Sure, with older games and self-published indie releases that have no (or limited) physical retail releases. Such games also have worldwide pricing and are usually also available DRM-free elsewhere (e.g. Humble Widgets/Store, Desura, IndieGameStand).

But with bigger, major titles, it is at present (and will be for the forseeable future) impossible to get the publishers to drop regional pricing. Not until retail is sufficiently dead to have basically no influence.

GOG has said basically what I've been saying - that they can only bring them here because of accepting regional pricing, due to arrangements developers have with publishers and that publishers in turn have with local distributors/retailers in various regions of the world. They can't undercut the local prices agreed with retailers around the world as otherwise those retailers will cry foul. The alternative I guess is giving everyone the most expensive price anywhere in the world (which would then lead to cries of "WTF GOG? Why charge so much more than Steam? / I can get this so much cheaper at retail!", very poor sales and possibly also a lot of "rage piracy").

DRM is almost totally a choice on the publisher's part, they aren't forced to use it by distributors/retailers. It's used partly due to fears over piracy, partly as a means to retain control post-sale. GOG needs to convince them that going DRM-free won't increase piracy and will in fact make result in more sales - and in turn more revenue. I completely agree here - the revealed titles are a massive disappointment. The way they were talking about them in the original announcement, with all the secrecy and hype, as if they were some huge breakthrough, set expectations that they just could not meet. I don't consider them worth dropping the worldwide pricing policy, but what's done is done... I just hope that GOG is right about being able to use them to help bring bigger titles here as a result. Look at it from a retailer's point of view. The publisher offers you a game with a retail price of €39.99 (€33.33 pre-tax, sold to you at a rate of €23.33 per copy allowing you up to €10 profit if you sell at the full price. Accounting for VAT, the minimum you can sell at in order to break even is €28). You buy in a load of stock, it occupies warehouse and shelf space, and then the publisher goes ahead and offers it with a regular price of €29.99 online through digital distributors. Would you be happy with that? Would you want to deal with that publisher again? It would hurt retail sales because the retailers would refuse to stock the publisher's products knowing that they'll be undercut online, or that the profit they'll make will barely cover the costs of running their business.

Don't underestimate physical retailers- a lot of countries have poor communications infrastructure making retail copies far more attactive. Then there's the lazy way regional pricing is often implemented online, leaving some regions with insanely high digital prices compared to retail. And then there are the people who just like to have something physical, even if it's little more than a cheap box+disc. Or people that buy the physical release & use a cracked/pirate copy, with the physical copy acting as a "proof of purchase" that can't just be taken away like on Steam etc. Again, I agree that the announced games aren't worth it and I'm also struggling to see how they could be used to convince the major publishers (except TW3 of course)... but if GOG doesn't compromise, then in my view it's very unlikely that any further progress will be made with either the DRM or regional pricing issues for a long time.

So I guess it is time to throw my 5 cents into room of textual representations of so many thoughts, emotions and opinions.

1. I always wonder that discussions here at GoG compared to other forums even on emotional loaded topics stay constructive, that says a lot about the customer base GoG has. And that GoG can be proud to have such a customer base.

2. Saying in a competitive market that it would not be fair to sell games without regional pricing because competitors do sounds quite odd and a lot like a constructed argument. GoG has found it's own niche I am not sure that stepping into competition on AAA titles with the "big" players is a smart move, you will lose a lot of loyal customers - me included.

3. I bought not only games because I "wanted" them, I also bought games to support the idea of GoG - DRM free, one price.

I wonder if console retail factors into it too, since these publishers publish to all platforms. Just a thought.

I don't know. According to that list in that other thread, Norway and Switzerland have lower prices compared to the rest of Europe. Why? I have no idea. I would have thought that Australia and New Zealand would have got hammered by this, but they didn't. Their retail prices are through the roof.

I think we would need to research it a little to find some answers. There was another member posting in this thread that sounded like he knew the business and what he was talking about, but I can't remember who it was.

Okay guys, I think I have spent more than enough time in this and other related threads since Friday. If anyone replies to one of my posts I will probably not see it. I think my feelings about this development are clear and from now on it is time to vote with my wallet.

Somebody else posted a link in one of these threads for it. But, once I saw it, I thought it might be time for an avatar change as really people are going to see the avatars, even if they don't read every single post in the thread.
People didn't need to say it, because when you get something like this right, there's not really much to talk about. Mr. Gog himself has spent a lot of time raging against region pricing, switching now just feels a bit like being stabbed in the back.

Pricing policy is something that people were raging about when Mr. Gog started letting games in here that weren't either $5.99 or $9.99 though.
I'd be fine waiting. One of my great disappointments with GOG is that they weren't content to release new games as they became old. In large part because most new games are shit in any era and you get a bit of perspective after a few years. What's more, by waiting a few years the cost of the computer necessary to run the game decreases substantially as well.

Not to mention that the patches that are going to be made are made, so patching is minimal.

It's not like the games they were releasing were massively old either. Some of them were from the '80s, but a lot of them were from this millenia as well.

Now I asked a question on the any new developments because I was not paying attention.

Is GOG going to change the prices of the old PC games here like Ultima? Is GOG still going to sell new Classic PC games yet to come (like Fallout) with a fair/ non region price?

All the prices have been changed and from what I read in the post from the DM, they're a fixed rate that appears to have been rounded to something convenient for them. But, it's completely left open as to what the extent of it's going to be in the future as that's largely up to the publishers to decide.

It's not as bad as 1 dollar is 1 euro for the titles that are already here, but it is still region pricing that leaves the door open for more of it in the future. I think right now the difference is only like 23 cents.

Because DRM-free isn't just a matter of principles; there are business reasons why GOG can't afford to drop DRM-free The fact of the matter is that DRM-free is the one thing that differentiates GOG from competing DD services. If they dropped that, they would have practically nothing going for them. As a result, users would have no reason to use GOG over the competition, especially since that competition does games with DRM better.

It's not like we haven't seen what has happened to DD services that tried to compete with Steam on its terms. Eventually, all of them either became Steam key resellers or remained restricted to the titles of the publisher who owned the service. Considering GOG has been doing well on account of being an alternative to Steam and since there is more money to be made that way, there is absolutely no logical reason for GOG to go down that route.

Granted, just because it would be dumb to do so doesn't mean that a company isn't going to do it; companies are run by people and people can make stupid decisions (and the decision to drop flat pricing may or may not turn out to be one of them). But as things currently stand, even from a pure self-interest standpoint, GOG has no reasons not to stick to their DRM-free policy; if anything, failure to stick to it would spell financial doom for them.

As disappointing and questionable their decision to drop flat pricing may be (and it is VERY disappointing and questionable), you can at least make a case as to why GOG might benefit from regional pricing, including games coming out on/near original release, making the service more attractive to large low-income markets like Russia and removing a stumbling block in their negotiations with publishers.

Oh and before someone decides to chime in with something along the lines of "allowing DRM would also remove a stumbling block in their negotiations with publishers", read again what I said above. That particular stumbling block is not one that they can get rid of.

And how long do we wait if we just cave for such silliness? Physical retail is effectively on the way out already, allowing publishers to set such stupid pricing is just prolonging the inevitable.

I'm willing to accept new games being here, but not new games that have this region based pricing bullshit. All the shops that used to specialize in software went bust years ago around here. I think the local Office Depot has just about the best selection of computer games I've seen lately, and even that's pretty anemic.
DRM free was one of the things that differentiated GOG from other sites, but at this point it's the only thing that they haven't dropped in the pursuit of growth. Considering that the same logic they used to dump region free pricing applies to DRM as well, I'm not sure how much confidence I have in them to do the right thing.

A bit longer at least, depends how many would-be retail buyers can be brought over to here. Allowing regional pricing here at least opens an alternative for people that otherwise would buy retail (propping up retail stores and strengthening the influence of retailers on the regional pricing issue) or on Steam (where regional pricing is allowed anyway and which accounts for most digital sales). At the very least it will help kill off DRM and at the same time weaken physical retailers a bit.

When physical retail dies off publishers will have no excuse to gouge buyers with regional pricing, which will make it much easier for us to fight. That's not true in all countries though, or even all regions of some countries.

Funny thing is. PC games are rarely sold in actual retail stores here (and where they are they have a poor selection, and they're even overpriced quite a lot of the time)... but it's *much* cheaper to order the retail copies online and have them delivered.

It cannot be argued that we have a better chance to get new games by this change. So far, we have got the Witcher 3, Divinity 3: Original Sin, and Age of Wonders 3. At least two of these games would come to GOG.com anyway - and despite the notion of NDA's, these titles had already been revealed before Regional Pricing raised it's ugly head.

Does this mean that GOG already planned on implementing Regional Pricing in order to attract these games in the first place? I don't think so - I think these games were always coming to GOG.com. So, the number of new games attracted by Regional Pricing is 0.

I MAY change my attitude if we get some really good games coming along to GOG.com, but they had better be bloody good. I am talking the likes of Command & Conquer, Morrowind, Warcraft III, and The Sims here. You know, the genre defining blockbusters from the BIG companies.

However, GOG doesn't even have the original Fallout games back from Bethesda, let alone anything new. Anyone notice a connection between the sudden change to Regional Pricing for classic games, and Bethesda receiving the rights to the iconic games GOG has been selling from the start? I wouldn't be surprised if Bethesda is one of the developers pushing GOG to implement Regional Pricing.

And since there is no growth to be had by dropping DRM-free, they're unlikely to do so (unless they decide to be stupid).

GOG's line of thinking seems to be that DRM-free is the primary thing that differentiates them from the competition and that all of their efforts should be focused on that, even if it means dropping the other values they once held to help further that goal. Whether or not that mentality is justified remains to be seen; personally, I can see merit in arguments provided by both sides of the debate and think that it can go either way. We'll just have to wait and see how it pans out.

There's tons of games that they could have here if they drop the DRM, and probably the same can be said about dropping the one price policy.

It's still very much the case that the same line of reasoning used to justify this could be used to justify that as well. Considering how strongly they felt about the other things they dropped, I'm not sure how much confidence I have in them sticking to the DRM-free policy as well.

I really can't think of many games that would be possible to release here by dropping the DRM-free policy but keeping worldwide pricing policy. Also, all the ones I can think of are indies; the major titles from the bigger publishers/developers would all still remain locked out due to requiring regional pricing. I'll just repeat again what I've said before: