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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 25, 2014
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Fakum12: It sure looks like that. Just used a free vpn server and did get different prices.
A risky type, are you?
I wouldn't enter any account information on any side sites, whether they state that they never analyze traffic or not.
Oh, well, maybe it's just me being paranoid,
Posted February 25, 2014
Regional pricing of Age of Wonders 3, good job.
I could buy it for steam for ~27 $ on my local web shop, or support GoG and buy it for $34.
Well, I guess I could cough up that additional few bucks if not for GoG has abandoned its principles :]
Posted February 25, 2014
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DukeNukemForever: They do, for the states it costs 39.99$. As far as I remember they can only bill you in dollars right now, which means you will pay the 55$ with the extra-fees and the exchange-rate of your bank, not the 40€.
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groze: I'm not making this up. I don't speak Economish nor Lawese, so I'm not getting into this discussion, but I'll leave a screenshot for you guys more in the know than me to analyse and scrutinize at your own leisure.

Happy complaining. :)
No complaining or discussion from my site, just an explanation what's exactly going on. Maybe I should give it another try. The lower window shows you what the game should cost you in your own currency, that's the 40€. But right now GOG can't only bill in dollars, which means you need to pay the 55$ from the upper window. For your european bank that's a foreign transaction, which means they use their exchange-rate (dollar-euro) and maybe add some extra-fees. Someone from the United States needs to pay 39.99$.

In short: USA pays 40$ and EU should pay 40€, but gets billed with 55$.
Post edited February 25, 2014 by DukeNukemForever
Posted February 25, 2014
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mangamuscle: You people insist in not looking at the BIG PICTURE, this is one of many more titles that would have never shown or shown too late (when most interested people have already bought it).
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ydobemos: No, you're the one not looking at the big picture. As I've already said in this thread and another:

This will fatally undermine GOG's unique selling point. The reason GOG was able to become the second-biggest online games vendor in the world is that a large number (a minority, but a significant one) of gamers were so fed up with the unfair practices of its competitors such as Steam, particular DRM and international price discrimination, that they wouldn't buy from them or at least would much rather buy from GOG, and that number was and is growing - slowly, but still growing. By not letting their games be sold here because they insisted upon DRM and/or regional pricing, publishers were missing out on a large amount of money. The way for GOG to get them to release their games on consumer-friendly terms was to hold out, refuse to abandon their principles and wait for more and more publishers to get fed up with not being able to sell their games at all to a large and growing number of gamers, so they decided they'd rather sell them on terms they don't like (i.e. fair, ethical ones) than not at all.

Now GOG has made that much less likely to happen. You know that Regional Rip-Off video, the old "fair price" bit on the site banner, the old news announcement where GOG declares it will have failed if it ever abandons any of its principles including the "one world, one price" policy, and all the other embarrassing reminders that people keep posting in this thread? Well, we, the customers, aren't the only ones to remember all that - publishers do so too. And now they've seen that GOG is willing to abandon at least one of those hitherto inviolable principles. After this decision - even if GOG does attract more publishers and more games by allowing regional pricing - in future, if someone says, "You can sell this game, but only with [some sort of DRM, probably one of the less awful ones like a one-time verification - at least the first time]", and GOG says, "Never - DRM-free and that's not negotiable," do you think the publisher will take them seriously now that they've already given up on one 'core value'?
I think arguing that GoG is the '2nd biggest online distributor thus ...' is a fallacy to begin with. Because the chasm between the number one online distributor and the 2nd one is so large that you might as well be calling yourself the 4th or the 5th, since everyone after number one is so far down the list in terms of sales.
Posted February 25, 2014
Was the in-depth letter from the FrenchMonk postponed?
Posted February 25, 2014
Well, there it is then: Age of Wonders III, $39.99 if you live in the USA, $49.99 if you live in the UK, and $54.99 if you live in Europe. I'm in the UK, so I get to enjoy a permanent +25% un-sale ... thanks. But if you're in Europe (the zone where both GOG and Triumph Studios are based, ironically) you get to enjoy an incredible permanent +38% un-sale. Or, to put it another way: a mark-up of 2.5 whole GOG games on this one game alone. The home-crowd must be loving that, I'm sure.
Posted February 25, 2014
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groze: I'm not making this up. I don't speak Economish nor Lawese, so I'm not getting into this discussion, but I'll leave a screenshot for you guys more in the know than me to analyse and scrutinize at your own leisure.

Happy complaining. :)
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DukeNukemForever: No complaining or discussion from my site, just an explanation what's exactly going on. Maybe I should give it another try. The lower window shows you what the game should cost you in your own currency, that's the 40€. But right now GOG can't only bill in dollars, which means you need to pay the 55$ from the upper window. For your european bank that's a foreign transaction, which means they use their exchange-rate (dollar-euro) and maybe add some extra-fees. Someone from the United States needs to pay 39.99$.

In short: USA pays 40$ and EU should pay 40€, but gets billed with 55$.
Thank you for the explanation!

My "happy complaining" wasn't addressed at you, specifically, and it wasn't sarcastic in any way, let me just add that. I think people have the right to complain when they feel they're being mistreated, that's all.
Posted February 25, 2014
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ghostgate2001: Well, there it is then: Age of Wonders III, $39.99 if you live in the USA, $49.99 if you live in the UK, and $54.99 if you live in Europe. I'm in the UK, so I get to enjoy a permanent +25% un-sale ... thanks. But if you're in Europe (the zone where both GOG and Triumph Studios are based, ironically) you get to enjoy an incredible permanent +38% un-sale. Or, to put it another way: a mark-up of 2.5 whole GOG games on this one game alone. The home-crowd must be loving that, I'm sure.
Nope, Poland appears to be in another zone, that is cheaper than the US
Posted February 25, 2014
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Fakum12: It sure looks like that. Just used a free vpn server and did get different prices.
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Sanjuro: A risky type, are you?
I wouldn't enter any account information on any side sites, whether they state that they never analyze traffic or not.
Oh, well, maybe it's just me being paranoid,
Well, not really risky. GOG isn't the most important site to me.
And security wise I think I am on the safe side:
The password is only used on this site (like all my passwords are site-specific, I never use the same password on two different sites).
No credit card information stored.
Posted February 25, 2014
Besides feeling disappointed and "betrayed", I can´t stop laughing now... Sorry, this is epically disastrous and I shouldn´t be pointing, but you deserved...

Pic related: Nelson_Ha-Ha.jpg
Post edited February 25, 2014 by tokisto
Posted February 25, 2014
high rated
Well, the UK price is fair, as I expected, but the rest of Europe and elsewhere gets the crap end of the stick again. Whoever came up with the $1 = €1 policy should be forced to live in the worst-impacted country in Europe for a year. It just isn't right, and I feel sorry for all those people who have to put up with this.

When it comes to GOG's pricing model going forward, it's pretty much summed up in this line taken from article (7) here: http://www.gog.com/support/website_help/payments_pricing_promos

"Regional pricing will always [be] something that is undertaken at the request of the company for whom we are selling the game."

That says it in a nutshell. Any publisher currently selling their games through GOG.com can ask to switch to regional pricing, and GOG will simply comply.

How many publishers do people honestly believe will NOT switch to regional pricing, if their competitors are already taking advantage of it? Does anyone really think that EA, Ubisoft, Activision, et al, are not going to take advantage of this pricing model? Of course they will, because it would not make good business sense to do otherwise.

It may start with three games, but I am pretty certain that a year from now most games will have regional pricing on this site. The management knew this when they made this decision, which is why they removed 'one world, one price' as one of their core principles.

For me that leaves DRM-Free and Extras as the main hooks to keep me coming here, although it also seems some of those extras may now come separately as well (if at all), so that leaves one core principle.

I still want to support DRM-Free, but I'm really not happy about this. It is grossly unfair to so many other customers. :/
Posted February 25, 2014
I hoped it was at least a game that was worth it, but IT IS NOT G.....O......G. I Think this is finally the day i will actually start calling you G....O....G, the gog i loved has been death for a while , it's time to accept it.
Posted February 25, 2014
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Well gog, it's been fun. Unless banned, I'm still going to hang out at the forums because the folks there are just above and beyond awesome and may be some of the best on this internet, but with over 350 games on my shelves, the time has come to stop adding shelves.

I've been back and forth on this all last night, but got a couple hours sleep and thought about it some more, and just realized that yes, if you're willing to compromise on the one world - one price principle in order to get "exciting new games (and profits), then yes, you're going to be willing to compromise on DRM free when the game is exciting (or the profits high) enough.

That's the way it works with most businesses, and you've now shown yourself to be nothing but another business. So go ahead, take a look at my shelf, see the number, and I guarantee you that that number will remain the same until one world - one price returns.

Because I'm not going to wait until DRM free is already gone to vote with my wallet. I'm going to vote now, and tell you that none of your so-called values should be compromised on. If that means you can't get certain games, that's fine. That's the way it's always been. I didn't come here because you guys got all the great games, I came here because you guys had all the great values, including those values called principles.

Good luck, and if the policy is changed back, it will be a pleasure to once again do business with you.

Haters, go ahead and hate away.
Attachments:
capture.jpg (168 Kb)
Post edited February 25, 2014 by OldFatGuy
Posted February 25, 2014
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RS1978: Was the in-depth letter from the FrenchMonk postponed?
Delayed, perhaps. There's still a bit of time left in the day, and after the storm of ire and poo (a veritable poopocalypse) from this and related forum threads, a couple late nights this week might not be so surprising. >.>
Posted February 25, 2014
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melkathi: 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?

snip
That's quite interesting - could that indicated that both companies were flirting with regional pricing as early as a whole year ago?

Other than that, I'm actually a bit shocked with how this went - the announced letter never showed, instead Age of Wonders 3 debuts as the first of the 3 hyped AAA releases with regional pricing.
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This is my favourite topic
Community
General discussionAnnouncement: Big Preorders & Launch Day Releases Coming!(4041 posts)(4041 posts)
(4041 posts)