a proper R18 rating. I can understand why the publisher might source boxed retail copies from Australia since bringing over an uncensored batch from elsewhere would push up transportation costs, but for digital distribution this isn't acceptable.
It's likely AU and NZ have similar territorial and contractual agreements with their distributors. You should understand studio != publisher. Sometimes, it's out of their hands.

What would GoG/CDProjekt have to gain by pissing their customers off like this? Nothing. I am 100% sure they're unhappy about having to deliver a censored product to AU, and a pricier game for their Oceanic customers.

They have to do it out of legal obligations or possible repercussions, like distribution rings threatening to sue because they can't gouge their local customers the same if there is a cheaper alternative out there. In which case GoG and Atari might lose the entire market if it goes to court.

I don't know the specifics, but often, publishers are responsible for these decisions, and since publishers will give some money to studios to develop the game in exchange for distributing it, and because CDProjekt is a small studio and is unlikely to have the leverage of the bigger ones in such decisions (the studio that developed Divinity II went through this as well), you need to show more understanding of the underlying issue.

There are EASY workarounds if you're willing to be just a little resourceful.
I was another victim of pre ordering with region set to NZ (that'll teach me for being honest!) and ending up with the censored AU version.

Censorship and region specific versions, release dates and pricing are the reasons why I dont buy PC games that much anymore. The Witcher 2 was the first PC game I was genuinely excited for. I wanted to show my support to the developers so I made the purchase.

But once again i'll be forced to source the 'real' version using other means.
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Jaydius: I was another victim of pre ordering with region set to NZ (that'll teach me for being honest!) and ending up with the censored AU version.

Censorship and region specific versions, release dates and pricing are the reasons why I dont buy PC games that much anymore. The Witcher 2 was the first PC game I was genuinely excited for. I wanted to show my support to the developers so I made the purchase.

But once again i'll be forced to source the 'real' version using other means.
You're not. Wait for the "fan fix", CDPR made the censorship easy to mod away. Remember the HotCofee controversy? So do they, and yet they made this move. If that's not supportworthy, I don't know what is.
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TigerLord: GoG doesn't make the rules... your country did. They have to comply with the law and the legal demands, so blame your government, not GoG.
No it didn't. My country has R16 and R18 rating that cover everything. GoG fucked up plain and simple.
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TigerLord: ...you need to show more understanding of the underlying issue.
Why? I mean that seriously. As a consumer none of that is my problem. If some underlying issue is allowing the laws of one country to affect another completely unrelated one then clearly it needs to be fixed.

I do understand where you're coming from, but expecting gamers to accept backroom business dealings as a viable excuse for censorship in excess of the laws of the land or price gouging is just not realistic. GoG clearly understand this given their largely smart response. The only flaw is that we in New Zealand had no expectation of censorship since generally speaking we do not receive censored Australian versions of games. Even games that get outright banned in Australia are usually released here without issue.
From what the Manager of my local EB has found out from the NZ suppliers, in this case all NZ copies of the Witcher 2 have been manufactured over in Australia hence the edited version.