Will you be importing The Witcher?
 

As you propably already know the US - and maybe the German version - is censored (God bless Atari); adult quests, nudity, finishing moves and idk what else are on the list. Considering this is supposed to be an adult game, that's imo nothing less than spitting on the devs' face - and i mean the actual programmers and artists, not CDP.

Furthermore this is the first game, at least in recent years, that appears to deal with adult themes in a (hopefully) serious manner. If successfull, it could open up a whole new market for videogames, proving that they can offer more that mere entertainment, much like books.

From an artistic pov, adult themes appear to be flawlessly integrated in Sapkwoski's work (I recently read "The Last Wish", highly recommend it, full of metaphors that really make you think) and considering the game is modelled on the novels, I suspect any censorship is going to alter the experience, to say the least.

Not to mention I am against censorship as a matter of principle.

So my question is this: what do you think about the matter? Are you American gamers going to import the uncensored version from Europe or you really don't mind? If you do mind wouldn't you agree that this form of censorship has nothing to do with basic consumer's rights and ideals such as freedom of speech?

I will be importing. Can't stand the thought that I'm missing out on part of the original vision, even if it is a just a cheap thrill or two that's been cut. However, are you sure they went as far as cutting some of the finishing moves? If so, it's even more definite I'll be importing!

The German version is uncut.

Definitely importing.
Have mine on pre-order from the UK for a while.

Censoring the game in the USA is a complete joke. What the hell good are the ratings if they censor content anyways? I will never support censored releases.

Why can't they just release games and leave it up to the parents as to what their children should and shouldn't see? How hard would it be to implement a password system based on ratings in the game menu so parents could block "R" or even "X" rated stuff? This way adults can play the game the way it was intended while still protecting their children from content they don't want them to see. I can do this on my television and the internet, why can't this be done in games?

I'll probably import the game. I really like to play a game the way the developers created it. I don't really care so much what the content is that is censored, I just want to play the original game, and not a version that has had any of the developers vision removed.

I was wondering if anyone has a good recommendation on where to order an import of The Witcher. I'd like to get the European Limited Edition… anyone know where that's for sale from a company that will ship to the US?

Thanks!

narpet I'm looking at two places right now since I can't decide if I want the LE or if just the vanilla Witcher will be enough. gogamer has a UK import edition here in the U.S. and for the CE, this looks like a U.K. source, but I have never used it before: Game has it and here is their shipping policy: Note this doesn't include all the items in the Polish LE.

Thanks… I will probably get it from the second place because I would like to get the LE.

I expect it's getting censored to achieve a certain rating from the review board. Getting a "bad" (adult) rating locks your game out of Wal-Mart and many other sellers. No publisher is going to let trivial things like artistic integrity and parental discretion get in the way of sales, folks.

Magerette: I have tried to order from game and it keeps telling me that they can't process the order and I should check my payment details or try another method of payment. I have tried 3 different credit cards, all of which I use all the time for online ordering. I did purchase the Gothic 3 Collector's edition from a Swedish online store previously with the same credit card and had no problem, so I'm not sure what's going on…

Do you have any ideas?

Luckily :) I'm in Europe, so I won't be importing the game. The Scandinavian versions we get here tend to the UK uncut versions of games.

UK version isnt always uncut. Somtimes its actually the reverse i.e fallout2 US version was uncut while UK version was cut. Its up to the customer everytime to make independent research which version of the game is cut/uncut (they should show it in product details), allthough som german-only-shops specialize in selling uncut versions so you dont have to do it yourself.

The only thing censored will be nipples. The gore and violence stays uncut for sure.

I had the same problem with my first card, but my second card went through on the first try. Not sure what the problem was with the first one, its just a Normal Visa Credit Card. The one that went through was my checking card from Washington Mutual, it has MasterCard logo. Are all your cards VISA's?

Finishing moves have been mentioned, as well as other things relating to violence (I read somewhere about depiction of blood). No one can be certain though what will make it to the final versions as there has been no official word, I guess we'll only know after the game's release. Atari went as far as making the two boxes look identical, guess Atari's executives must be convinced that their customers are idiots.

If true, that's great news.

And how do you think this state of affairs is going to change? Or are you satisfied with it? We're not talking about a porn movie here.

By 'nipples' I take it you mean all the other sex-related stuff too? Linkie?

From my limited experience, one possible cause might be they didn't expect that many preorders and are unable of accepting them all (this had certainly been the case with at least one site). If a significant portion of American gamers are getting the European version, that should cause a temporary chaos in the distribution network (and tell the people responsible something about their practices). Maybe try again in a few days?

No, I tried 2 Mastercards and 1 Visa… and none of them worked. I'm not sure why… but I found another site that is selling the LE, and I ordered it there with no problems…:)

http://forums.bioware.com/forums/vie…orum=22&sp=120
here's the link about censorship. (Witu_CDPR post). You can learn more form official forum. I heard what's gonna be censored : (covered nipples) - two NPC's one monster and of course sex cards. Nothing more. I don't think it will affect the story or dialogues. So really - only nipples :)

So all the US loses is nipples? Well, if I need nipples I can get more than I ever wanted to see in 5 seconds on Google … so I'm good :D

I would really like to know where are you getting your info from. That dev post you linked is old and he's not talking about anything else other than green blood (US gets green blood?). I just checked the official site, nothing there either. It appears your source is Gamefaqs/Gamespot, (that's where you 'heard' the above rumor, apparently) but then again there are other rumors there to choose from. Another rumor is that beheadings have been cut. Guess we will know soon, won't we?