Thank you TeT :)
U left out the bit about publisher also decides to do the region locking or not :P

LOL, don't forget the people who run GOG are the same people who thought shutting down the website and telling their customers that the service was being closed was a "good marketing strategy" to help launch a new version of the site.

I'd say, if the latest news is anything to go by, they haven't learned much :)

Because that was not the question.

Unless it's a full 180 reversal of your decision to abandon your core principles, all the while screwing with your customer base, then I'm not sure anyone will "rest substantially easier". I guess we'll see.

Has GOG died.....again?:D....perhaps only for real this time?

I don't think so yet but this new direction is the wrong one.I think the only option left is to not support the games with regional pricing.That is the loudest message one can send towards GOG and the publishers.The only message the publishers care about.

Well that is what Jim Sterling said in one of his vids.

I don't think GOG are going to change their minds on the regional pricing thing for these AAA titles. Perhaps they can reach a compromise with the publishers.
* For one year they have this regional pricing thing on the title, that surely would be the period when the most full price sales would be made.
* After one year it reverts to a one fair price globally.
The publishers get their tiered pricing for a year, for all those folks prepared to pay the difference. After one year the rest of us have it a bit fairer.
* GOG can say to other publishers when it comes to renegotiating existing game contracts that tiered pricing is only an option for the first year of new release games.
* of course tiered pricing games should be clearly marked as such.

It probably would work for me I'm a patient sort and I wouldn't feel quite as guilty if a jumped in and picked up one of these games (in a moment of weakness).

Food for thought.

Abandonware doesn't mean you can download the game for free or the game has become free.

From Wiki: Abandonware is a product, typically software, ignored by its owner and manufacturer, and for which no product support is available. Although such software is usually still under copyright, the owner may not be tracking or enforcing copyright violations.

But, It's good that you chose to get them in an honest way.

Couldn't have said this better myself. This is why I'm not too fussed about regional pricing.

Steam - You buy the game but you don't own it, a problem with Steam servers or your account and every Steam bound game you own Is no longer accessible.

GOG - You buy the game and you own it, whatever happens to the GOG service (God forbid), your account, or hell breaks loose, one thing will still stand, you can play the game anytime you wish (so long as you have the setup files).

If regional pricing will mean more AAA games DRM-Free from big publishers, then I will pay the extra money unfair as it may be.


Edit: Ahhh dang I always forget the censorships, These should be done away with, Adults don't need censorships, I see Video games as a form of art and shouldn't be changed according to what country the consumer is from. Censorships may also lead to piracy.

All right, was saying I just moved you straight from the strong support list to the boycott list and won't bother with anything else, but let's try a somewhat more reasonable message after just letting off a bit of steam Friday. This is darn difficult, mind you.

Regional pricing for on-line sales is wrong. There's absolutely no excuse or justification for it. For physical sales there are varying taxes, transportation costs, the shares taken by the various shops themselves and wildly varying bills, rent and wages those stores have to pay. On-line, nobody can argue that it costs 0.01 USD to send a certain number of bits to the US and 5.46 EUR to send it to the EU for a 19.99 USD / 19.99 EUR game (even 0.46 EUR would still be entirely unreasonable, if it'd be 19.99 USD / 14.99 EUR), and let's not even mention the even more outrageous situation for Australia / New Zealand. Hence, publishers merely do it because they can get away with it, there's absolutely nothing that can be said to justify it or your choice to give in to this.

When you gave in for The Witcher 2, it was as a result of a court order, after a lengthy court battle that you lost, and you tried to make up for it with some store credit and even "broke" the geo-IP for a while to allow people to pick their location when buying that as well, which incidentally was an even greater plus for those same Aussies who had even worse problems than pricing to worry about. In that case, you fought for us, the customers, and alongside us, and even though you lost one battle, you did what you could to make it so we won't lose it as well. And it was just one battle in a war, it happens, moving on.

Now, however, with this announcement, you did not lose a battle, you simply surrendered in the war, and contrary to what you said, you are pissing on our heads and telling us it's raining. As that video people have been sharing proves, only last summer you were saying this will never happen, that if you ever allow for any dent in your values that's the end of GOG, and just two months ago someone from support told me regional pricing will never happen, and now... There is nothing you can say to justify this or make it tolerable. Nothing! You had two clear, specific, core values, DRM-free and flat price worldwide. You gave up on one of them. It's not a question of slippery slope, of potential consequences to the no-DRM stance in the future as well or anything else, not right now and not specifically at least. It's a question of betraying one of your two core principles, and therefore betraying us. And hiding it in a so-called positive announcement, hiding your traces by making that video private, trying to justify it in who knows what way now is not making it any better, but worse.

As I saw someone else put it at some point on here, people like sales, coupons, free stuff, etc. everywhere, but people loved GOG. You were the good guys, you fought for us and we fought for you. Some people bought dozens or even hundreds of games on here (even if on big sales) just to support you, not because they absolutely wanted them, and definitely not because they needed to get them legally anywhere. Others shared your news, your offers, your announcements, supported you in other ways, persuaded friends and acquaintances to join GOG, make purchases as well, spread the word even further. It wasn't a client - store business relationship, it was an emotional attachment because it truly felt as if we were in this fight against the other, evil, businesses in this industry together. And you now proved not to be the case. That's a betrayal, and the reaction to this, the rejection, will be just as emotional and vehement and steadfast as the support used to be, and possibly even more so.

If you were so desperate to get publishers too rotten to allow for fair prices for some of their games in one shop among several, just to count the major ones, you could, at the very worst, make an entirely separate site, without any visible connection to GOG, ran by an entirely different team, that would sell just those games, and leave GOG as it was. That'd have still been a blow, but it'd at least have been something else, wouldn't have soiled GOG directly.

If you truly believe you'll get many games like this, you could still do that. Once you get, say, 50 or so under those terms, new, DRM-free but not fair priced, make another site, selling just those games, without negatively affecting GOG. Guarantee that GOG will maintain its principles, so including the fair flat price one, and still get at least 150 new releases per year (100 from the old two games at least three years old per week rule, rounding down to give a week off during the summer sale and one during the winter sale, and 50 more to justify the fact that you decided to stop focusing just on those "older" games some time ago - which incidentally started the slippery slope that led to this, mind you), and put the others on said other site, with the rule that they may not stay there with non-flat prices more than two years after being included in the catalog or more than three years after launch, whichever comes first. Then, once you can get a publisher to accept flat pricing for one of those games, move it to GOG too, but if you can't get such an agreement before the game is on that other site for two years or three years have passed since it was first released, whichever comes first, it will be removed from that other site and forgotten about, since the point wouldn't be to cater to rotten unreasonable publisher demands forever, but just to provide a gradual way in for them towards a fair model. And either way name and shame, spell out precisely which publisher made this rotten demand and what they said to your attempts to persuade them otherwise.

Again, this other site idea would still be a blow, would still be a betrayal, but not as much of one and at least it'd be a betrayal by CD Projekt (which won't exactly be a first if you recall the going after Witcher 2 "pirates" bit or the fact that they just signed a distribution deal for Witcher 3 with the same rotten <bleep> who forced you into the regional pricing for Witcher 2), not by GOG.

Sorry for the length, but... I guess that's as reasonable as I can get. Adding any game on GOG with regional pricing, or of course adding region locks or other such things that may follow, is not tolerable under any circumstances. Period.

Don´t really know,but back in time (years ago) was 1$= 1 euro.

Until two years (and mostly indies) that didn´t changed...but even changed...sometimes are done vaguely

(14.99$= 13.99 euros, and that´s totally wrong)

If I don´t remember bad, steam puts the 1$= euro DEFAULT and now the publisher can change that or not (if theywant...and sometimes..seems they doesn´t.)

Maybe I´m wrong, but yes, until I know, power or "how much money charge to people" ends in the publisher or developer.
No offense, but you have a real problem here... (flaming so much =_=)

I think, "throwing babies" is always a bad idea, independently if there's water in the bath or not. ;)

I would be grateful if Guillaume could say some words to the imminent problem with regional restrictions and the associated censorship. Hey, guys, all what I want is buying my uncensored German copy of THE WITCHER 3 here on GOG! :) (And perhaps someday an uncensored version of BioShock...)

Initially, there will be some games (and probably more to come later) with a dollar value modified by region. For example, a 40$ game will appear as 55$ in Europe. Later, local currency will be added, so the price will be 40€. Whether there will be price-gouging or not, that depends on the publisher but personally, judging by the regional pricing in other digital stores, I do not see a positive outcome for those affected.

I'm looking forward to!

My biggest problem is that it was GOG who led me to believe that regional pricing in completely unfair. My first digital purchase was in 2012 (I bought AoW here) and back then I didn't even know anything about regional pricing. But flat prices was listed as one of your core values so I checked other sites to see what was this infamous regional pricing. I was surprised to see 1 dollor = 1 euro conversion at so many other DDs. I admit - my knowledge about economics, taxes, price differences was and still is very limited so I didn't form my own opinion about it. And then GOG started an aggressive campaign against regional pricing (famous lampoon but other speeches and news posts as well!) so I thought to myself: "hey, this guys obviously know better and by their actions they are proving that it can be done". I was especially impressed when you claimed that you were stubborn and sticking to your core values is important. Step by step, over two years GOG itself led me to believe that regional pricing is unfair. And now you are telling me that it's a global standard anyway?! I mean... WTF?! It's this tragic inconsistency that shocked me most, not regional pricing per se.

And as I said before: I still know next to nothing about regional pricing, taxes, economics and all this so I think it's entirely possible that you may even convince me that from economical point of view your recent move was a good one. But it's not my concern at the moment. I would like to know why did you change your mind? Why did you put a lot of effort to convince me that regional pricing is bad and then, oh cruel irony, introduce regional pricing yourself?

Like I said before, love how people dissapointed run to the even worse option (totally respectable one, but I would just stop buying in Gog and steam xD)
Funny thing, yes, and they will keep supporting places like steam : )