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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. :)
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Darvond: Screw them then, especially for not revealing themselves in the first place.
It doesn't screw them in any way however, they just sell more copies of their game with DRM and regional pricing somewhere else. Seriously, why are people here on GOG anyway? It's this simple:

- People are here on GOG.com because when you stack up the list of reasons in priority order, DRM-free is at the highest in importance, and everything else is second to that. Bringing more games on board regardless of pricing details spreads the DRM-free brainsauce and makes more companies embrace the concept to begin with which is a win for DRM-free gaming period - which is the whole point.

or

- People are here on GOG.com for regional pricing being equal everywhere and don't care about DRM-free as the top priority, it is secondary to them and they'll gladly hop ship to some other retailer that has no regional pricing whether or not their games are DRM-free or not. Yes, one of the thousands of competitors of GOG that have huge catalogues of games with region free pricing. You know, the other distributors that somehow can get region free pricing on all the games that GOG can't. Oh wait, there aren't any.

- If people are willing to ditch GOG or be angry with them enough to not buy games that are completely unaffected by this, then you're voting against DRM-free gaming, and if you get your way then GOG.com wont exist in the end and you can go buy all your games on Steam, or end up going to one of the smaller retailers that mostly sell games made in a closet by 10 year olds clicking in RPG maker or whatever. ;o)

Seriously, if regional pricing bothers someone, go set up a website that tracks the price in each region so everyone who cares can go look it up on the page and then not buy those games if they want to vote with their wallet. Buy the games that aren't affected and you end up buying what is available right now before any of this and nothing changes for you.

I think what we're going to see here is just some loud noise over unexpected change by a vocal minority of people who don't actually have any real better options to choose from out there anyway or they wouldn't buy from GOG in the first place. For every customer that would consider boycotting GOG over this, 10 new customers will fill their shoes coming looking for good deals on new DRM-free games that are now here that never would have come here before that and are new releases that rake in $20-40 a pop versus $2-3 a pop. This will only stand to prove to other publishers that DRM-free is a viable business model and we'll only end up seeing more DRM-free games in the future as a result.

Regional pricing is an entirely different and much less important battle to fight down the road compared to DRM-free which is much much more important IMHO, and that fight is one to have with the publisher who is the one that actually decides what the price will be and who they're going to distribute through.
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donsanderson: Whatever happened to simple the "Don't like it, don't buy it principle"?
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ydobemos: You should be asking GOG that. They claimed to be against price discrimination, so they should have refused publishers any deal that entailed it.

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donsanderson: Folks, the way to approve/disapprove of a companies offerings is with your wallet.
Not by having a fricking riot!
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ydobemos: Why not both?
i would be a fan of the both though i shouldent have to vote with my wallet , i shouldent have to give up playing a game because of my postcode and the suits that set prices.
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Andanzas: Well, if this brings to GOG games that currently require Uplay, it's a great move. Let's see how it goes.
That brings up a point of natter, why do companies like Ubisoft, EA, and such insist on having their own storefront? Forcing people to make an account for some system just to enjoy their product is a losing prospect!
high rated
Sorely disappointed. :(

Regional Pricing is wrong and a really great anti-consumer thing.

I don't agree with it on Steam, and I won't agree with it here.


I won't purchase any regionally priced games, I won't support them and deep in my dark, corrupt, evil core I will hope that the sales records for regionally priced games here on GOG will be abysmal, so that this will not catch on.

Because, frankly, yes. It IS worth not getting access some new games if that means that some of the things we lauded GOG for in the past remain.

I'd rather have less games with an internationally equal pricing model than anything new with yet another piece of corporate anti-consumerism attached to it.

(Also, as TotalBiscuit and others have so often said: Pre-Orders are bad! Don't pre-order! Wait until a game is out. Wait for reviews from people/outlets you trust. And buy then. Don't let a small discount or stupid in-game bonus lull you into giving in to marketing hype. Let games stand, and fall, on their actual merits. Not on pre-release marketing. Publishers need to start learning that we want GOOD GAMES, not good /hype/.)
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randomengine: I don't see this as a problem. Sure GOG listed as an original goal worldwide pricing, but really GOG has been about 2 things....good old games, and DRM-Free. Worldwide pricing wasn't a major pillar, just an early feature. This appears to only upset non-Americans and as an American, I really don't care as long as it means we get access to more games that are DRM-free.
It's easy to not care when you're not at the receiving end of the stick. But I get the feeling that we in Europe (and even more so in Eastern Europe) are always the ones screwed over.
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TheEnigmaticT: The fact that we have an audience for the games we sell means that we get a certain amount of negotiation power, but this is a case where, for the companies where they have set up regional pricing have contracts with retail chains and other digital distributors and they're not gonna break their covenants just to make us happy. Either we provide them with regional pricing or we don't sell their game. Simple as that.
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thedaus: That same argument could be used for adding games with DRM to GoG.
First online gaming store I bought from was Impulse. I like Stardock's attitude and they made any DRM in the game abundantly clear and I avoided buying any games with DRM but bought the games without. GameStop bought them and I saw them be "lazier" about the DRM indicator on newer games I knew had DRM, so I stopped buying anything there.

Before that happened, I had Steam from buying Portal, but I didn't buy anything from them because I couldn't determine DRM. I noticed, before GameStop bought Impulse, that Steam started including information about DRM other than Steam. I started buying from Steam at that point, but not games with DRM past their default. Then when Valve jumped on the bandwagon of EULAs attempting to evade legal consequences for bad behavior, I stopped even logging into Steam, let alone giving them any of my money.

If GOG includes games with DRM, but clearly spells out that there is DRM included, I will never buy any of those games but I will still continue buying other games from GOG, though instead of checking them daily for new releases and sales it'll maybe be once a month or if I hear they've got a game I care about on sale. If they ever sell a game with DRM that wasn't labelled ahead of time when I bought it, then I'll never buy here again. I refuse to buy products that don't respect my rights. I refuse to buy from vendors who are deceptive about their products. It's as simple as that.
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randomengine: I don't see this as a problem. Sure GOG listed as an original goal worldwide pricing, but really GOG has been about 2 things....good old games, and DRM-Free. Worldwide pricing wasn't a major pillar, just an early feature.
GOG dropped the "good old games" in its name almost two years ago, but the worldwide pricing was advertised as pillar number 2 until very recently.
Post edited February 21, 2014 by Leroux
My first thout when reading about the non disclosure agreement was that that it had to be EA, but gog already sales EA games. So my next logical choice is bethesda, or more specifically Zenimax its parent company. After the fallout fiasco as well as what they do to some of there hired developers I really wouldn't doubt it if they did this. I love the elders scrolls, but these guys, atleast the higher ups are just complete jerkoffs:-\ who do you guys thinkit is?
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Darvond: Strange, so that explains how the 10,000s of votes for various games actually only have 100 votes! That also explains why the most popular games on GOG's wishlist are Call of Duty: Ghosts and such...

Wait no, that's not the picture I'm seeing.
Just quit it with the patronizing, passive-aggressive attitude, already. It's true that the forums and community wishlist don't represent the whole GOG user base. Most of the buyers do just that: they buy the games. Oh, what am I basing this statement on? Well, a mix of experience and common sense, which may not be much, but at least it's more than your "Worldwide pricing is gone forever, so, obviously DRM will follow and GOG will end -- I'm backing up my files! Because, yeah, logic works this way, therefore, it's what's going to happen!"

It's the same four or five guys complaining, bitching, moaning. I respect your right to be heard, but if you're not willing to promote civil, rational discussion, then you're sure as hell not getting it back at you as well. Protesting is a good thing, one that should be encouraged, but senselessly and repeatedly bashing something based on anger and gut feelings isn't good for anyone.

You're leaving GOG? Go ahead, you'll all be missed, to be sure -- no sarcasm intended. But, unfortunately, the amount of users this measure will eventually bring them more than surpasses the dozens of butthurt people they'll lose. As for me? I'll stick around and see what happens, they deserve the benefit of the doubt, at least. As long as most of their games aren't unjustly priced -- albeit with regional pricing models --, as long as they keep their unmatched support, as long as they keep bringing great classic and new games alike, and, above all, as long as they stay DRM-free, they'll continue to have my support. Let's see how it goes.

I'd suggest you guys undo the calamity that is your mammaries and try doing the same: wait and see. Give them the benefit of the doubt.
So, Regional Pricing (i.e. Regional Markups for anyone who is unfortunate enough to not be an American) is doing us a favour now is it GOG? I've been a loyal customer of yours since the very beginning. Not anymore. You have sold out on your principles. I can't respect that. If this was simply about expanding your library, you shouldn't have had to compromise your integrity to do it. You've folded on regional pricing. How long until you fold on DRM-Free?

You have lost a customer and I hope you lose many more over this.
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donsanderson: Whatever happened to simple the "Don't like it, don't buy it principle"?

Jeez TET, I hope you got hazard pay, or at least a good bottle of something strong to have to do this. ;/

Folks, the way to approve/disapprove of a companies offerings is with your wallet.
Not by having a fricking riot!
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Darvond: Well, I've voted with my wallet hundreds of times already. My wallet said, 'one price, one world'. Why should I have to suddenly change that? Why would I want someone else to have to pay a differing price to what I paid for, especially more expensive, because a publisher thought they could pull a fast one on GOG?
Because if you, and others, feel this strongly about Regional Pricing, then everyone indicating this with their choice of purchases, and it is their choice, is the only way to get through to those publishers.
GOG will offer another venue for this.
If RP'd games don't sell well here the point will be made.

Sorry but this thread has become too active to discuss this very well, maybe when it calms a bit. :/
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Darvond: Screw them then, especially for not revealing themselves in the first place.
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skeletonbow: It doesn't screw them in any way however, they just sell more copies of their game with DRM and regional pricing somewhere else. Seriously, why are people here on GOG anyway? It's this simple:

- People are here on GOG.com because when you stack up the list of reasons in priority order, DRM-free is at the highest in importance, and everything else is second to that. Bringing more games on board regardless of pricing details spreads the DRM-free brainsauce and makes more companies embrace the concept to begin with which is a win for DRM-free gaming period - which is the whole point.

or

- People are here on GOG.com for regional pricing being equal everywhere and don't care about DRM-free as the top priority, it is secondary to them and they'll gladly hop ship to some other retailer that has no regional pricing whether or not their games are DRM-free or not. Yes, one of the thousands of competitors of GOG that have huge catalogues of games with region free pricing. You know, the other distributors that somehow can get region free pricing on all the games that GOG can't. Oh wait, there aren't any.

- If people are willing to ditch GOG or be angry with them enough to not buy games that are completely unaffected by this, then you're voting against DRM-free gaming, and if you get your way then GOG.com wont exist in the end and you can go buy all your games on Steam, or end up going to one of the smaller retailers that mostly sell games made in a closet by 10 year olds clicking in RPG maker or whatever. ;o)

Seriously, if regional pricing bothers someone, go set up a website that tracks the price in each region so everyone who cares can go look it up on the page and then not buy those games if they want to vote with their wallet. Buy the games that aren't affected and you end up buying what is available right now before any of this and nothing changes for you.

I think what we're going to see here is just some loud noise over unexpected change by a vocal minority of people who don't actually have any real better options to choose from out there anyway or they wouldn't buy from GOG in the first place. For every customer that would consider boycotting GOG over this, 10 new customers will fill their shoes coming looking for good deals on new DRM-free games that are now here that never would have come here before that and are new releases that rake in $20-40 a pop versus $2-3 a pop. This will only stand to prove to other publishers that DRM-free is a viable business model and we'll only end up seeing more DRM-free games in the future as a result.

Regional pricing is an entirely different and much less important battle to fight down the road compared to DRM-free which is much much more important IMHO, and that fight is one to have with the publisher who is the one that actually decides what the price will be and who they're going to distribute through.
Love this post... couldn't agree more. :)
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scampywiak: Yeah, I'm sure DRM is just around the corner....

Jesus christ you guys. They've offered so much over the years and the second something goes awry you're at their heels like rabid dogs.
GOG is where I go for an entertaining few hours and to BUY games. They are not my friends, TET is a marketing person who is fronting a kind and caring face as part of his job. He does not know me from Adam.
Also if GOG does not get their customers feedback how are they ever to learn? So many will still buy games, myself included, but there are others who are really hurt by this move as there are some things that we become use to. Such as free internet play on the PS3


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brunosiffredi: Maybe if GOG.com presented more information about how pricing will change for these new titles, which regions or countries will actually see some change, etc., people wouldn't be freaking out so much.

Is this regional pricing going to be different for each country or just some countries? I hope regional pricing does not mean overcharging customers in regions that are already economically disadvantaged, like South America, Africa, eastern Europe, etc.
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TheEnigmaticT: Due to NDAs and due to the fact that we don't have contracts signed for a lot of the games that we're working on bringing to GOG, we can't go into more detail because we ourselves do not know all of the relevant details.
1 - As already stated I can live with reginal prices as I will only buy games upon a price point I am happy with and with most recent AAA games that is already sitting somewhere in the £5 mark.
I do hope that this reginal pricing works out and that you can infact work on setting games a little more fairly then Steam and GG do, trust us (your community) $-£/€ is a pile of shit that business people should really think about. I am not just a point on a graph, just a statistic. I am the thinking, acting and willing to starve off your account type of individual. We are not friends, we are just doing business, and I am a very loyal customer to a business I trust to be acting in good faith and honour, but you are shaking that very trust I put in you.

2 - As the NSA is covering games you do not already have a licence to I really do hope your own laywers have these in a tight bind as I would hate to see my favourite gaming site fall to bits chasing AAA games that a large portion of your customers could wait a few years for.
Hell the number of games I have re-bought from you guys is numorus, just to get a back-up to replace a CD or even ******* games. Yet I am unlikely to buy many games day-one here or anywhere else as the price very rarely fits my "is it worth it" price point structure.
Also admitting you do not know all of the details as a company? and having to give up either or? Not filling me with trust and understanding.

3 - This one is important.
I am here because of the DRM-free games, the fantastic community and the support.
I hate to say this - see it as a warning, not a threat - but I already keep a back-up of all of my games, and there are already other sites such as IGS and ShinyLoot trying to get in on your market, and I am alreay buying from them and others.
So if YOU GUYS even attempt to inforce DRM I sware I will just stop buying from you and get my games else where. I can live without AAA games, and the ones I want to play I can wait to see in a really cheap bundle and rent from Steam.

I really do not wish to leave the community, but should many of the people that make this place so nice decide to leave due to pricing I may have to look elsewhere to spend my online hours.
As for the support, well with the extra games it might be a little stretched, but I am sure that it will still be a lot better then many others out there.

4 - Splitting people up to treat them differently never lead to good things. Has often led to mistrust and discontent. (Well you have acheived one, and we have not even been penned up yet).
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skeletonbow:
Honestly for me on Steam regional pricing is more disturbing than the Steam client/DRM itself.
As for GOG I do like the DRM-Free part, but what sold me was the one price thing.
Booo! Regional pricing, booo!!

I still love you guys, The one thing that would make me bring out the pitchforks and fire would be regional restrictions, locks and the like. Regional pricing is not cool at all but I can tolerate it, and I obviously understand it's the only way to bring certaingames to GOG.

Just hope if you ever get big enough and are able to arm-wrestle this kind of shit out of publishers you'll then stand on our side and say no to regional pricing and other such shenanigans.