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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 23, 2011
Well CDPR, this shows again that you should be very careful when choosing your partners. In other words: don´t do business with any company that propagates DRM bullshit of any kind.
Fair pricing is part if that.
Post edited December 23, 2011 by jorlin
Posted December 23, 2011
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hedwards: You misread what I wrote. Guilty only applies to criminal law, in civil law you're found to have committed a tort or basically to be responsible, they still have to demonstrate that you're most likely resonsible.
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Leroux: Granted in that case, but you misread what I wrote, too, unless you intentionally choose to ignore it. I'm not accusing CDProjekt Red of sending letters to people who haven't pirated their materials, I'm talking about the possibility of that to happen without CDProjekt Red finding out about it, and about the general reliability of the method they're using. And I'm not basing my information on any articles from any possibly piracy-supporting sites but on the literal answers of CDProjekt Red to the questions of a RPS blogger. And none of your objections treat the issues of stress and cost for someone trying to prove their innocence.

Anyway, I don't feel like argueing about it today and going around in circles again. You have your opinions, I have mine, and it adds up to nothing. I'm going to leave the discussion at this point and do something useful. Or at least play a game. :D
You weren't, other people were, it's hard to keep the language sufficiently clear as to who said what about whom. My point there was that if the German legal system is essentially guilty until proven innocent in the civil law set up that's a much bigger problem than just a matter of companies trying to enforce their rights.
Posted December 23, 2011
I don't know what things were discussed about in the Court, but Geo-IP is not a good way to go, since nearly everybody can use proxys today. The only reason I see for such an action is for taking more profit. The "just" exchange rates from Steam, for example, are well known worldwide (and we, the europeans, are always who have to pay more for the same thing).
It's nice to see CD Project fights for the customers rights!
Posted December 23, 2011
Ok now why French Court can decide for whole world ?

I don't see a reason why you need to even abide to france laws... You have the license for whole world did you ?

Or is it that french lawmakers don't like their people ?
Posted December 23, 2011
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Perkel: Ok now why French Court can decide for whole world ?

I don't see a reason why you need to even abide to france laws... You have the license for whole world did you ?

Or is it that french lawmakers don't like their people ?
Okay, let's not push this into extremes ;)
- this is not French government suing but a company that's located in France (Namco Bandai Europe) so it's kind of obvious they selected court in France rather than Republic of Nagorno Karabakh ;)
- If law worked as you suggest, Namco would have to sue CDP separately in every single country of the world (which could be pretty amusing, but that's now how things work :)
- on more serious note, any contract pretty much always includes a clausule which court will deals with any claims from any of the parties.
Post edited December 23, 2011 by d2t
Posted December 23, 2011
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Fred_DM: erm, every digital distributor does that. and that's because publishers want it. have you never noticed that physical copies have been regionally priced for the last 270 years at least? just because games are now also sold digitally this doesn't simply end.
I just stated the obvious for the user I replied to. Didn't you notice?
Posted December 23, 2011
Can GoG clarify a couple of points which weren't clear in the press release?

- If we've purchased a copy of Witcher 2 prior to this change, will we still be presented with the unmodified version when we go to download?

- Are there any other games that these changes may apply to, and can they please be labelled appropriately so that buyers understand what this change means? (this is the first I had heard of the Witcher 2 Geo-IP issues). The Witcher 2 catalogue page doesn't indicate the changed downloading conditions anywhere.

- Is the Geo-IP location determined by the location we indicate that we're purchasing the product from, or is it on no matter what when we go to download the games (see first point above)

Thanks - Matt.
Posted December 23, 2011
Thanks to GOG.com for your transparency.
Posted December 23, 2011
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wormholewizards: I gotta be honest here, the massive price for video game in Australia ad E.U. are quite ridiculous. Fortunately GOG.com offer free games as compensation. But i guess the game is censored version for Aussie and NZ?
Yeah my concern is that New Zealand keeps getting lumped in with Australia. Australia has a maximum rating for games of Mature 15+ whereas New Zealand has a maximum rating of R18. The publishing companies keeps lumping us together to save shipping cost etc so we end up being forced to buy the censored version of games because of Australia's stupid laws.

I bought my version of the Witcher 2 from gog precisely because they allowed us to change our country and be able to buy the uncensored version.

Will GOG differentiate between Australia and New Zealand?

Because if you do not then I definetly won't be buying the censored version of any future games from here. I will have to import it from elsewhere because I refuse to be forced to have Australian censored games even though our laws allow for the uncensored version.
Posted December 23, 2011
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hedwards: You weren't, other people were, it's hard to keep the language sufficiently clear as to who said what about whom. My point there was that if the German legal system is essentially guilty until proven innocent in the civil law set up that's a much bigger problem than just a matter of companies trying to enforce their rights.
We get it....you're pro corporate. Moving on then......
Posted December 23, 2011
damn you Namco Bandai, you are the reason I got the censored Australian version from gog originally. I'd read the initial pages from GOG before release that said uncensored same version everywhere, had missed the updated info that things hand changed so bought it under my Australian location at fullish price. Since I don't even have a system yet capable of playing it well boy did I get screwed. I'd never pay full price for a censored version from an online channel what is the point of that. I'd even seriously have to think about buying it on special in a censored form.

Still would like to know about gifting though like others have asked. If I gift for a friend from overseas do they get the Australian version (where I am) or country their account is setup for. Please GOG answer this one for us.
Posted December 23, 2011
Cripes. Not the stupid "save the poor pirates" debate again. There are three or four flamewars about that in the forums already. Boycott GOG all you want, I'm going to go enjoy some games.

Take your offtopic ranting to the proper venue, please. I prefer browsing GOG without hearing all the repetitive shouting about boycotts. We're here to be said about Geo-IP, so let's do that.

:(
^
Me
Posted December 24, 2011
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summitus: Well I was thinking of getting this but I dont think I will be now ,

Why dont GOG just remove it from their catalogue ? This seems to go against everything they stand for .

Or maybe I'm overeacting not sure with this really ... what does everyone else here think ?
As an economist, I can understand the rationale from the folks at Namco Bandai for wanting to impose this restriction. I also think that these people are f***ing morons and need to be chained up in solitary confinement for the next 20 years.
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jorlin: Well CDPR, this shows again that you should be very careful when choosing your partners. In other words: don´t do business with any company that propagates DRM bullshit of any kind.
Fair pricing is part if that.
Sad isn't it? It's like wherever they turn to, they face adversity. First Atari, now Namco Bandai ... well at least Atari didn't pull any stunt for Witcher 1, to give them credit where due.
Post edited December 24, 2011 by lowyhong
Posted December 24, 2011
Tell me if I'm wrong but wasn't The Witcher 2 already more expensive for euro buyers?

And I fail to see all the implications of that system...

What does this all mean, please?
Posted December 24, 2011
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PenutBrittle: Cripes. Not the stupid "save the poor pirates" debate again. There are three or four flamewars about that in the forums already. Boycott GOG all you want, I'm going to go enjoy some games.

Take your offtopic ranting to the proper venue, please. I prefer browsing GOG without hearing all the repetitive shouting about boycotts. We're here to be said about Geo-IP, so let's do that.

:(
^
Me
I agree. Go shout and boycott each other in that thread.
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Community
General discussion (archive)The Witcher 2: update of our Geo-IP policy(282 posts)(282 posts)
(282 posts)