The Witcher 3's free manual is being ripped off and sold on Google Play by scammers

Each copy of The Witcher 3 comes with a free manual, but some people are apparently trying to profit by selling a scanned version of it online.

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This week’s big release is The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, and as you can tell from the amount of content we’ve been publishing this past week, we’re a little obsessed with it right now. One thing most were surprised with was its inclusion of an actual manual, especially considering most modern-day games direct players through their tutorial in lieu of including a physical manual. Unfortunately, some are taking advantage this by scanning the manual and selling it online as a booklet.

The Witcher 3’s game manual is currently available for sale on the Google Play Store. Its publisher is “Markelov”, although we know if this was a legitimate digital copy of The Witcher 3’s manual, it would be published by CD Projekt RED. The digital booklet has been marked down from $10 to $8, is 9-pages long, and its description is as cookie cutter as it gets as it just describes the game itself and not the product.

The Witcher 3 is one of this year’s highly-anticipated games, and to see something like this happen is disappointing. Hopefully Google will catch wind of this listing and will take it down since anyone who purchases a copy of The Witcher 3 automatically get a free manual with their purchase.

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From The Chatty
    • reply
      May 20, 2015 9:27 AM

      I don't get it. Does a digital copy of the manual come with the game? If so, is this trying to scam a few bucks out of people who acquired the game through means less legal than purchasing? If so, lol. If not, wouldn't the person... already have the manual? Who would buy it?

      • reply
        May 20, 2015 9:44 AM

        There are probably quite a few users out there who don't realize they have the manual, as it shows up differently depending on where you bought the game. Either way, it's still sad to see something like this happen.

    • reply
      May 20, 2015 9:50 AM

      I didn't see shacknews beeing so upset about the shady commercial practices that gog / CDPR used to move people to their new platform, as you are now for this scam attempt.

      And that this scam appears it's not disappointing, it's expected. People always try to take advantage of others success.
      What is disappointing is that a company as CDPR uses that kind of practices, when they make good games that have no need of those practicers to sell well.
      Both are wrong tho.

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      May 20, 2015 3:09 PM

      Wait, so a mobile platform's online store which has no submission or vetting process is a hotbed for bullshit apps and scams?

      I'm shocked.

      • reply
        May 20, 2015 4:42 PM

        [deleted]

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          May 20, 2015 5:39 PM

          At what point? Every app I've ever been involved with is online for download as soon as it's uploaded and propagated through the servers?

          Honest question, I'm curious how much after-the-fact oversight there is for these apps since ahead of time there appears to be none, for better or worse.

    • reply
      May 20, 2015 6:02 PM

      Why is this bad? It's supplying consumers with an easy way to view the manual instead of all that needless clicking!

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