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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. :)
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Niggles: No idea. I found that site a while back and the release dates are fairly accurate LOL..i didnt think Warlock 2 would be AAA even if its Paradox...
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Grargar: They certainly are a bigger company than Triumph. And I don't see any upcoming big strategy release aside the aforementioned.
It could be ones that haven't been released to manufacturing yet, or ones that may be known about in some circles but not publicized, or ones where a release date has never been officially announced.

Just a thought. If no one here can come up with a few strong candidates after doing a little research, then what does that mean? GOG members are poor researchers? I haven't researched it, but I can't think of anything.
Post edited February 23, 2014 by JohnnyDollar
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ShadowWulfe: Until proven otherwise, the regional pricing "Good news" reminds me of this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ztp0vHSSVqM

Cigarette Juice!
It actually reminds me of this,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6ODMDtG6-I
Post edited February 23, 2014 by SirLesterMarwood
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RawSteelUT: I'm sad that you got down-voted, and I'm certainly expecting for this post to be down-voted, but if this gets us more games, what's to complain about?
You shouldn't be sad about that. Not imo anyway, but apparently I'm in the minority around her judging by the frequency I see comments referring to this, though.

I for one couldn't care less what my rep# is or the rep# of anyone else in this forum. I'll be my own judge of one's posts and what I consider to be one's character.
high rated
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_Bruce_: This does make me wonder what percentage of GOG customers are in the US. Generally speaking this move will not impact US sales, as their price is the benchmark anyway, and it doesn't appear that many US posters here would leave purely because other countries lose.

So you get the publishers/games in, but you annoy many non-US customers. For many games sellers this is acceptable, as the US is a huge chunk of their market, but I wonder how true this is for GOG. The forum at least seems to be very global.

Personally I don't avoid sites that have region pricing (hard to do so anyway), but I make a point of never buying a product that has an Australian price higher than US price.

The worst possible outcome is that GOG mysteriously finds many users 'moving' to the US and their statistics will show strong US sales, which further sends the message not to care about anywhere else.
The thing is, they migth include regional restriction
and since regional restriction is some kind of DRM then the road isnt long to regional lockout
and since they have both those why not just include a online client that checks if you have bougth it in the correct region
and suddenly the circle is complete and we migth as well abolish no-drm
low rated
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_Bruce_: This does make me wonder what percentage of GOG customers are in the US. Generally speaking this move will not impact US sales, as their price is the benchmark anyway, and it doesn't appear that many US posters here would leave purely because other countries lose.

So you get the publishers/games in, but you annoy many non-US customers. For many games sellers this is acceptable, as the US is a huge chunk of their market, but I wonder how true this is for GOG. The forum at least seems to be very global.

Personally I don't avoid sites that have region pricing (hard to do so anyway), but I make a point of never buying a product that has an Australian price higher than US price.

The worst possible outcome is that GOG mysteriously finds many users 'moving' to the US and their statistics will show strong US sales, which further sends the message not to care about anywhere else.
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Lodium: The thing is, they migth include regional restriction
and since regional restriction is some kind of DRM then the road isnt long to regional lockout
and since they have both those why not just include a online client that checks if you have bougth it in the correct region
and suddenly the circle is complete and we migth as well abolish no-drm
Slippery slope fallacy.
high rated
Thank you GOG.com for your honesty and candor on this topic, I hope you are similarly direct and open in the future when you betray your other core principles.

p.s. in the age of digital distribution, regional pricing is one of the few solid enticements/justifications for piracy.
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_Bruce_: This does make me wonder what percentage of GOG customers are in the US. Generally speaking this move will not impact US sales, as their price is the benchmark anyway, and it doesn't appear that many US posters here would leave purely because other countries lose.
Seems like tha to me too. "It won't change anything here for me, so go ahead".

Regional pricing is pretty bad for us in the UK, and we don't even get the worst of it, that goes to the EU and Aus (you would know eh?).

Just take a look at the most recent games released on Steam right now: http://www.steamprices.com/uk/new

EVERY game on that front page is at LEAST 10% cheaper in the US than the UK, and in a lot of cases it's even more in the EU. Now you might look at that front page and think they are mostly all relitivley cheap to begin with (which is true enough) but the trend continues, page after page after page.

One of the absolute pushing factors for me to use GoG in the past (when possible) WAS that I would be getting a fair deal, always paying the same as eveyone else. The DRM free thing is also a big factor, no doubt, but if new "big" games were, say, £5-£10 cheaper to buy WITH the DRM I might have been swayed.

I'm just so dissapointed.
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Selderij: It's clear that GOG knows it's wrong and that it's ready to shaft us regardless, and that doesn't feel very nice coming from a distributor that based its whole image on treating customers with respect.
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adamhm: Or... GOG knows that it's wrong and they don't like it, but they feel they have such a big opportunity here to further promote DRM-free releases and change the industry's attitude to DRM that it's for the best overall to tolerate regional pricing.
For some of us the DRM is smaller evil of the two.

The other one forces me to install third party software and the other one cost me significantly more, currently I take the savings...
The slippery slope argument is not necessarily a fallacy.

I do agree that GOG abandoning DRM-Free would be incredibly stupid however.
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Pseudospawn: p.s. in the age of digital distribution, regional pricing is one of the few solid enticements/justifications for piracy.
Yes. "I don't like the price, so it's okay to steal it."

That works well.



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takethepain: The slippery slope argument is not necessarily a fallacy.

I do agree that GOG abandoning DRM-Free would be incredibly stupid however.
Not necessarily, of course. In this case, it crosses the line.
Post edited February 23, 2014 by Chacranajxy
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adamhm: Or... GOG knows that it's wrong and they don't like it, but they feel they have such a big opportunity here to further promote DRM-free releases and change the industry's attitude to DRM that it's for the best overall to tolerate regional pricing.
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Ekaros: For some of us the DRM is smaller evil of the two.

The other one forces me to install third party software and the other one cost me significantly more, currently I take the savings...
I stand with you. If I have to choose between filling in some key in order to use the game I downloaded, I'd be totally fine with it actually. I cared way more about flat pricing.
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Lodium: The thing is, they migth include regional restriction
and since regional restriction is some kind of DRM then the road isnt long to regional lockout
and since they have both those why not just include a online client that checks if you have bougth it in the correct region
and suddenly the circle is complete and we migth as well abolish no-drm
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Chacranajxy: Slippery slope fallacy.
Maybe
But since it have happened on other online stores
except the client i woudnt be suprised if it had happened here too.
Il be suprised if it doesnt happen in fact.
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Pseudospawn: Thank you GOG.com for your honesty and candor on this topic, I hope you are similarly direct and open in the future when you betray your other core principles.
lol

I knew that you wasn't sincere when I first read "thank you" at the start of your sentence. I guess it's because it's so predictable right now given the current environment. :D
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I've already said a little here but I wanted to write a little more from the heart.

I was initially drawn to GOG by their commitment to re-releasing games forgotten by time, the "underdog" titles, and adding extra value by making sure these games ran on new machines.

I was taken quite aback initially when GOG abandoned "Good Old Games", and I still don't really care about new games very much (unless they're high up on the wishlist, like STALKER), but I still found reasons to support GOG.

I don't even mean actually buying games because, to be honest, I only have about ~30 GOG games, and a good chunk were freebies. I haven't sat down and played any sort of serious game (maybe a Flash game or two) in a month+. I haven't touched Dungeon Keeper, Fallout Tactics, Heretic Kingdoms, System Shock 2, Realms of Arkania, Empire Earth, Broken Sword, and naturally some of the general freebies. I'm certainly grateful for GOG giving away these games, but I just haven't been interested enough to actually play them.

Nevertheless, I still found reasons to support GOG. I don't mean to be a braggart, but for the past few months I've posted to r/games any new "old" games or meaningful games that were released on GOG, and I'm sure doing so brought in a few extra sales. I took the opportunity to mention GOG on Reddit whenever possible, and when relevant on Facebook. For a few months, when I had free time, I even helped "organize" people to assist in trying to find old game rights, I and several others like SCPM, IAmSinister, etc. essentially doing GOG's work w/o pay.

Why? Because I was passionate about what GOG stood for, and I viewed GOG as an "underdog" who deserved attention when they were helping other "underdogs" (mostly old unknown games, but you can add good new indie games in there too somewhat).

Now...

I'm not sure entirely sure what to think, plainly. I don't think I can keep trusting, mentioning. and defending GOG. Perhaps, in the end ("wait and see") it really won't end up being a big deal, but I'm not going to "mindlessly" defend GOG especially when so many others have extremely serious concerns.

This may seem nuts to some people that don't care about this, but perhaps the best thing GOG could do now is say, "Well, we're under contractual obligation with these three titles, but you guys showed us we f**ked up really badly. We won't do this again for any other titles, and we're putting 'one world pricing' back in. We will work to regain your trust and your business."

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takethepain: The slippery slope argument is not necessarily a fallacy.

I do agree that GOG abandoning DRM-Free would be incredibly stupid however.
I think it would be if this were late 2011 and people expressing concerns about "Good Old Games" just becoming GOG, but I think the slippery slope kind of fits here given what we've seen over the past 2-ish years. Thing is, when GOG started introducing new games, concerns like these were brought up quite a bit; people were afraid losing the "Good Old Games" "principle" (it wasn't actually ever a GOG principle, though, I don't think) could lead to other principles being dropped, and ... that seems to have actually happened now.

While I'm sure GOG won't be introducing DRM anytime soon - that would be utter business suicide since they've been completely rebranding themselves around this - it's worrying that they would just drop a principle and try to hide it in an announcement like this.
Post edited February 24, 2014 by tfishell
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takethepain: The slippery slope argument is not necessarily a fallacy.

I do agree that GOG abandoning DRM-Free would be incredibly stupid however.
Slippery slope is actually a full fledged logical argument, you're absolutely right. But the way people keep using it here is, in fact, its fallacious form.

Two examples for you to peruse at your leisure:

http://www.logicalfallacies.info/presumption/slippery-slope/

https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/slippery-slope