I just received a reply from Bandai Namco and it looks like they intend to ignore the issue now:
Thank you for getting in contact and we are sorry to hear you are not satisfied with the replacement supplied.
Each statue is individually painted across 10s of thousands built globally, and in some ways the quality of that work is in the eye of the beholder.#
We personally checked these statues against others before sending to you as very aware you were unhappy with the paintwork previously, and can only say it was inline with the others we had at the time here. Which raises the problem that sending you another will result in the same outcome.
If you are still unhappy with the quality we can only suggest one returns the complete collector edition package to the retailer you purchased it from for a refund and purchase the standard edition of the game separately as we do appreciate it is a large investment to be unhappy with the quality.
We apologise for the inconvenience and if required will try to assist in whatever way possible, and maybe, if you decide to return, let me know the retailer details so we can advise them directly as you may now be over the allocated return time.
We look forward to your reply and many thanks,
Seriously, what the fuck?! "...in some ways the quality of that work is in the eye of the beholder." How can anyone look at these statues, see the careless sub-amateur paintwork, shoddy assembly, broken parts of the statue just painted over and think "yep, those look ok"? This is insulting. How can anyone say this with a straight face?
I've been a big supporter of CDPR, I pre-ordered The Witcher 3 at GOG as well as my Collector's Edition and bought several gift keys as Christmas presents for friends. I trusted that CDPR would make things right if there were any problems; they have their good reputation because they've previously been very customer-friendly. Back when The Witcher 2 launched I had pre-ordered it at GOG as well as the CE, and my TW2 CE came with a broken Geralt bust, but CDPR made things right back then. This time however... given the silence from CDPR since my initial emails back in May and Bandai Namco's response here it's not looking good; this is an immense disappointment
Guess I'll be contacting Marcin again :/
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Honestly if it was just a case of poor paintwork I'd probably just repaint it... I have a little basic experience with model painting & the painting by uDock is so atrocious I think I'd have to deliberately do a bad job to do worse. However that isn't really an option due to the physical damage/defects with the statue :/