another win for the greedy publishers. the only reason they care about this is so that they can keep game pricing artificially high in some regions just like steam does.

i had hoped digital distribution would be this glorious equaliser that would free us of allt his BS, but sadly not. its just another method for publishers to keep a stranglehold so that nothing changes, and the digital age doesnt bring equality and change to gaming.

i mean why go digital if i can pop down to the store and pay EXACTLY the same price (who am i kidding, publishers are totally ignorant when it comes to digital) - actually its usually CHEAPER to buy from a store, and it takes me 10 minutes to go down, buy it, and get back home - and i have a nice tangible copy.

At least if you buy online you don't run the risk of that 10-minute drive turning into a three-day search for a retailer that actually has the item in stock. And if you buy from GOG then you don't get the DRM crap. But I agree, this practice of charging more in some countries than in others, for no good reason other than "because we can," is seriously shitty. It affects all online distribution, from GOG to iTunes.

Angry people don't want to pay - I think this is near the heart of the piracy issue.

Not a bug - there is only one version that can be distributed to Aus/NZ due to Namco-Bandai - and that is the censored release

Finances of a company are "self-contained", that is, they have their own books, their own taxes to pay, their own charter etc etc. The owners may move money in and out of the company (taxes, laws and regulations may apply), thus if the same owner(s) own multiple companies, money can flow from one to another.

So, yes, the money you pay to GOG may end up enriching people at CDPR, provided that GOG makes enough money for the holding company to want to take out money from it (which they probably would have to pay taxes on, at least in Norway they would have to), and then decide to put that money into CDPR.

It's also quite possible that the money you spend in your local grocery store somehow finds it way into the pockets of a drug dealer. That doesn't mean there's anything wrong about the carrots you buy there, though.

The management of the holdig company is likely represented both as shareholders (obviously) and as members of the company's board (here you can demand a seat if you hold 5% or more of the stocks). The holding company may instruct its representative(s) as they please, and they will vote accordingly. The composition of the board decides the outcome (each board member has one vote regardless of how many shares are backing them, the chairman's vote counting as two in case of a tie). As a shareholder they only get to vote on the most basic important stuff, and here it's the actual shares that do the voting, e.g. if you have 30 out of 50 shares, your vote would be 60%, which is a 'small' majority (some votes, like changing the charter requires 2/3 rather than 50+% etc).

The above is a simplification of it but the bottom line is that while the holding company may (indirectly) have a say in how things are done in CDPR at the level where the piracy-hunt was green-lit, GOG has had absolutely no say in the matter. They are a completely different company.

Those who boicot GOG to get at the holding company in order to get at CDPR are hurting people that had no say in this at all a lot more than those who had. I remember when it was 'political correct' to boicot South-Africa - it didn't hurt those intended much (if at all) but resulted in a lot of really poor people getting even poorer.

Everyone should decide for themselves, obviously, but this - like everything else - isn't just black and white.

Is too a bug. Just not one caused by bad code.

I'm already well aware of these general considerations regarding corporate structure, finances, and governance. What I was looking for here was more specific considerations from someone with an inside perspective on how the finances and management of GOG and CDPR actually work in practice. Basically, if GOG is being unfairly lumped in with CDPR over this matter this is an opportunity for them to extricate themselves by providing some information beyond what is already general knowledge.

What I do not understand is why you need to keep the figure while changing the currency. If a game is worth 10$ in one country, why can't it be sold for 6 euros in another, and this be at the same value? I am not sure if 10$ are equal exactly to 6 euros, but I think you get the point.

funny fact about geo-ip:
Microsoft detect me as being in Russia
Google as being in the Netherlands
TW2 pricing shows in $
I'm currently in France, 40km away from the Swiss border.

Digital may be priced unfairly, but your retail copies are about 10-20% cheaper(on release date) than continental Europe's (after price cuts it just becomes ridiculously cheap). I order my games from the UK specifically because of this.

Most of the following questions have been asked already in this thread, but I don't think there have been any answers yet:

- Is there any official statement on how this works with gifting?

- Is there an (official) overview of price and particularly game differences between countries? (Specifically, are there countries other than Aus/NZ where the TW2 game itself is different?)

- Is the Geo-IP-determined location at the moment of purchase the only relevant one, or is there any consequence to the location determined at a subsequent moment of download?

- Is there somewhere in one's Account pages where one can see what GOG's system considers the Geo-IP location to be for the internet connection one happens to be on at a given moment?

- What recourse is available if the location determined by GOG's Geo-IP system is incorrect?

- Can one tell after purchase which location version of a game one has? If I understand it correctly, GOG has always distributed a censored version to Aus/NZ, users were just free to select a different location to avoid getting one. This suggests there should already be some note somewhere in one's account pages to reflect the version.

I'm also very curious about "the version" differences for users, JeroenB above mentioned but mainly:

* What exactly is different between "the version"? Just stuff like available languages? Or actual version numbers, aka v2.0.1 hasn't been approved outside US yet, so they still get v2.0.0? Or actual censorship like no blood?

* Was GoG really already sending out different versions to different users based on the location the user set in their profile?

* What other games in the GoG catalog give different "version" based on the users location? Is Witcher 2 the only one?

Many thanks for the clarification.

Only Witcher 2 has different versions for different regions as far as I know. I would too like to know what the differences are thou.

Oh right, GoG has the european version of Fallout, that means with children taken out of the game. It has that version worldwide and you can use a simple patch to get them back, but ... Eh, it's weird that they got this version.

They've answered this one for me a few months ago:

1. The censored version is missing a sex scene
2. Yes. This meant there was a handy work-around for those of us who live in New Zealand and SHOULDN'T be receiving a censored game.
3. No other games.

You know what I hate? If the game costs R$40,00 here in Brazil, it would be awesome. But I know it won't; the retail version of Witcher 2 here in Brazil costs R$99,99 (something around $55), in some stores it costs R$114,99 ($62); if GoG put this game here for something around these prices (like that grotesque Origin does), I wouldn't buy this game. At least not here. I know it isn't GoG's fault. But Namco Bandai.... oohhhh if I get you... You would regret that.

Wha? Really? Good to know... I'll keep my boxed game only.