Namco Sues Over European Distribution, DRM Removal From Witcher 2

15 responses to “Namco Sues Over European Distribution, DRM Removal From Witcher 2”

1. 

   Alinos

   July 11, 2011 at 9:17 am

   further exemplifying that namco are money hungry bastards that don’t give 2 shit’s about their customers.

   the DRM was removed for a reason.

   and the second lawsuit seems stupid if they “assumed” instead of it being stated in the contract

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2. 

   Dark_Templar

   July 11, 2011 at 9:23 am

   You never assume anything.

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3. 

   SunSkorpion

   July 11, 2011 at 9:58 am

   You know what they say about ‘assume’… it makes an ass out of u and me.

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4. 

   giort08

   July 11, 2011 at 10:36 am

   awwww Namco, why are you becoming C@#ts too….I’m already boycotting Capcom, please don’t make me do the same to you too 🙁 (btw, I know Capcom doesnt give a shit that one person is not buying their games anymore, but its the principal)

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5. 

   Thom

   July 11, 2011 at 10:36 am

   I think the no DRM thing is just to add wait to legal action with little basis. Their assumptions about non-contractual distribution guarantees were idiotic at best.

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6. 

   andy

   July 11, 2011 at 10:39 am

   I’m really starting to hate Namco Bandai – These have been caught out doing price fixing on steam for the Australian Region – the only region they are trying to sue Cd Project Red is because GOG.com did the right thing and help us get the game at a cheaper price with no DRM …

   Hope they counter sue for withholding the money.

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   1. 

      Alinos

      July 11, 2011 at 10:57 am

      nah you got the GOG DRM thing wrong.

      They can’t sue Gog for the way the stopped region pricing.

      The issue is that GOG version’s contained no DRM, while Disc based copies did.

      those Disc based copies on some users machines performed 30% worse compared to GoG’s DRM free version.

      So as a result CDProjectRed released a patch that removed the DRM from every copy of the game whether it came from GoG from an australian retailer or steam

      Reply
7. 

   Benjamin Swinbanks

   July 11, 2011 at 10:39 am

   God this angers me to no end. The artists and developers that made this masterpiece deserve the cash. not these corporate swine.

   Don’t you just love how time after time big business can routinely shit on the companies that make them their millions.

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   1. 

      plmko

      July 11, 2011 at 3:52 pm

      Don’t enter into the contract in the first place then.

      It’s as simple as that, just because they did something good which was to remove the DRM does not justify a broken contract.

      And no, just because something is not written on paper doesn’t make it any less valid, verbal and expressed “assumption” is a perfectly valid reason.

      But sure, illogically hate on the publisher, they are after all “corporate swine”.

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      1. 

         Zack

         July 11, 2011 at 4:13 pm

         Our hatred isn’t illogical, the publisher deliberately treats it’s customer’s like shit on the sole pretence that they know they can get away with it. As a result: screw those guys. Despising a greedy publisher that abuses it’s power, the developers, and the customer is perfectly reasonable.

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8. 

   Mr Waffle

   July 11, 2011 at 12:39 pm

   I’ve hated Namco Bandai ever since they thought it would be an awesome idea to region lock their Japan-only xbox 360 titles (Gundam games, IdolM@ster etc), which accomplished absolutely nothing except for stop a few hundred foreigners from buying their games. Brilliant business plan, idiots…

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9. 

   Leigh

   July 11, 2011 at 1:13 pm

   Kotaku were red hot on this before the game was released, at least Mark Serrels was – the whole distribution of this game has been suss. The GOG.com forums (I think) are emailing Namco-Bandai like crazy, telling them off, probably even a time-out.

   Hope this remains in the gaming ‘public conscience’ for a while, otherwise people will just keep complaining about the same issues relating to DRM and international releases.

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10. 

    Marathon

    July 11, 2011 at 1:47 pm

    For PC games especially… why do you need publishers in today’s day and age? Retail maybe a touch difficult, but why not have an agreement where all digital sales were developer only sales with no publisher input?

    Reply
11. 

    Jarvgrimr

    July 11, 2011 at 3:40 pm

    “Namco assumed its agreement with CD Projekt RED and parent company Optimus SA to publish the PC game there carried over to the other versions.”

    Assumption means shit. What does the contract say?

    The only reason this is probably getting brought up is because the contract says something Namco doesn’t like. However they with the most lawyers and money can attempt (usually succeed) to bend the rules to benefit them.

    If a developer “assumed” they were entitled to more than what was stipulated in a contract, they’d have no leg to stand on/not enough money or lawyers to bend the rules.

    Reply
    1. 

       James

       July 11, 2011 at 10:58 pm

       Presumably the contract is ambiguous (or at least ambiguous enough for Namco’s complaint not to be dismissed through a summary judgement).

       If Namco is doing any marketing for the game, then that marketing is probably going to increase sales for both PC and Xbox versions of the game. If they believed that they were publishing both versions, they would be rightly ignored if they found that THQ was the beneficiary of their effort for Xbox sales.

       Reply