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General discussionAnnouncement: Big Preorders & Launch Day Releases Coming!(4041 posts)(4041 posts)
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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 23, 2014
high rated
From my point of view, GOG broke one of their promises and the lame excuse given is even worse. One of the main cores of that site was fairness (which suddenly was removed recently from front page). Its also one of the things that they kept talking big about in any interviews, how GOG is fair to all customers and no regional pricing.

As any business, GOG words is not worth the time taken to write them, so for me its the start of death of a good place to buy my games. Yeah biggest thing for me is DRM-free and yes regional locking or pricing doesn't actually affect me in anyway but once a liar always a liar. And GOG broke their first 4 cores, now remains how long it will take for them to break the other three.

Soon, DRM is becoming the global standard so its in publisher hands.

Just my 2 cents and shame on you GOG promising to be different but ending up same as all others.
Posted February 23, 2014
My 2p in an already crowded thread: it is not that the measure is good or bad itself, but having a video in youtube where they say that they will NEVER do regional pricing and then changing their principles two years after does really look bad. It makes you untrustable, gog. Sorry.
Posted February 23, 2014
Isn't regional pricing just like everything else?

Prices are bound to be different region to region, not to mention country by country: gas prices, food prices, toll prices. What's video games to add to the mix?

Don't get me wrong, I would love it if everyone could pay the same price for all games, but should anyone complain that the gas prices in Venezuela are so much less than in their own country?

The reason I buy from this site is because of the no-DRM. The one world, one price (while certainly a good tenant to have) isn't quite as important to me, perhaps because I live in the US. Frankly, I would like to see more games enter the library that are newer as well. I like some old games, but something new to add to the mix would be welcome. If gog says that the only way they are able to expand their more modern library is to have regional pricing (and as long as that pricing is relatively close to what the average price of the game is), I still think that the added cost is still secondary to the fact that we get no DRM.
Posted February 23, 2014
high rated
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Crazy_Borg: So, instead of paying 9,99$ we europeans are about to pay 13,99$.
Man, that really sounds fair for all of us, doesn't it?
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d2t: If you had to add 20-sth % of VAT tax on top of the price of a product when you sell stuff in Europe, would you cover that from your own pocket? Why would a developer or publisher sacrifice part of his income, because your or mine government taxes all products?
Yeah, right. But some of us are not upset about regional pricing per se (or at least it's not the biggest issue). For me it was always about abandoning one of GOG's core value. They were taking about it for years, they made speeches and explained why the regional pricing is unfair. Their own words: "We were always stubborn and we stood for our principles because if we respect ourselves; if we respect the GOG model then we get respect from the human beings who buy from us. So it’s all about being consistent." And now what? Whoops, "regional pricing is becoming the standard around the globe." Deal with it. Heck, they even made a lampoon about it. And now what? They plan to do exactly what they used to mock.

He who digs a pit for others, falls in himself...

Whoopsy daisy, I think I should have regionalize this proverb so here we go:

kto pod kim dołki kopie, sam w nie wpada
من حفر حفرة لأخيه وقع فيها
kdo jinému jámu kopá, sám do ní padá
den, der graver en grav for andre, falder tit selv i den
incidit in foveam qui primus fecerat illam
wer anderen eine Grube gräbt, fällt selbst hinein
όποιος σκάβει το λάκκο του αλλουνού, πέφτει ο ίδιος μέσα
den som gräver en grop åt andra, faller själv däri
chi scava la fossa agli altri, vi cade dentro egli stesso

I feel so much better indeed...
Posted February 23, 2014
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Risingson: My 2p in an already crowded thread: it is not that the measure is good or bad itself, but having a video in youtube where they say that they will NEVER do regional pricing and then changing their principles two years after does really look bad. It makes you untrustable, gog. Sorry.
Lol, wait until they "remove" it soon.
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d2t: If you had to add 20-sth % of VAT tax on top of the price of a product when you sell stuff in Europe, would you cover that from your own pocket? Why would a developer or publisher sacrifice part of his income, because your or mine government taxes all products?
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Ghorpm: Yeah, right. But some of us are not upset about regional pricing per se (or at least it's not the biggest issue). For me it was always about abandoning one of GOG's core value. They were taking about it for years, they made speeches and explained why the regional pricing is unfair. Their own words: "We were always stubborn and we stood for our principles because if we respect ourselves; if we respect the GOG model then we get respect from the human beings who buy from us. So it’s all about being consistent." And now what? Whoops, "regional pricing is becoming the standard around the globe." Deal with it. Heck, they even made a lampoon about it. And now what? They plan to do exactly what they used to mock.

He who digs a pit for others, falls in himself...

Whoopsy daisy, I think I should have regionalize this proverb so here we go:

kto pod kim dołki kopie, sam w nie wpada
من حفر حفرة لأخيه وقع فيها
kdo jinému jámu kopá, sám do ní padá
den, der graver en grav for andre, falder tit selv i den
incidit in foveam qui primus fecerat illam
wer anderen eine Grube gräbt, fällt selbst hinein
όποιος σκάβει το λάκκο του αλλουνού, πέφτει ο ίδιος μέσα
den som gräver en grop åt andra, faller själv däri
chi scava la fossa agli altri, vi cade dentro egli stesso

I feel so much better indeed...
Epic comment!
Post edited February 23, 2014 by Kyanti4869
Posted February 23, 2014
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Ghorpm: Heck, they even made a lampoon about it.
And, in case you wonder what is wrong with this announcement, watch that lampoon.
Posted February 23, 2014
http://www.steamprices.com/eu/fairpriced

Interesting, I see just 15 "fair priced" products across the globe (all regions). I know it may not work properly with more countries, but ripoffs show much more entries...

I hope that on gog it will not look like on Steam one day as far as pricing goes.
Posted February 23, 2014
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JohnnyDollar: They're still using flat pricing except for new launches, though. I'm not going to get into slippery slope predictions. That's what we have right now in the present.

Folks aren't taking take into account the worth of DRM-free with customers either.

Announcing that they were bringing newer games here and officially dropping "Good old Games" was suppose to spell their demise, because that what was a major selling point that separated them from the other digital distributors according to a lot of members here back at the time. It hasn't happened.
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hedwards: That's a gross misinterpretation of our stance on that. And GOG is definitely not what it once was. Yes, there are more people here and more games, but GOG is no longer particularly special and it's really hard to have any brand loyalty.

Dropping GOG was an incredibly stupid thing to do, regardless of outcome. They spent years building up their brand and then chucked it on a risky maneuver to get a larger section of the market after repeatedly claiming otherwise.

I for one have greatly reduced the number of games I buy here as a result. No Linux support even on games that have it, and generally insulting marketing practices don't exactly make me want to buy things here. And with regional pricing, I might as well buy from somebody else.
Tbh, I cast off brand loyalty with anything a long time ago. That depends on how you define loyalty, though. With me it's "I'll stick with you as long as I like your product and it serves my needs well (Edit: and if I don't come across something better in the meantime)", or something along those lines.

I have always preferred "Good old Games". Putting the name aside, they never have stopped bringing classic games here. Members still come in here and complain about it.

Everyone is in a different situation. DRM-free is what brought me here. I mean I like GOG, but that's always been the linchpin here afaic.
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Kyanti4869: I know Steam is DRM.... but it's the best out of the worst. Still makes it bad, but what can we do?
If you fully boycott gaming as a hobby and end it... it doesn't matter, because 20 more just joined.
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Lodium: Hmm, Monopoly over a market seldom leads to good, at least thats my experience.
I think Steam have way too laarge of the market share already and have gotten lazy as a result.
They dont produce that many games because they dont need to, and they can do almost whatever they want because as you say.
If they loose 3 or 4 , 20 more will join the train.
Seldom? Blasphemy! You're are hereby banned from this forum!

Seriously, I can't think of how a monopoly over a market ever leads to good, at least not in the long term anyway.

I wouldn't call Steam a monopoly though. They're a dominant force in the DD business, but not a monopoly.
Post edited February 23, 2014 by JohnnyDollar
Posted February 23, 2014
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JohnnyDollar: Everyone is in a different situation. DRM-free is what brought me here. I mean I like GOG, but that's always been the linchpin here afaic.
That's my main reason for being customer here as well. As far I can buy DRM-free games uncensored here, I will remain. But if I have to pay German taxes, I want full German language support too.
Posted February 23, 2014
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CarrionCrow: For me it isn't just a matter of gaining or losing. It's a matter of "Should I have this in my possession right now?" Did I buy it? No. Did I create it? No. Was it a gift? No. Did I find it at a pawn shop/used game store/whatever? No. If I have it in my possession, and there's no good, valid, legal reason to have it? THEN I STOLE IT. "Oh wait, the people who spent the time making this to begin with, they stopped caring, so....field day!" Lie to yourself all day long, steal whatever you're going to steal. But call it what it is. No need for bullshit rationalization, we're all adults here. Do what you're gonna do, but keep the nonsense labels out of it. Right, it's abandonware. No, it's people looking for a reason. The company who makes it doesn't have any responsibility to keep supporting it until the end of time. Doesn't mean that they're okay with people swiping it. If they were? IT'D BE FREEWARE.
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Selderij: No really, your concept of stealing is out of whack (or alternatively you just feel the need to be subversive and edgy) and you need to admit that to yourself. Theft requires the owner of something to lose that something in the process. Piracy requires the owner of something to suffer a damage to their revenue when that something is copied, making the generous and simplifying assumption that a copied product equals a lost sale of an original.

Abandonware is abandoned software that you can't buy from an official source and the copying of which affects its IP owners in no way whatsoever: no lost material, no lost data, no lost revenues, no lost custom, nothing at all. Freeware is software that its lawful owners are actively distributing for free. I hope this helped.
That's the thing right there, though. How can anyone who doesn't have access to all the information a creator would have be able to tell what the effect is? What if a creator has a mind to start distributing a game again? Pretty sure the market would be affected if a working copy has already been passed out for free beforehand. Some people might buy it out of a sense of obligation, but odds are that others would not.
As far as the definition of theft goes, to me it reads as having something I'm not supposed to. If it was made by someone else, and I didn't buy it, then I didn't obtain it legally. If I obtained it illegally, then that's a form of theft. I would then possess something I wasn't supposed to. It definitely feels like a lot of people have taken the term of abandonware as a way of mitigating association to negative labels like software piracy, to attach a higher ideal to it. Doesn't change it, though. Only difference is in how much people get upset over you stealing their stuff.
Posted February 23, 2014
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Ghorpm: Whoopsy daisy, I think I should have regionalize this proverb so here we go:
Made my day! :D
Posted February 23, 2014
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Lodium: Hmm, Monopoly over a market seldom leads to good, at least thats my experience.
I think Steam have way too laarge of the market share already and have gotten lazy as a result.
They dont produce that many games because they dont need to, and they can do almost whatever they want because as you say.
If they loose 3 or 4 , 20 more will join the train.
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Kyanti4869: But Steam is more than a DRM now. It's like Skype, and it has Greenlight Programme, which is a great one. It put itself in a good position to not lose coustmers and users. They're not developing games more anymore, because they're getting more than enough money from sales. Steam is my only main platform. Origin is never never never.

GOG was never seen as a main platform, it was a sanctuary and a temple for all gamers, old and new. It's losing its unique principles over time.
I do have a Steam account so i know Steam is great in many areas.
Heck i think i have about 100 games there.
I woudnt be buying games from there if i totally hated it.

But i still think Steam has way too much power in the market
and its not good for the consumers if that is the main platform forever.
Competition is good for the consumers, monopoly is bad.
And i still havent counted the minor things they are actually able to do something about but for whatever reasons wont do for the time being.
Minor nitpickings but they are still there and since steam have money enough they shoud be able to deal with these issues.
Post edited February 23, 2014 by Lodium
Posted February 23, 2014
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Thunderstone: Whoa, 109 pages of outrage generated in 2 days. Gog really stepped on a hornets nest here 0.o
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groze: I'd rather go by posts, as pages depend on user forum configurations. :P It's showing 44 pages on my end, so, let's just go with 2173 posts (by the time of this one).

(Just joking, don't get me wrong, this thing is just so seriously out of hand, it's tiring and frightening at the same time... -_- )
Well, this does show that people care about gog and its principles. What gog stands/stood for matters to people, especially those who get screwed massively over by regional pricing.

Personally, I'm in wait and see mode on this before making up my mind. As I mentioned in a prior post gog in the past has shown itself to be a reasonable company. At the same time, flat rate pricing was one of its core values so that is a cause for concern. What else will they sacrifice? On the other hand, they do try to do good by their customers and one of the few that seems to care about their base. However, people are feeling burnt by businesses who care only about the money, but businesses exist because of money and for making money. Without money businesses will die.

This is what people are backlashing against, business who sacrifice principle for the dollar. Principle is a rare thing to see these days especially in favor of the customer.

I can see both sides of the story here.
Posted February 23, 2014
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CarrionCrow: For me it isn't just a matter of gaining or losing. It's a matter of "Should I have this in my possession right now?" Did I buy it? No. Did I create it? No. Was it a gift? No. Did I find it at a pawn shop/used game store/whatever? No. If I have it in my possession, and there's no good, valid, legal reason to have it? THEN I STOLE IT. "Oh wait, the people who spent the time making this to begin with, they stopped caring, so....field day!" Lie to yourself all day long, steal whatever you're going to steal. But call it what it is. No need for bullshit rationalization, we're all adults here. Do what you're gonna do, but keep the nonsense labels out of it. Right, it's abandonware. No, it's people looking for a reason. The company who makes it doesn't have any responsibility to keep supporting it until the end of time. Doesn't mean that they're okay with people swiping it. If they were? IT'D BE FREEWARE.
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Selderij: No really, your concept of stealing is out of whack (or alternatively you just feel the need to be subversive and edgy) and you need to admit that to yourself. Theft requires the owner of something to lose that something in the process. Piracy requires the owner of something to suffer a damage to their revenue when that something is copied, making the generous and simplifying assumption that a copied product equals a lost sale of an original.

Abandonware is abandoned software that you can't buy from an official source and the copying of which affects its IP owners in no way whatsoever: no lost material, no lost data, no lost revenues, no lost custom, nothing at all. Freeware is software that its lawful owners are actively distributing for free. I hope this helped.
I agree with Selderij.
Try to purchase legaly Wolfenstein (2009) or Prey... You can't, because those games aren't available anymore; so they are abandonware... for now.
Posted February 23, 2014
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Pheace: Also, @ people asking why they didn't call a vote for this... seriously? We all know what the answer would have been, so does GOG. The answer was obvious, so they simply opted not to do it.
Answers aren't always as obvious as we would like them to be...
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This is my favourite topic
Community
General discussionAnnouncement: Big Preorders & Launch Day Releases Coming!(4041 posts)(4041 posts)
(4041 posts)