Steam has been around far longer, and despite of sticking to their core values, GOG.com has continued to grow, year after year.

Tell that to Sony and Microsoft, who are banking on the increased Indie market for a great deal of the revenue for their latest consoles.

Besides, GOG.com cannot even begin to compete with Steam, because Valve are going into the console market with their new Steam machine.

It is better for GOG.com's "survival" for them to focus on what they are good at, then to try and become the new Steam. That means they need to focus on their core values - not throw them out trying to catch up with a company that isn't even playing by the same rules as them any more.

Nice strawman, GOG.com has grown despite Steam dominating the market.

Source, please?

Um, both view points are based on the idea that your views, needs, and drives are the only ones of any relevance.

DRM Free (I assume you mean DRM Free, because the way GOG.com is going, your Freudian slip is likely to be truer than you think) was but one of their major selling points. Another was Worldwide Pricing. Boot up any of the original GOG.com installers, and you will see that it was a key principle of theirs.

Thus, regardless of the importance of DRM-Free to you, GOG.com have abandoned one of their selling points, and as a result stand to potentially lose out or alienate customers that would have been drawn by this selling point.

It is no means certain that by implementing Regional Pricing, they will suddenly gain new publishers/devs/games. This isn't the fix-all for a lot of companies. Unless you can tell me that we would the latest games from EA, Bethesda, and Blizzard on here because of Regional Pricing, your argument doesn't hold much water.

This is because the GOG.com catalogue won't stagnate with Worldwide Pricing. Sure, some games might not be available, but there will be plenty of games that will be available.

Plus, as the Letter from the MD states, this isn't just being applied to new games. Regional Pricing is to be rolled out across all games in their catalogue. It is being applied to games that they already have access to. Are you trying to tell me that the companies with the IP to the games currently in the catalogue are threatening not to renew their contracts unless GOG.com introduces Regional Pricing?

If this is really the case, the customer base really should be informed - because then this shit storm can be directly aimed at those companies, not at GOG.com. However, I suspect that Regional Pricing for classic games existing in the catelogue is largely an exercise in solidarity to show people that Regional Pricing is the way forward for GOG.com.

In which case, my way is out the door, taking my GOG.com games with me. I bought them, I keep them. Thanks for 5 years of fun GOG.com, but now we're done.

We live in a world where the suppliers think they have all the power, by dictating what is and isn't available. They are mistaken - this is a consumerist society, and it is the consumer that has the power. There's plenty of other things that I can spend my money on.

It may be sad that the newest games won't be on GOG.com if they don't implement Regional Pricing, but it is not that important. There are 704 games currently in the catalogue, of which I own over 500. That is 204 that I don't own, and only 3 of them have Regional Pricing. None of those three are "must have" games. I can afford to go without such games.

I don't think that I am alone in this view, and if I am not alone, then exactly how necessary is it for GOG.com to implement Regional Pricing to get these new games? People might be more convinced if there were actually decent games to be released, but there are plenty of other places to get newer AAA games than GOG.com.

As an aside - there is a difference between DRM within a game, and DRM within a distributor. Steam is DRM, but it is implemented by Steam services, and as such is a decision made when releasing a game on Steam. This means that the games on Steam can easily be DRM-Free by simply removing them from the Steam wrapper. However, DRM within a game itself is a lot harder to remove, particularly if that DRM is somewhat intrinsic to the game. Such games are hardly ever likely to be on GOG.com DRM-Free, even if GOG.com does implement Regional Pricing.

I seriously doubt that you will see Heroes of Might and Magic VI on GOG.com any time soon, at least until either Ubisoft removes their integral DRM, or GOG.com capitulate and start selling games with DRM. You can expect such a decision to be justified in pretty much the same way as Regional Pricing. Watch out for terms like "hard" and "soft" DRM. We already had a lot of this debate earlier last year, when GOG.com released a game with some DRM, just to see how it would sell.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6P3yOTR2Vc&t=26m
https://www.cdprojekt.com/Press_Room/Informacje_prasowe,news_id,1993

Thanks!

It is not about how they do today, it is about how they will do tomorrow. Today is already the past in the business world.

GOG grows as its catalogue grows. Some of this growth comes from new people learning of the service, but if no new games are added, the growth rate will naturally decrease and eventually cease. For instance i already have most of the games i want. But there are many games from unsigned publishers which i yet want. In order for GOG to get more sales from me, they must add new titles. If agreeing to accept some regional priced games increases GOGs leverage to get more of these classic games, then GOG will grow. If GOGs catalogue stops growing, new sales will decrease.

Sorry, I didn't know that companies were legally required to grow every fiscal year lest they be forcibly put down. Please tell me more about how discarding a value that brought the store a large portion of its customers was a matter of life and death to GOG.

You just don't understand marketing think, man! Ah, here we are! Just the exact reference sheet!

You're right, it's not a big surprise. I still have this sneaky suspicion that AOW III is one of those 3 games, though. XD

Dude, you do like to tweak context and move the goal posts around don't you? Either shill or amateur troll i peg your purpose to be. If i'm wrong it wouldn't be the first time, but i have no time for that kind of nonsense. /

The reveal was the biggest disappointment out of everything. I didn't care so much about the price hike, but to drop these bad news, disguised as good news, to make a big deal out of 3 supposedly NDA-hidden games, only to reveal that these were games we actually knew were coming, well, that was something else. I regret ever posting what I posted above, but I won't edit it though; let this be a lesson to my future self.

Snipped some to shorten it a bit:
You're kind of doing the same thing you accuse him of. As if your opinion counts most ;) I couldn't care less about regional pricing (complain to your country, not here). They can list if it is REGIONAL or not in each games page so you know, but is there anywhere else that doesn't use regional crap? I would have a problem with ANY DRM as DRM FREE is why I'm here, not pricing (I wait for sales or price drops anyway, not just on GOG-not much is worth retail to me in games over $30). But I freely admit I like not having ANY game in the catalog having DRM just to simplify stuff. If I want a DRM game (and I don't, skipped Diablo 3 until they remove the RMAH, which I'm guessing will come with expansion pack as they already did this on xbox), I will go to amazon or something. I expect NO DRM here period. NEVER cave, or I won't come back either ;) As I said I'm here for ONE REASON.

Instead of complaining about something so easily fixed learn how to buy games without paying regional fees. USA VPN/proxy. Problem solved. Get one that has servers all over the world so you can live anywhere you want daily...LOL. This allows GOG to get games that would otherwise be a problem, and allows you to still avoid the fees. So publishers are happy (the jerks who do this) and you get the games while ignoring publisher rules...LOL Some VPN's keep you from changing as often but most people just need to look like they are in USA or one other and only switch to purchase once or twice a month. Like you might want to show USA for purchase but UK for netflix or something.

I'm surprised ANY customer on GOG is from anywhere but USA...LOL Paysafecard+VPN. You would never know where I'm at. Not sure you couldn't just use Paypal also. They probably wouldn't be giving your location to GOG either, thus removing the paysafecard step for most, but either way you can BEAT the system. Heck for just purchasing you could probably just google "free vpn service" and use one of many as I just did the search (lots). Someone should verify the paypal comment, but paysafecard can be bought anyway with cash etc. GOG probably added paysafecard precisely for this reason ;) Why should GOG allow Steam etc to sell games that they could have in their catalog with regional crap on them? That isn't DRM so I don't care.

You are complaining about nothing, as it's easily solved and having regional crap must get a few more games (or at least make their life easier in some way) or why would GOG bother? I don't agree with going regional on any game they already have NO regional pricing on (no need for that, you already have it), and agree with you on that point. But for new games I care not, and if I wasn't in USA already, you bet your butt I'd be using a VPN (free or otherwise) and always LOOK like I'm in USA for purchasing. Not so easy on steam games as you have connections to them all the time for community crap etc (I hate steam, will never use it for windows, I'll probably load steamOS at some point but have no desire for it in windows), so unless you're using a PAID VPN you'll hate life over there. The paid ones are of course very fast if you do your homework and buy smart for your country. Some VPN's have really great services from USA to elsewhere, and some from other countries to elsewhere etc, you just have to pick the one that fits your needs best and has great connections (speed or maybe latency if needed for games) from the country you're trying to be in to your actual country. That isn't hard info to find as millions are trying to do the same thing ;)

That said, regional crap isn't an issue for GOG buyers as you're only on to BUY and then download the game. After that you don't need to come back from a VPN again until you buy more games. You might just BUY, then download from your real country, as I don't think GOG checks that, just the purchase itself. I mean I could be on a trip to japan or something and need to re-download a game already in my games list purchased ages ago. You can re-tax me or something with a "hey you can't download out of your country" message (maybe they do this?). Once purchased you should be able to go right to a download OFF vpn's. But I may be wrong on this point, still so what I say, as you download once usually. There are some VERY fast VPN's, that will saturate most of the fastest connections out there. You seem ignorant of what a VPN/proxy is for. Hope that's cleared up now ;)

EA/Bethesda/Blizzard have other ways to sell to you, no need for GOG for these guys and they all LOVE DRM so you won't see them here until 50% of the world hates DRM and just comes here instead (or price reduced so much DRM can be left off once a year etc of early sales are over at $60 or something). Once DRM hurts their bottom line enough they'll change, but until then they will say screw you. UBI etc can unwrap/take out drm from their games any time they want. They've done it many times once the game goes to another publisher in jewel case for $9.99 or something. They axe the DRM, box, etc. You don't usually put in DRM with no plan to remove it in case it totally backfires on them. How many games are NOT on gamecopyworld etc? Not many ;) An ignorant person deals with DRM, while the Webucated guy (ROFL - is that a new word?) just removes it seconds after he buys his game anyway. I'm not advocating flying a skull/bones flag here, just if you buy it you should be able to do whatever you want with it. I don't call serials DRM either. It has no affect on my gaming or my machine and stops most newbs (from flying the wrong flag...LOL) while allowing online stuff and a way to ban gamers for cheating in a way that hurts (don't want your code to die ;)).

Regional crap will cost ZERO customers IMHO. Easily avoided. If they go about ratting out devs for this, that dev may just never come back. GOG isn't big enough to rat anyone out yet. Steam could/should though, they are huge.