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General discussionAnnouncement: Big Preorders & Launch Day Releases Coming!(4041 posts)(4041 posts)
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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 25, 2014
When Triumph announced Age of Wonders 3, they had right from the bat announced that it would be sold on GOG. We knew for a year now this game was to be in the GOG catalogue. But now all of a sudden we should be happy about regional pricing because it will be possible to sell so many more games? And the first one you were already going to sell?

Screw this.

I was waiting for this pre-order on GOG, but honestly? DRM free is cool and all that, but I prefer putting up with some DRM now and get screwed by a retailer who never pretended to be all about customer rights.
If that other retail platform with the build in DRM goes belly up, I can always come back and get a second, DRM free copy on sale. By then it will be going dead cheap.

>:(
Posted February 25, 2014
Thanks, GOG, it's a good game and a sequel to a classic... but was it really worth it?
Posted February 25, 2014
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Grargar: Guys, we have talked about it already. Risen 1+2, regardless of quality, are neither Preorder, nor Launch Day material. Also remember; GOG intends to use the first of those three games as a bargaining tool to convince other publishers to sign with GOG. Showing Risen would illicit nothing more than waves of laughter.
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Tarhiel: Good to know. But honestly, I am glad these two RPGs are coming to GOG, I was waiting for them for quite some time.
With the reveal of Age of Wonders 3, I regret my words.
Posted February 25, 2014
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HGiles: Kid, we've been over this a bazillion times on GOG before. GOG's business was built on selling games that had been on sale for *decades*. The long tail works as a selling strategy. Go educate yourself.
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mangamuscle: You seem to think that business do not need to adapt to grow, if gog had not included new games and indies and kept selling just oldies they would NOT have seen the increase in sales reported in this thread. Of course if you are so brilliant you can go and open your own gog store with said mercantile tenants, talk is cheap.
You keep bringing these strawmen into the discussion.

Seriously. Go educate yourself on how different business models work, read through the thread, and actually make a relevant comment. I look forward to talking with you when you know what you're talking about.
Post edited February 25, 2014 by HGiles
Posted February 25, 2014
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hedwards: There are agreements, however if TET has one shred of integrity left after posting all this dribble, it's that the publishers are the ones that made them agree to this. As in this point is something that could go away if they get sufficiently scared.

The whole business of doing something like this that they know damn well is going to piss off a huge portion of their customer base without bothering to do any poling or research is deeply disturbing.

It might not be possible to stop them from debuting the games with the regional pricing, but if we hammer hard enough something might well change.
If you read the reworded ToU, it's already taken care of - it will always be the publishers twisting their arm, i.e. don't be hard on us.
Compare the new style and tone of writing with what it used to be for this exact section:
7. What are your prices in different countries?
Our prices are always the same, worldwide. It doesn't matter whether you live in the sunny Bahamas (lucky you!) or some place where polar bears roam the streets, it's always the same price.
The light and humorous tone is gone, it's all serious business now.

I'm not in favour of this change either because I'm pretty confident how it's going to be implemented, but I have to sadly agree with mangamuscle that there is only a very small fracture of GOG's customer base actively opposing it. Thus, I'm afraid that a drastic change is unlikely to be achieved.


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Trilarion: Did anyone already mention that GOG tries to accomplish the impossible, satisfy publishers who like regional pricing and satisfy customers who don't like to be ripped off. It doesn't work on principal grounds. GOG has to fail with the compensation.

Either it is not sufficient with free games that you already have and don't value that much or don't want to play at all, then customers of GOG will get ripped off. Or they introduce something that is effective like full compensation by giving a store credti worth the difference to the cheapest region but then publishers won't be happy because the regional pricing is effectively neutralized. Regional pricing always means that someone gets ripped off.

snip
If GOG does it out of their own pocket, I think that the publishers couldn't care less, i.e. so long as the nominal regional prices are paid and they get their share based on that amount, what GOG does to compensate its customers is not going to affect them nor will they care. Publishers stepping in and requiring corrective measures will occur only if they're not making what they'd expect to from each region; at the moment, I can think of only the following two cases leading to that:
-- the current gifting system stays intact, i.e. completely open, and
-- prevention of circumventing geo-IP detaction (which I expect to come into force) is not implemented by GOG.

For the compensation to fail in a way that GOG will rethink its position, it has to be permanent, i.e. for all and every single new title added with regional pricing to the catalogue, and hurting them financially more than not selling those titles at all. So long as they register steady growth, they won't have any reason to reassess this decision.


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Trilarion: Now the question is if the games are worth it.
That doesn't really matter for those opposing on the principle level, but it's going to be the deciding factor for at least a portion of the folks on the "wait and see" side.
Posted February 25, 2014
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mangamuscle: You seem to think that business do not need to adapt to grow, if gog had not included new games and indies and kept selling just oldies they would NOT have seen the increase in sales reported in this thread. Of course if you are so brilliant you can go and open your own gog store with said mercantile tenants, talk is cheap.
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HGiles: You keep bringing these strawmen into the discussion.

Seriously. Go educate yourself on how different business models work, read through the thread, and actually make a relevant comment. I look forward to talking with you when you know what you're talking about.
Strawmen where? if you do not have anything worthy to read as a reply then just dont.
Posted February 25, 2014
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PixelBoy: I wrote this already in the another thread, but I'm so disappointed, I will repeat myself here...

Not only is GOG having 1$ = 1€ forced conversion now, but you don't get all the stuff, like soundtracks, for the price of the base game anymore.

So GOG gave up two of their former principles at the same time.

This is worse than was expected, and we really were expecting it to be bad to begin with.

I'm seriously considering boycotting GOG now. Well, those few hundred games I bought from the old, nice GOG will keep me busy for a while.
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HGiles: That's not exactly a boycott. I think it is the right reaction to this, though. Why buy something that's not attractive, or from a company that's not trustworthy?

I'm going to keep buying the games from GOG that are priced and packaged appropriately. That apparently doesn't include AoW3. Other people might decide to stop buying, although I think that's foolish. Better to buy games now before the contracts get renegotiated and the price goes up.
I second this idea. I'm only buying games under certain circumstances here.
Posted February 25, 2014
Age of Rip-off 3
Posted February 25, 2014
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Pyron: Age of Rip-off 3
Age of Wondrous Rip-off 3.
Posted February 25, 2014
I suddenly realized something. They have this 30 day money-back guarantee now with no questions asked?

Hmmm.

I wonder how many people are going to try that.
Posted February 25, 2014
Not sure if someone noticed but there is unique preorder DLC in there too...... another industry standard.
Posted February 25, 2014
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silentbob1138: Did they seriously think Age of Wonders would get us so excited that we wouldn't mind regional pricing? If so, they must have some great drugs at Gog.
TET said yesterday:

We do, actually, have some games that I'm pretty sure will have people giddy with glee once they show up on GOG that will be available thanks to this change.
That certainly sets the bar pretty high and carries a serious potential to lead to a lot of disappointment.
Not to mention that the actual games are irrelevant to the portion of folks that object on the principle level.

EDIT: fixed link
Post edited February 25, 2014 by HypersomniacLive
Posted February 25, 2014
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graspee: They didn't even ease into this regional pricing with only a slight difference, they just came right out with a one dollar = one euro joke. And some people claimed their regional pricing would be fair haha. Like I said, the whole concept of regional pricing is unfair. Having said that though I didn't think their first item would be THIS unfair.
To be fair, they charge €39.99 in my game page and specifically state above the pre-order button that «We'll bill the equivalent in USD: $54.99», so I don't think they're adopting the $1=€1 approach. Either that, or Age of Wonders III isn't one of the three AAA titles.
Posted February 25, 2014
high rated
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graspee: They didn't even ease into this regional pricing with only a slight difference, they just came right out with a one dollar = one euro joke. And some people claimed their regional pricing would be fair haha. Like I said, the whole concept of regional pricing is unfair. Having said that though I didn't think their first item would be THIS unfair.
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groze: To be fair, they charge €39.99 in my game page and specifically state above the pre-order button that «We'll bill the equivalent in USD: $54.99», so I don't think they're adopting the $1=€1 approach. Either that, or Age of Wonders III isn't one of the three AAA titles.
How is that not 1 dollar = 1 euro?

In USA they get charged 40 dollars- you are getting charged 40 euros, which they will bill you in dollars, which is 55 dollars.
Posted February 25, 2014
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graspee: They didn't even ease into this regional pricing with only a slight difference, they just came right out with a one dollar = one euro joke. And some people claimed their regional pricing would be fair haha. Like I said, the whole concept of regional pricing is unfair. Having said that though I didn't think their first item would be THIS unfair.
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groze: To be fair, they charge €39.99 in my game page and specifically state above the pre-order button that «We'll bill the equivalent in USD: $54.99», so I don't think they're adopting the $1=€1 approach. Either that, or Age of Wonders III isn't one of the three AAA titles.
Actually 39.99€ seems to be 54.95$ atm so yeah it's 1$ = 1€.
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This is my favourite topic
Community
General discussionAnnouncement: Big Preorders & Launch Day Releases Coming!(4041 posts)(4041 posts)
(4041 posts)