Namco Bandai Games to distribute The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt in Australia and New Zealand

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Question for Australians and New Zealanders.

Is censor ship still bad there? Will blood and mutilations be censored for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt?

I saw a YouTube video for Left 4 Dead or Left 4 Dead 2 where the Australian version was censored no blood and no mutilations or unless that was German I can't remember.
 
Ballowers100 said:
Question for Australians and New Zealanders.

Is censor ship still bad there? Will blood and mutilations be censored for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt?

I saw a YouTube video for Left 4 Dead or Left 4 Dead 2 where the Australian version was censored no blood and no mutilations or unless that was German I can't remember.

Blood and mutilation sounds like German censorship. Australia tends to censor sex, drugs, or nudity presented as an incentive or reward. Even after the introduction of R18+ last year, Saints Row IV and State of Decay were refused classification and had to be edited due to depictions of drug use.

New Zealand has a completely different classification system. The OFLC gave the games Australia refused to classify an "R18" rating. There's an instructive discussion of how the OFLC works at http://www.classificationoffice.govt.nz/about-censorship/how-state-of-decay-was-classified.html#newdomain

But the nearsightedness of big distributors being what it is, it does not seem likely that New Zealand will receive an edition different from Australia's.
 
GuyN said:
Blood and mutilation sounds like German censorship. Australia tends to censor sex, drugs, or nudity presented as an incentive or reward. Even after the introduction of R18+ last year, Saints Row IV and State of Decay were refused classification and had to be edited due to depictions of drug use.

New Zealand has a completely different classification system. The OFLC gave the games Australia refused to classify an "R18" rating.

But the nearsightedness of big distributors being what it is, it does not seem likely that New Zealand will receive an edition different from Australia's.
Then the YouTube video of Left 4 Dead or Left 4 Dead 2 was the German version.

So that means the nudity in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt will be censored in Australia?
 
Ballowers100 said:
Then the YouTube video of Left 4 Dead or Left 4 Dead 2 was the German version.

So that means the nudity in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt will be censored in Australia?

No idea what Australia will censor. Their censors are really unpredictable. The key phrase is "incentive or reward"; they come down hard on anything where sex or drugs looks like a Skinnerian reward (push the right buttons, you get sex). In TW2, the scene they had all the trouble with was the one with Mottle, the whore Geralt rescued in Flotsam. In that scene, it is clear enough that Mottle is rewarding Geralt for saving her life by putting out for him.
 
JackinTheGreen said:
Well, I would be glad if Namco stays out of distributing Wild Hunt in South America... My plan is to buy several regular copies and I dont like them one bit... :p/>

Why don't you like Namco?
 
JackBauer24 said:
Why don't you like Namco?
I'm guessing because of stuff like this: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.299321-Namco-Bandai-Sues-Witcher-2-Studio
 
ReptilePZ said:
I'm guessing because of stuff like this: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.299321-Namco-Bandai-Sues-Witcher-2-Studio

That's terrible. Why are they partnering again? Bizarre.
 
GuyN said:
No idea what Australia will censor. Their censors are really unpredictable. The key phrase is "incentive or reward"; they come down hard on anything where sex or drugs looks like a Skinnerian reward (push the right buttons, you get sex). In TW2, the scene they had all the trouble with was the one with Mottle, the whore Geralt rescued in Flotsam. In that scene, it is clear enough that Mottle is rewarding Geralt for saving her life by putting out for him.

Let's just hope that for Australia and other countries sensitive to certain matters TW3 release will go smoothly, other countries will not be affected and get full versions with all violence and sex CDPR came up with.

So it seems their big publisher is aiming at 2014 release. OK, we shall see.
 
JackBauer24 said:
That's terrible. Why are they partnering again? Bizarre.

"Go big, or go home." They're making distribution deals for a title they expect to make nine figures from. In the markets outside of Eastern Europe, the big distributors are the ones with the ability to get the most shelf space and run the best promotions. That means dealing with the likes of Warner Interactive and Namco Bandai, or accepting less in sales.

It's business. Only fools hold grudges in business.
 
GuyN said:
But the nearsightedness of big distributors being what it is, it does not seem likely that New Zealand will receive an edition different from Australia's.
Unfortunately, this is the case. If Australia demands that content in a game be censored, then the distributors give NZ the same treatment, even though the NZ classification system would allow it. The only exception to this being when games are outright banned in Australia, such as Manhunt or BMXXX, in which case NZ gets the game anyway.

It is incredibly frustrating to know that a game you enjoy has been butchered because of another countries policies. Thankfully, GOG recognizes the difference between NZ and Australia, and I have had no problems getting uncensored content from them before (TW2 when it was first released). CDPR showing how it's done.
 
Yea Australia is stupid. You can walk up to a whore & throw 150 Orens at her & get a Sex Cutscene... But if a Succubus or Elf wants to give you Sex as a reward for saving them, oh no no no, we can't have that! Australian version just simply removed the Mottle & Succubus options for Sex, you simply just get the one like "Bye" option.

Thankfully though this was fixed pretty quickly & you could download a few files which added them back in, but it is just fucking absurd. You have a R18 rating, which assumes people only 18 & Older will be playing it, yet you still ban certain Drug/Sex moments. However they got away with a fair bit in GTAV, like you could just take a hit from a bong & the "Drug Quests" were still in the game, so perhaps things are changing & TW3 will be free from any stupid scene removals...

Obviously I'll be getting a Collector's Edition regardless, but Namco is charging $160 for the Collector's Edition of Dark Souls 2 & that honestly doesn't even have anything that special in it. Not only that but people claim the Figurine looks pretty cheap, so I'm hoping that either CDPR gets their CE stuff made by a decent company or Namco don't overcharge the crap out of people for the CE or add stuff that we've seen with Dark Souls 2 like dumb In-Game Pre-Order bonuses . Let's be honest it would be pretty easy for CDPR, at the request of Namco, just took out a few Armors/Weapons from the game & had them as "Limited Edition" or "Pre-Order Bonuses", I hope CDPR has their contract well laid out & is above that kind of bullshit, but I am worried.
 
ReptilePZ said:
I'm guessing because of stuff like this: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.299321-Namco-Bandai-Sues-Witcher-2-Studio

What was the outcome of all of that. I remember reading that article when it first came out, but never heard the outcome later.
 
ryannberg said:
What was the outcome of all of that. I remember reading that article when it first came out, but never heard the outcome later.

In short: CDPR won.
 
ryannberg said:
What was the outcome of all of that. I remember reading that article when it first came out, but never heard the outcome later.

You win some, you lose some. There was much more at issue than just the DRM.

CDPR prevailed on the DRM question. They were allowed to remove it without NB's permission.

NB prevailed on the exclusive dealings question. CDPR had to continue to use NB as distributor for the Xbox 360 edition.

In retrospect, maybe it was a good thing that NB ended up keeping the distribution rights. Everything went wrong for THQ that year (remember the uDraw fiasco?), and less than a year later they were bankrupt and out of business.
 
GuyN said:
"Go big, or go home." They're making distribution deals for a title they expect to make nine figures from. In the markets outside of Eastern Europe, the big distributors are the ones with the ability to get the most shelf space and run the best promotions. That means dealing with the likes of Warner Interactive and Namco Bandai, or accepting less in sales.

It's business. Only fools hold grudges in business.

WB seems to be a good catch if you ask me. They've done great with Rocksteady and the Lego series.
 
Thanks for posting information on TW3 in Australia, for Australians.

Despite the fact that I would prefer to buy on GOG.com and support CDPR directly, I cant help but want the shinys for TW3. Please give us good CE's here.

As for Namco Bandai, I'm pretty sure they will do a decent job. Marketing is pretty status quo here and theres not usually anything too creative, I think TW games generally stand on their own through word of mouth and through display in distribution channels.

One of the main reasons for general lackluster is video game marketing is because we have such a sparse population density. So many cities, so few people... so much suburbia.. so little dense city. You generally just see bus stop advertisments, maybe a creative bus design... maybe some mass media on occasion if there is a larger launch.

As for censorship, I'm pretty sure most mature developers like CDPR actually WANT the game to be rated accordingly so they will expect the MA15 or R18 rating.... all they have to do is avoid adding incentive/reward based drugs and rape and the game wont be banned here.
 
Oh trust me, these censor boards at many places are outright idiotic, if not pathetic. Like here, games like Fallout 3 are banned because of "hurting religious sentiments" because it features a two-headed mutated cow :/
When can we have masses with actual brains?
 
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