With your loss of integrity to your own principles, I simply will not purchase any games from you any longer.

Someone from GOG stated that it'll be down there where the game age restrictions ratings are. I think he said that it's a box shaped icon with a logo of a middle finger on it. :P

Well, it is polarizing on this forum certainly but then it is important to remember that posters on this forum are a very small subset of the entire GOG.com customer base at this point. So then the question becomes to what extent is the entire customer base offended by this and most importantly of all, what percent are offended enough to stop buying games here?

In consideration of how regional pricing is accepted elsewhere, such as on the huge Steam store, one could guess that roughly the same overall percent will ultimately accept it on this store.

As a whole, consumers have not rejected regional pricing in great enough numbers to force a change. Sometimes the GOG crew thinks themselves special I think, or a special case I mean but I don't know as that is really all that true in terms of GOG's total customer base. I also don't know how anyone could prove this point either pro or con other than GOG's own staff who'd have the data about their sales, etc.

If people like these three games that are going to be released and DRM-free, I expect they will probably buy them in large numbers and ultimately the hoopla over this will blow over. I think probably GOG is banking on the same thing. I guess we will see what happens.

I know some people here, especially on the forums feel very passionately about this stuff and I am not saying I discount the validity of that. I'm just being real I think about what the great mass of consumers will tend to do based on what I see them already do elsewhere. With that in mind, I do believe the days of 100% DRM-free here are also numbered and that nobody should be surprised when the first DRM title comes here rather than not carry the title, etc.

This is the way of the digital retail world and GOG.com probably cannot operate in a vacuum forever when you have stores like Steam now parading out classics on a regular basis, etc. I would expect GOG to always try to deliver the best value and experience they can over time but they cannot live on a classic catalog that at some point everybody owns what they want from, forever. For example, for me that means about 200 plus titles I bought here before the supply of classics that were important to me dried up. So now what? How does GOG earn my continuing business particularly when I often use Steam and I am sorry but like very many people don't care that much about DRM as long as it isn't too intrusive. I know that is heresy here, on these forums but the reality is millions of people on Steam have no problem with it at all every time they run a big sale. GOG has to compete with the likes of this not to mention all the other retailers out there. They need stuff to sell. They need good stuff to sell. A lot of the good stuff comes with regional pricing, region locks and DRM. None of this is GOG's fault and even if they carry it, it isn't like anyone who resents it has to buy those particular titles.

It is the publishers that are responsible for regional pricing, region locks and DRM. It is on their forums where applicable that lengthy threads of rage most rightfully belong. They know that they have consumers by the balls though. For example, a TON of people like to play Bethesda RPGs and they know it. They can get away with DRM and firmly believe it benefits them. Only when consumers refuse to buy the games will it change. The problem is they will still buy it because they want to play it. People will make concessions for something that they want until those concessions become too much to bear. Obviously, for huge numbers of gamers the concessions being made are not killing the industry. Therefore, I think it is rather unlikely we'll see any big change in the status quo.

As for the nice idea of principles? Well, that's all well and good and sounds nice but here's the reality once again: This is not a non-profit organization. This business is in the business of making money. Let's not have any delusions about this please. Everything they do is ultimately aimed at minimally sustaining if not growing the business and generating more profit. Anyone who thinks otherwise is fooling themselves. This doesn't mean GOG is terrible or that bad people run the place. I think they sincerely do try to run a good business and provide the best experience they can but even basic ideas like that are of course smart business rooted in the concept that pleasing people brings return business. That said, you cannot possibly please everyone all of the time and this entire issue is about that very thing.

I think people need to expect GOG to conform to the retail world they exist in over time because otherwise you might not have any GOG at all. They do not do stuff without careful consideration and they sure don't do stuff like this with the aim of pissing off their entire customer base which by the way again, is not well represented on this forum. We are a small subset and so are our views a small subset of the total of GOG customers.

The solution is simple if not entirely appealing to all. Spend your money according to your preferences. Simple. But don't fool yourself into thinking the rest of the sheep won't walk right off the cliff. They will. They do it all the time and that is why this stuff persists despite it often being anti-consumer.

True, and my prediction is that sales of these games will reflect how the games are regarded by the gamers, not so much regional pricing. In other words, if word of mouth is that the game sucks, then obviously it won't sell well. If the game is highly anticipated or highly regarded, then it will sell well.

That's not meant as a shot to those that are really upset about this at all. It's just how I think it'll go down with the game releases and subsequent purchases, which includes the greater number of customers that rarely if ever post here.

Question: why are we not trying to figure out what games / what publisher this is?

Some of the titles could be something unannounced, but I doubt it; Witcher 3 is an easy guess to knock one of the RPGs off the list, but the other RPG and the Strategy game are somewhat puzzling since there are very few AAA publishers that deal with either genre on the PC.

Part of me thinks Bamco is the prime suspect, since they were the publisher of Witcher 2 and demanded regional pricing on that title too, but Bamco doesn't have any strategy titles on the docket and they have not shown an interest in them at all ... Dark Souls 2 could be a possibility, but it has the MP aspect that I don't think Bamco would cut from the game.

Sega has Creative Assembly and Relic, but no potential RPGs coming out soon that would be compatible with GOG (Phantasy Star Online 2 being all that I can think of) and no announced Strategy games in the works ATM.

Wasteland 2, Project Eternity, and Shadowrun are all confirmed as being GOG releases and none of the people working on them would have an issue about regional pricing; but I can't think of any other big name RPGs that are coming up.

Maybe Child of Light, but I don't think Ubisoft would be dicks about regional pricing since they are already partners with GOG ...... but what about Dragon Age 3?

Upcoming RPG with a PC release, EA has been an enthusiastic partner to GOG of late, MP is not a core aspect to the game, regional pricing is something that EA is a hard ass about, and launching pre-orders for it would be a great introduction to putting the first two Dragon Age games on GOG (with possibility of Mass Effect at some point after that).

How far do you fall back till you stand your ground? When your back is against the wall or after the plunge over the edge as you look down at the ground getting closer and closer only to think "maybe this was a bad idea.....". But by then, it's already to late.

Either way, I'll stick it out with the "wait and see" crowd. In the end at least you got your monetary vote to fall back on, right folks?

Someone in the steam thread I made ( http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?p=35358444 ) said :

"Australians will pay more for instance but from what I understand they are willing to pay a little extra for luxuries in life. It's all about what the consumer is willing to pay."

Don't worry, I didn't let that stand.

I was looking at what Steam has coming and trying to guess if any of those are the three. Age of Wonders III by Triumph Studios caught my eye...

How fitting, the UI would throw red flags at you to tell you what to avoid. xD

It would be kinda silly if the two RPGs were Witcher 3 & Cyberpunk, but I suppose that it wouldn't be impossible.

Thanks for letting me know. That's gonna be a bummer

It all depends really. Yes Steam has been smuggling in some GOG titles on their own site (sometimes lazily at that - they added Gorky 17 just last year, a game that was on GOG since the Vista days, and didn't bother to release a version that could actually run properly on modern systems like what GOG has been having trouble yet unsolved with Windows 7/8 systems). There are a few things to point out though: 1) We still have quite a number of classics exclusive here not sold on other storefronts yet (will all of them eventually go to Steam though? It's not out of the realm of possibility, certainly, but without knowing what contractual arrangements these places have with each other it's a little out of my depth to comment on this). 2) GOG has had the advantage of getting, at the very least, temporary exclusivity deals on some of these games, System Shock 2 for example, being exclusive several months before being released on Steam and so forth. This may be irrelevant in addressing the matter at hand but I will say that getting your game in before everyone else and with people not even knowing if it's going to be available elsewhere is a huge boon for many storefronts. 3) As far as I know, Steam merely acts as a storefront, they don't actually go out of their way to dig up publishers' old back catalogs and convince them to release them. Despite being in a MUCH better position than GOG to do so, you won't find them doing it. They do have the id Software back catalog, several old LucasArts games (but still a fraction of the most-wanted titles they have in their vaults), and the old X-COM games, and those are the only classic titles I know of that Steam has that GOG doesn't. Pretty big ones yes, but those were released on Steam quite a few years back and games like those no longer seems to be their focus anymore if it ever was, or it was the goodwill of the publishers who own those properties to have them released on Steam. With GOG on the other hand, that's pretty much half their job to dig up the rights of old games to release. And once GOG has successfully pulled these old games out of the ground, Steam has been more than happy to take their share as well, basically letting GOG do the work for them (excepting in cases of Night Dive doing the work of course). I don't know but it could very well be a case where nobody has bothered to ask for these games to be re-released, and GOG couldn't due to said publisher being assholes about it, but such games are SO important enough to them as to erase one of their very founding principles to get them out there. If Steam gets them also, well, so be it, but it's also the case that the games would not be on Steam in the first place were it not for GOG untangling them from legal limbo and granting companies like Steam easy access to them. 4) Games that we DON'T already know are being (re)released for PC certainly is far more justifying for the "exciting" remark than heavily hyped games that we've known for a long time now are coming out.

You have a point, but like I said many times before, none of us have any clue what these three games even are or what the contract between them states (besides regional pricing of course). In the end it's all a pointless guessing game for us to pass the time until some substantial information is provided.

*sighs* It's GirlPower... a known troll who fights for publishers and/or against whatever the thread is directed at. But thank you - because your right, we don't pay high prices because we're willing to... we pay it because we have no choice. Many, many Australian's do in fact shop around and try and buy online from stores that offer us reasonable prices... it's why GMG & GamersGate got used so much by Australians till they buckled to publishers.

I guess it's a waiting game to see just what games they are bringing to GoG that will be regional priced & what the actual regional pricing will be (will it actually be fair & reasonable, or will it be the typical gouging that happens).

I doubt that anyone who would relent on the issue of DRM would be so anal as to insist on that, nor do I see GOG adopting quasi DRM just to get a game that is only going to sell a fraction of the copies sold through Steam.

Usually the only time you see regional pricing is when there are mutiple publishers involved, and if one of the big boys is willing to experiment with shipping one of their heavy hitters without door locks; regional pricing is will probably fall to the wayside soon after.