The obvious answer is that money is far more important than art, and that compromising on principals is "more important" than someone not getting to play the game at all.

GOG would cut the game in half if your country's limitations prevented it from being too long, apparently, and prevent high graphics settings if your country's limitations prevented them from looking too good.

And yes, one of GOG's main draws was the availability of games without any consideration of which content went to which country. Shame on anyone who is supporting this nonsense, especially if you have no idea what it's like having content filtered before it gets to you. This is very offensive to the progress GOG was making in the game industry. What once looked to be the best release of a modern AAA game ever is sounding worse by the day, and it's a very sad thing. Piracy of The Witcher 2 is infinitely more justified than a game which has DRM because of this, and I'm very sad to say it.

But the question is, who is. That matters more than anything.

Thing in this world ar far from being black and white. There are always all kind of interests and limitations that have to be met.
So maybe you should think a little bit before jumping into accusations and hasty conclusions. Do you think GoG would have not give Australians the same version as everybody else get, if this would have been possible? Did you prefer them to say "this game will not be available at all in Australia" instead?

edit: And why are you so pissed anyway? You are not from Australia or NZ, so this does not apply to you. Or are you looking for an excuse for yourself to pirate the game?

No no no no no. Easier to justify anything as a call to pirate the game instead.

So now that you're here, what's the word with this?

I don't see where I made any accusations or hasty conclusions. Of course GOG would give Australia the same version if they weren't limited by laws. All I said in my post was that GOG would probably follow their laws almost regardless of what they had to do to get the game over there, to try and illustrate why it's important.

And yes, I would prefer that Australia not get the game. Yeah, I realize this is a ridiculous argument. But if I was the head of GOG this is the decision I would make, because it's an important artistic limitation that's being imposed.

Now, all that said, my disappointment with GOG expressed, I'm sure it will be easy to re-enable the content. Yeah, they're doing the best they can while still getting the game to Australia. But filtering content for your public is not okay, and change needs to occur. If more companies would refuse to butcher their content and provide it to Australia under the current limitations that change might happen sooner. That's the outlook I would take as a content provider.

An argument from someone who's never had to keep employees, and keep those employees from starving.

"Justified" is a strong word, but here's the definition I see on ninjawords: A reason, explanation, or excuse which provides convincing, morally acceptable support for behavior or for a belief or occurrence.

Content filtering is pretty much the only thing I can think of that would make piracy nearly essential for anyone who is seriously interested in games. Now, if I lived in Australia, I would buy the game and then "pirate" a real version, and something tells me that would probably not even be looked at as piracy by anyone except perhaps Australia's legal system (I guess I have no idea how imports are looked upon).

I'm not trying to say you guys deserve to be screwed. A quick look at my account page will let anyone know I'm a big fan, of which you have many and will always continue to have.

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Take a look at the Google/China situation. Google almost did it, but... yeah. They buckled in the end.

You accused that GoG is after money no matter what.

It is not GoG's decision to sell or not in Australia. Have you thought that they may have not be allowed to sell at all if Australia is not part of the deal? And ultimately is the customer's decision if he is fine buying a game stripped of some content, not your decision, or GoG's decision. I'm sure there are people in Australia that don't bother if the game is censored but they want the game anyway.

I don't think it's fair to only grab that portion of my post and respond to it, but do as you will.

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It seems that is a very common way to get non-Australianised versions of various games currently, so while I'm sure local retailers don't like it, I doubt there's any sort of legal troubles going that route.