It seems that you're using an outdated browser. Some things may not work as they should (or don't work at all).
We suggest you upgrade newer and better browser like: Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer or Opera

×
Community
General discussionAnnouncement: Big Preorders & Launch Day Releases Coming!(4041 posts)(4041 posts)
(4041 posts)
Pages:
1
50
100
123
124
125
126
127
200
250
270
This is my favourite topic
Posted February 21, 2014
The DRM-Free Revolution Continues with Big Pre-Orders and Launch Day Releases!

Good news! GOG.com is going to bring you more fantastic launch day releases, preorders, and other exciting new content from some of our favorite developers. We've lined up 3 big titles that we will be bringing to GOG.com in the next couple of months for sale or preorder that we think will be hits with all of our gamers; and we have more equally exciting games coming up soon.

If you've been a member of the site for a long time, you may recall that when we launched sales of The Witcher 2 on GOG.com, we had to add in regional pricing. The game cost different amounts in in the US, the UK, the European Union, and Australia. We're doing something like that once again in order to bring you new titles from fantastic bigger studios. Since we don't accept currencies other than USD on GOG.com right now, we'll be charging the equivalent of the local price in USD for these titles. We wish that we could offer these games at flat prices everywhere in the world, but the decision on pricing is always in our partners' hands, and regional pricing is becoming the standard around the globe. We're doing this because we believe that there's no better way to accomplish our overall goals for DRM-Free gaming and GOG.com. We need more games, devs, and publishers on board to make DRM-Free gaming something that's standard for all of the gaming world!

That brings with it more good news, though! As mentioned, we have three games we're launching soon with regional pricing--two RPGs and a strategy game--and while we can't tell you what they are yet because breaking an NDA has more severe penalties than just getting a noogie, we're confident that you'll be as excited about these games as we are. For a limited time, we will be offering anyone who pre-orders or buys one of them a free game from a selection as a gift from GOG.com, just like we did for The Witcher 2.

If you have any questions, hit us up in the comments below and we'll be happy to answer (to the best of our ability).

EDIT: Since we've answered a lot of the common questions already here (and lest you think that we've ignored you), it may be handy for you to check out the forum thread about this and search for staff answers by clicking this link here. (hat tip to user Eli who reminded us that the feature even exists. :)
Posted February 22, 2014
avatar
Turjake: Let's hope that in a couple of years time GOG won't turn into yet another Steam key seller like most other digital stores now are.

Little by little, GOG seems to be losing what has made them a rather unique place to buy games from.
It's the Humble Indie Bundle all over again. First, they start chanting their so compelling DRM-Free song, then they make a Humble THQ Bundle with no DRMs saying "hey, it's just for this time, to help THQ which is nearly bankrupting". And before you can realize it, there are Steam-only bundles everywhere. Bah.
Post edited February 22, 2014 by Shendue
Posted February 22, 2014
I'm happy with paying the balance due to currency exchange but if this change turns into an excuse for publishers to squeeze extra dollars out of me just because I live in Australia, I'll pass on the whole regional price gouging that is potentially being imposed here and cease purchasing my games on GOG.

I own about 300 GOG titles already and my want list is hovering around the 45 mark. I might just buy up the last remnant items (about a dozen games) that genuinely appeal to me, abandon my account here and forget about GOG being the good guys of this industry and they can just stay in bed with greedy publishers and see how that turns out for them.
Posted February 22, 2014
Okay, I need some sleep as I have been reading for 4 hours and finally go to the end (so far).

I must say that I am impressed with peoples arguments and although we really do not know what tomorrow holds, we should all sleep well knowing that GOG has been a fantastic store for the past 5 years and have tried very hard to do what is right by the consumer.
They have decided to take a gamble, and one that I am sure will have some undesirable consequences. Yet we will have to wait and see if these undesirable additions are out weighed by the good in what is coming. I will be giving GOG the time to show me if it will in the end be better for myself and us all.

I leave this music video here for people to listen to.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EprQGmZ3Imw

EDIT:: Tried to fix the bits that were just mindless. Not enough sleep.
Post edited February 22, 2014 by 011284mm
Posted February 22, 2014
low rated
avatar
liquidsnakehpks: 1) i have seen people from usa seem to support this decision well , well they are not used any kind rip off or regional blocking that we rest of the world have to face everyday on every digital store. So it is fair to assume the maximum gain from this will be them able to get hands on more drm free games at the same price since $=$ in us.
We pay regional prices everywhere too. Ours are usually lower because of our free market, high wages with high consumption, low taxes, and other factors along with the state of the economy.

If you live in a region where prices for goods and services are high, taxes are high, wages are low with consumption not so great, then chances are you're going to be paying higher prices online too.

You're not being ripped off, as in being gouged. It's the market and economy of the region that you live in.
Posted February 23, 2014
avatar
Johnmourby: I'll confess, I'm disappointed in the community here. When it's announced that Three games will have regional pricing plus compensation for those negatively affected Every one Reacts like this wasn't a one-off but the soon-to-be norm. You're acting like American rednecks who see real heath-care as the start of a soviet style dictatorship.

The assumption (the devil's plaything) and paranoia are bad enough. but what gets me is the almost joyful way people are predicating the end of GOG. All the highest rated comments are the ones yelling BETRAYAL and giving the least constructive feedback. People are even claiming they are jumping ship now. Before anything has happened. Anyone who talks in anything other than negative tones get their comments downvoted.

Do any of you remember the outcry over DLC being sold here? Did GOG say "We don't care about you, we do what we have to to make money"? No they didn't. They let us vote on it and we voted yes to DLC. Did anything bad happen to GOG? Sword of the Stars got two expansions and that was mostly it.

I don't like the idea of regional pricing either but for just three games I see no harm. And If this meant getting a new publisher like 2k, Bethesda or Lucasarts I'd say go for it.

So yeah If you feel this is a misstep please have some faith and make some actual demands instead of forecasting doom with glee.

And I repeat. When They say 3 games I believe just three games till I see reason to think otherwise. Assumptions never lead to good things and paranoia is for people who wear tinfoil hats.
You may want to go over some of the (quite rational) discussion which has taken place over the past two days, rather than jumping to your own conclusions. (Ironic, isn't it?)
Posted February 23, 2014
avatar
mangamuscle: In the end if the [insert people whose government allows private enterprise to screw them] should be mad at all, they should be mad and rioting at their government like the Ukrainians
It's political corruption -- not private enterprise -- that steals from and murders Ukrainians.
Post edited February 23, 2014 by TheOperaGhost
Posted February 23, 2014
avatar
JohnnyDollar: -snip-
That explains why something with no mass or need for transport is priced at a different rate around the world, when there are no oceans, either?
Posted February 23, 2014
avatar
Johnmourby: You're acting like American rednecks who see real heath-care as the start of a soviet style dictatorship.
avatar
TheOperaGhost: That's racist and absurd.

Only slaves and tyrants are afraid of Liberty.

Who deserves the fruits of one's labor, the one who works for it, or someone else? Who knows best how to spend what one earns, the person who toiled for it, or a politician? If the person who works for them doesn't deserve "all his wages," then who does? If no one can govern himself, then how can anyone govern someone else? Why would anyone think that an "elite" knows better than himself how to live his own life?

Here is the Great Emancipator, the Republic's sixteenth president, Abraham Lincoln in his seventh and last debate with Stephen Douglas, held at Alton, Illinois, October 15, 1858, speaking simple, clear, self-evident, moral truth about one of our basic, God-given, unalienable rights:

"It is the eternal struggle between these two principles — right and wrong — throughout the world. They are the two principles that have stood face to face from the beginning of time; and will ever continue to struggle. The one is the common right of humanity, and the other the divine right of kings. It is the same principle in whatever shape it develops itself. It is the same spirit that says, “You toil and work and earn bread, and I’ll eat it.” No matter in what shape it comes, whether from the mouth of a king who seeks to bestride[*] the people of his own nation and live by the fruit of their labor, or from one race of men as an apology for enslaving another race, it is the same tyrannical principle."
Eh, Lincoln's track record on treatment of American Indians is better than many European American presidents before him (especially Andrew Jackson, who presided over the Trail of Tears), but overall, he wasn't really much better. He still presided over the ordering of Midwestern tribes being slaughtered and assassinated for continuing to resist "Manifest Destiny". Especially the Shoshone tribes, and particularly the Comanche tribes. There's a reason our military stole their namesake for our war machines: they fought for their lands almost to the last.

So yeah, that whole speech, and the Emancipation Proclamation itself, was nothing more than a political foothold. He wasn't really better than anyone else, we Americans just love to believe the pastoral which has been painted for us since birth, without truly investigating the atrocities we committed which inspired Hitler.

I learned a pertinent quote for this topic from Alpha Centauri. It comes from one St. Augustine's Confessions: "The wicked have told me of things that delight them, but not such things as your Law has to tell..."
Post edited February 23, 2014 by StickOfPlywood
Posted February 23, 2014
Wouldn't it have been better to relegate region-priced games to a subdomain like regionpriced.gog.com or something? Then it could have been a shameful thing separate from GOG and its principles. Even if they had just said, "Hey, for people we have a good working relationship with (like Larian, who was mentioned earlier), we'll allow one region-priced game on our platform." At least then there would be rules that afforded GOG some power in negotiations and kept them from being pushed around.

Instead, it looks and sounds like they just flat-out caved. "We need more games, devs, and publishers on board to make DRM-Free gaming something that's standard for all of the gaming world" seems to imply that this will go beyond the three games mentioned, and the inability to promise that it won't spread to currently-listed games is worrying at best.

It sounds like this decision was made without any thought to the image it would present both to publishers and consumers. Showing that you're willing to compromise one of your core values when pushed hard enough is never a good position to put yourself in, and to do it for some launch day releases? Are a handful of launch releases really worth compromising one of the pillars that allowed this store to get to this point in the first place? Is it really realistic to expect to dissuade a publisher from region-related price gouging right after allowing another publisher to do it?

I've no doubt that GOG has enough good will left to survive this, but the people who made this decision better realize that there's going to be much less of that good will to use as a shield after this whole thing blows over.
Post edited February 23, 2014 by 227
Posted February 23, 2014
avatar
011284mm: Okay, I need some sleep as I have been reading for 4 hours and finally go to the end (so far).

I must say that I am impressed with peoples arguments and although we really do not know what tomorrow holds, we should all sleep well knowing that GOG has been a fantastic store for the past 5 years and have tried very hard to do what is right by the consumer.
They have decided to take a gamble, and one that I am sure will have some undesirable consequences. Yet we will have to wait and see if these undesirable additions are out weighed by the good in what is coming. I will be giving GOG the time to show me if it will in the end be better for myself and us all.

I leave this music video here for people to listen to.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EprQGmZ3Imw

EDIT:: Tried to fix the bits that were just mindless. Not enough sleep.
No DRM, good customer service, and sales are the only non-negotiables.

(Actually, I'm willing to sacrifice customer service since no one else offers any, and I have already a plethora of older, unsupported games for which a google search is my Customer Service.)
Post edited February 23, 2014 by TheOperaGhost
Posted February 23, 2014
avatar
JohnnyDollar: -snip-
avatar
Darvond: That explains why something with no mass or need for transport is priced at a different rate around the world, when there are no oceans, either?
It explains in part why people in different markets and economies pay different prices, and why those prices are higher than others when regional pricing is used.
Posted February 23, 2014
I'm posting in this thread in the hope that GOG higher-ups might potentially see it, although from the sound of it there's no chance they'll back down on this change.

As an American who has lived in Europe for years and thus has experienced the joy of getting screwed to the tune of an extra 30-40% on every gaming purchase by greedy regional pricing, I've no interest in supporting this kind of behaviour.

I've used GOG primarily because I want to support a pro-consumer game distribution service, and the abandonment of worldwide pricing in the name of profit fundamentally departs from that ethos. At this point I see no reason to trust that GOG won't compromise further in future, and therefore I see no reason to continue to support this site.

I'll simply stick with what I've purchased so far -- being careful to archive it somewhere safe in case the no-DRM thing disappears next -- and leave GOG to experiment with being a second-rate Steam rather than a unique service with firm core values.

What's most disappointing is the attempts to whitewash the 'one world, one price' selling point now, by altering the website, removing YouTube videos, etc. At least take some responsibility for your actions, GOG.
Posted February 23, 2014
high rated
avatar
Darvond: That explains why something with no mass or need for transport is priced at a different rate around the world, when there are no oceans, either?
avatar
JohnnyDollar: It explains in part why people in different markets and economies pay different prices, and why those prices are higher than others when regional pricing is used.
You don't seem to understand basic economics. There cannot be demand, because supply is unlimited. There is no reason for the price to be higher or lower upon a digital platform worldwide.

The world is a super continent with no borders in the digital world.
Posted February 23, 2014
who would have thought gog would sell out... Honestly would not have believed it until now.
Posted February 23, 2014
avatar
JohnnyDollar: It explains in part why people in different markets and economies pay different prices, and why those prices are higher than others when regional pricing is used.
avatar
Darvond: You don't seem to understand basic economics. There cannot be demand, because supply is unlimited. There is no reason for the price to be higher or lower upon a digital platform worldwide.

The world is a super continent with no borders in the digital world.
I think it's you that doesn't understand. I was responding to a post and stating that Americans pay regional prices too. I referred to different markets and economies, and this is reflected with online transactions as well.

I did not explain why regional pricing is implemented (edit: with digital content).
Post edited February 23, 2014 by JohnnyDollar
Pages:
1
50
100
123
124
125
126
127
200
250
270
This is my favourite topic
Community
General discussionAnnouncement: Big Preorders & Launch Day Releases Coming!(4041 posts)(4041 posts)
(4041 posts)