I thought they said they don't know where the keys came from?
CDPR keeping Witcher 3 keys for Origin, uPlay and GOG; tell GMG to go pound sand
- Thread starter dex3108
- Start date
I thought they said they don't know where the keys came from?
They didn't though that was gamespot. The only official statement from CDPR was that the keys were not coming directly from them.
Manufacturers do this all the time it's not illegal. I could set what I want to sell it to you for and if you don't want to do it I don't have to do business with you.
DealWithIt
Member
There's the money quote. CDPR looks to be trying to keep the price high. Understandable in my book. My theory is that GMG didn't partner with CDPR because they wanted to seel for lower than CDPR was willing to go.
Suikoguy
I whinny my fervor lowly, for his length is not as great as those of the Hylian war stallions
While I don't disagree with what you are saying. Read the first page, and what amounts to basically a smear campaign against GMG.
TheSlySoul
Member
elitewillie1
Banned
I read your previous post as well. Thank you for the insider story.
Necromanti
Member
Wouldn't this be considered a form of price fixing? (Honest question, here, as I do not know.) Or maybe it's just a general measure of anti-competition.
I wouldn't take GMG statement at face value. This coin has two sides, like people hurried to say when only CDP's statement was out.
"Just a few words of explanation:
We have worked with GMG in the past for w2 and they were a legit partner.
We control all digital and the codes, and because we decided not to sell Keys to GMG it came as a suprise that they are doing a special promo without buying Keys from us. We have reach out to ask for the source of they Keys but up until now there was no response. They might sell nVidia Keys (which are not to be sold but gifted with the nVidia promo), or they just bough Keys from gog just like a regular customer and now they resell them with a loss (we cannot prevent anyone from selling something).
They also list Bandai Namco as the published which is not true for w3 (namco is our box distributor in PAL), so GMG is not a CDPR partner for W3 but they still might sell Keys that will work."
http://forums.cdprojektred.com/threads/35436-Witcher-3-35-off?p=1635264&viewfull=1#post1635264
Again not the fault of CDPR blame gamespot. Jesus I don't like some of CDPR's handling of W3 but they weren't slanderous at all.
DOWN
Banned
Yeah, this is more likely it. Apple and Sony don't care if they don't have the best promotions with gift card bonuses and free chargers with their new devices, they just don't want their prices being lowered and devaluing them arbitrarily by unauthorized deals.
runnin_blue
Banned
No worries.
A.Romero
Member
What would the problem be if CDPR just didn't want to have GMG sell their game regardless of the reason behind the decision?
They own the rights and should be able to decide who they sell to.
I don't think they will be able to take legal action against GMG or anything but I think its quite reasonable to ask the fans no tu purchase from them.
They own the rights and should be able to decide who they sell to.
I don't think they will be able to take legal action against GMG or anything but I think its quite reasonable to ask the fans no tu purchase from them.
Well technically, isn't the keys GMG are selling second hand? I mean if they bought them from a retailer that is partnered with CDPR then that would make them second hand keys.
Think of it like second hand games. Person buys games, sells it on (regardless of if they played it or not). One of the biggest argument against second hand games (seen on here as well with the "I'll buy second hand to not support the publisher") is that Publisher sees no money from the second hand sale. That could be applied to this as well. (just that it's a digital key rather than a retail disc).
It opens up the usual second hand sale arguments though yeah but I think the comparison is apt since it's second hand regardless.
DOWN
Banned
No, the single product is Witcher 3 and its creators get to set its price. They are absolutely allowed to not sell it to a retailer who won't agree to their pricing model. Apple and Sony do this. Sony TVs aren't sold directly to a retailer who is going to make the TV into a loss leader by eating a discount on it and devaluing it on the whole market.
First page of this thread.. hell most pages of this thread are based on very clickbaity GameSpot article that puts words into CDP's mouth.
"I would kindly ask our fans no to buy via GMG at this time. We had not sold them Keys and dont know the origin of them."
http://forums.cdprojektred.com/threads/35436-Witcher-3-35-off?p=1634844&viewfull=1#post1634844
"Just a few words of explanation:
We have worked with GMG in the past for w2 and they were a legit partner.
We control all digital and the codes, and because we decided not to sell Keys to GMG it came as a suprise that they are doing a special promo without buying Keys from us. We have reach out to ask for the source of they Keys but up until now there was no response. They might sell nVidia Keys (which are not to be sold but gifted with the nVidia promo), or they just bough Keys from gog just like a regular customer and now they resell them with a loss (we cannot prevent anyone from selling something).
They also list Bandai Namco as the published which is not true for w3 (namco is our box distributor in PAL), so GMG is not a CDPR partner for W3 but they still might sell Keys that will work."
http://forums.cdprojektred.com/threads/35436-Witcher-3-35-off?p=1635264&viewfull=1#post1635264
Then GMG statement, shame it's on GameSpot; http://www.gamespot.com/articles/witcher-3-39-codes-legitimate-despite-dev-accusati/1100-6427149/
I wouldn't say CDP/GOG is going for smear campaign here.
Edit:
They never claimed such thing, it was GameSpot claiming it. Read above.
And setting price floors is grounds for a price fixing investigation. In the US, and moreso in Europe.
It's not de facto illegal as it was before 2007:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/29/business/28cnd-bizcourt.html
However, it opens the door for an extremely complicated and still unresolved issue in competition litigation.
https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/com...ws/dealings-supply-chain/manufacturer-imposed
The answer is that it depends, and the situation is further complicated by CDPR being vertically integrated with GOG. If CDPR was asking for most favored nation clauses to be signed by GMG, it adds yet another layer of complication, both in the US and abroad.
While we are talking about price floors: The UK, for example, still consider resale price maintenance to be illegal, and has investigated cases involving it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resale_price_maintenance#United_Kingdom_law
By all accounts of what I'm seeing, I would find it extremely (extreeeemely) unlikely that this could ever be considered price fixing.
But price fixing is not a necessary condition for something to be considered anti-competitive, as you said.
It isn't, not at first brush. There's no reason to believe that a GOG key sold by a third party has the same margin for CDPR as a GOG key sold directly. They still have to negotiate the retailer's share, which by all reasonable accounts should be greater than zero.
No this isn't illegal in the least though CDPR could go after the retailer if a contract breach occurred. However I expect GMG is not going to get any keys in the future from CDPR and that they will direct partners to not sell to GMG.
elitewillie1
Banned
There is no problem with that. What's the problem with GMG saying that's fine, we'll just buy them from someone who is selling them and resell them for cheaper?
I can buy a bunch of iPads tomorrow from Apple and sell them on eBay if I want. Once that item is sold I own it and can do with it what I want. That's basically what GMG did.
Well technically they wouldn't until the keys have been distributed and redeemed by buyers. Once a key has been redeemed, they would/should know where it came from I'd imagine.
chromatic9
Member
I think you're on dodgy ground there. Would not surprise me he can list them or not. Saying they appear to be with just a handful examples is not proof.
Stick to facts that these aren't direct which is claimed on the site to be. We have him misleading or lying about the keys there as he has admitted since they're not direct.
Amazon don't seem to have the keys to sell and I'm not seeing a great deal of sellers out there unlike other games. I was actually going to make a post yesterday how there seems to be very few sellers coming up being this game is due very soon, unrelated to this GMG thing.
By the way, my stance is CDPR are right to ask/warn after trying to contact GMG and GMG have been caught flouting their own policy.
DOWN
Banned
Lol no. Discount limiting is allowed, and they aren't required to sell to a retailer who won't honor the terms of what price they want to sell their products at. Samsung and Sony limit the pricing on their TVs. It's totally allowed and not the same as price fixing,.
TheSlySoul
Member
Mainly if they can get a key, then they will know right away. No keys have been redeemed yet.
Mostly it is them discouraging sales. Although from the forum post it seems the middle-man is protected.
True. But he still is pulling from his ass saying the reason is to promote the GOG platform since sales lost to GMG are most likely going to Steam. I will agree though that they seem to have restricted resellers that are known to be loss leaders like Amazon and GMG.
I am sure they would like to know who sold the keys to GMG before they distribute them but from the sounds of it GMG may have sourced multiple retailers.
If you don't want to bother to actually understand the nuance of what I'm saying, I won't bother repeating it.
I never said it was price fixing, and I never said it was illegal. In fact, the very first link I posted says it is not illegal.
Given the shitty state of Sony's TV division, perhaps they should loosen up. =)
Do you really believe CDPR, no matter how hard they want to push their platform, was going to restrict Steam? LMAO.
Sounds like they wanted to dictate the price at a strict point and some other retailers didn't want to play ball. Except GMG went around it to offer the game to their customers. As a guy who values the choices in which retailer I can go to for the best price, I'm okay with this and not okay with CDPR's stance here.
For a group that hates retailer exclusive deals and shit like that, it's really surprising to see some of the responses here. Especially for the PC market. CDPR is basically applying big box retailer methods here. And it sucks.
Who is manipulating prices? Why are you pulling things out of your ass?
McHuj
Member
Yeah really I think CDPR are warning people because they don't know how many or when these keys will go out and they don't want people blaming them.
TheSlySoul
Member
It really is a case of making a contract that avoids what you do not want to happen.
Even game system bundles put "Not for resale" on their games for that reason.
Shao Kahn Brewing a Stew
Banned
This is so weird and disappointing. What a disappointing day all around.
May 6. Shit day.
May 6. Shit day.
And GameStop happily takes them in as their customers sell them.
So, I guess we have a case of second hand key selling for a lower price? Used games comes to digital!!!
I feel like OP should be updated with giant bold letters stating that CDPR has only warned against buying keys due to not knowing where they are coming from. That's the entire basis for this discussion but people have gone into tangents of price fixing and pushing GoG over anything else.
Such a cluster fuck and all goes back to Gamespot and their shoddy reporting.
Such a cluster fuck and all goes back to Gamespot and their shoddy reporting.
elitewillie1
Banned
#freeGMG
Title should be rewrote so it doesn't paint CDPR as villain right from the bat and OP should be rewritten with known facts, GameSpots editorialized shit isn't doing any good for anyone.
If they really are buying their keys from someone else, all cdpr can do until launch is launch a Lik-Sang style lawsuit against GMG, since they are using Witcher 3 images to sell a game they aren't authorized to sell.
AFAIK GMG is UK based, so it is already super similar to the Lik-Sang case.
AFAIK GMG is UK based, so it is already super similar to the Lik-Sang case.
![[Asmodean]](/data/avatars/m/123/123312.jpg?1526393694){kind=avatar}
[Asmodean]
Member
Bored people do love fueling the fires of scandal, blowing it out of proportion, ofc ;p
There should be some kind of TOS in play to prevent "news" OP titles like this. Specifically designed to be click-bait, with no meaningfully-based context within the OP.
There should be some kind of TOS in play to prevent "news" OP titles like this. Specifically designed to be click-bait, with no meaningfully-based context within the OP.
conflating the comments of one member of CDPR with the opinions held by the company is a pretty big error, imo.
The lik sang case was about trademark infringement because they sold PSP from another region in the UK before the official launch in the UK. I don't see how this is related.
[Asmodean]
Member
You gotta be kidding me lol.
I was about to edit my post just before your quote saying "well, maybe not, because who cares as long as it generates them clicks, right? ;p"
Its 42.29 on gog and 53.99 on steam. Gog is the cheapest.
The Witcher 3 is a trademark of CDPR.
Yes. Where is the situation similar though? I don't think they can't control who sell it or not. If that would be the case Ebay, play-asia and Kingpin would have been sued into oblivion. The Lik Sang case never was contested anyway since they got sued in many different jurisdiction and they had no money to fight back. Not convinced it can be use as a proof of anything.
viveks86
Member
GMG: "they didn't authorize us so we decided to sell their product anyway at a discounted rate that will harm their sales"
This gets my strong disapproval. It's probably legal, but it's the worst kind of grey market practice I can think of. CDPR is free to sell their product however they see fit. It's their product after all. This is literally no different than cdkeys.com and a dozen other sites that do this. I used to treat GMG differently, but not anymore.
This gets my strong disapproval. It's probably legal, but it's the worst kind of grey market practice I can think of. CDPR is free to sell their product however they see fit. It's their product after all. This is literally no different than cdkeys.com and a dozen other sites that do this. I used to treat GMG differently, but not anymore.
Suikoguy
I whinny my fervor lowly, for his length is not as great as those of the Hylian war stallions
I was referring to the backlash against the thread title change.
But, honestly, employees should be trained to either not speak on behalf of the company they work for, or to avoid such situations unless they are certain of the situation. It is, at the end of the day, at least partly CDPR's fault, after all it is their employee. Even worse it's their business development manager, not some art developer or something.
What on earth are you rambling about?
Comparing GMG to CDkeys? wtf
Hero Prinny
Member
other guy fails to mention it gets discounts depending if you own witcher 1 or/and 2. you you own neither its 60