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On March 31st we are going to discontinue the Fair Price Package program. Let us explain the reasoning behind this decision.

We came up with Fair Price Package (FPP) as a way to make up the price difference between various countries. Some games on GOG.COM have regional pricing, meaning the price of the same game in one place can be higher compared to its price in North America. In countries where the game is more expensive, we give users the equivalent of the price difference in GOG Wallet funds. In actual numbers, on average, we give users back 12% of the game price from our own pocket. In some cases, this number can reach as high as 37%.

In the past, we were able to cover these extra costs from our cut and still turn a small profit. Unfortunately, this is not the case anymore. With an increasing share paid to developers, our cut gets smaller. However, we look at it, at the end of the day we are a store and need to make sure we sell games without a loss.

Removing FPP is not a decision we make lightly, but by making this change, we will be able to offer better conditions to game creators, which — in turn — will allow us to offer you more curated classic games and new releases. All DRM-free.

We wanted to make sure you have some lead time to still benefit from the Fair Price Package. The program will last until the 31st of March, 2019, so if you would like to take advantage of it, now is the time. The funds you gather from the program will keep the 12 months expiration date from the moment you’ve been granted your last funds.
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First of all, thank you for your support. This was not an easy decision to discontinue the FPP program and we're grateful to you for understanding the reasons behind it. We see that quite a few of you raised concerns about GOG's future. As a part of publicly traded company, we can't comment on any financial results until they are officially reported, but we want to ensure you everything is good with GOG. Being part of a big gaming company, some reports - especially some given by significant media outlets - can often sound much scarier than reality.

You've been also concerned about your access to the games you’ve purchased on GOG. We've covered this topic years ago and it's been in our User Agreement for a long time (please check the section 17.3). This is not only a legal obligation to you but a core part of our ethics as a company.

But don’t worry, all is good, and we have a great plan for the future of GOG. We can’t wait for you to see some of the exciting things we have coming very soon.

EDIT: pinned
Post edited February 26, 2019 by elcook
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GOG.com: Some games on GOG.COM have regional pricing, meaning the price of the same game in one place can be higher compared to its price in North America.
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Zetawilk: You mean some games are more expensive in North American than elsewhere, right? The dollar usually gets pretty screwed over these days.
Not quite. Let's take We happy Few Deluxe Edition.

US price is: $79.99
My price is: €84.99

€84.99 = $96.72

That $13.73 difference. Average monthly salary in my country is €835.22 (my salary is about €500). Yea, fuck that. That difference is a lot to me.

Only one that I know of that benefit from regional pricing is Russia.
Post edited February 27, 2019 by Nalkoden
Well that sucks. Now games which are unfairly priced by greedy publishers will cost me 13.5% more. Definitely will affect how much I buy here.

Let's hope there is at least some upside to it (like more games).
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Zetawilk: You mean some games are more expensive in North American than elsewhere, right? The dollar usually gets pretty screwed over these days.
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Nalkoden: Not quite. Let's take We happy Few.

US price is: $79.99
My price is: €84.99

€84.99 = $96.72

That $13.73 difference. Average monthly salary in my country is €835.22 (my salary is about €500). Yea, fuck that. That difference is a lot to me.
Wow. I'm speechless. Alright then.
The fault primarily lies with the developers and publishers that set the regional prices to begin with (That and any price differences that arise from taxes, where that applies). Trying to make up for the pricing difference seems like it would only encourage companies to continue that practice or possible even abuse it, basically taking away money from GOG. It's a very maladaptive solution and I'm not sad to see it go. I don't see how it could have ever been tenable and I don't understand why GOG even tried it. The situation being really unfair to poor European countries (among many others) doesn't change the fact that this program had a low chance of working out. Like, I get it, I'm Romanian, the situation sucks.

Artoemius, earlier in this thread essentially said that the proper solution was for GOG to not allow regional pricing on their platform at all to begin with. That's definitely one thing to be disappointed at GOG about, but it's difficult to tell how many companies wouldn't sell on GOG if that policy existed. I would prefer a world where those companies don't show their face on GOG because I'd rather buy from companies with pricing policies that aren't toxic.

Overall, I don't think the end of this policy should change anyone's opinion on GOG much? But it's pretty understandable if you benefited from the lower prices and will try to shop elsewhere.
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mobutu: Remember, it is way way way better to just use a vpn to buy from gog at whatever region price you desire than pirating.
there are plenty good and trustful vpns that offer free (credit/debit card free too) trials so that's extremely easily to do.
this way you're still helping and supporting gog and the drmfree cause
It is as illegal. And also, it's putting the issue under the rug, which I don't want to do.

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Oncus2: Deeply, deeply disappointing about this change. GOG was trusted because of it's principles, but when you change them so readily without thinking of an alternative solutions, you are not better than the others. All you are left is with the buggiest client.
Keep in mind this was never THEIR problem, but something that was required of them from publishers!

Putting themselves on the line and giving the money back THEMSELVES was too nice of them.

Please direct your ire to the ones responsible.
Post edited February 27, 2019 by Zoidberg
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Narushima: The issue I can see with the Direct to Account feature is that the third party provider may restrict the number of activations for their game.
It also multiplies the possibilities of them disappearing, potentially leaving the games unplayable.
I don't think this is how it works.

If I'm reading what they're doing correctly, it's basically a 'code-free' version of the current gift/redeem system. Once the game has been added to your account, it's entirely out of the third party seller's hands and equal to any other purchase made on GOG. At no point do they ever have direct access to your account.

I imagine this is so that select sites like e.g. Humble can offer GOG games directly without having to go through gift codes.
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SPTX: The ability to buy and OWN games in physical format was stolen from us.
Sorry but it was never "stolen from us" as we never had the ownership of our games.

Check your manuals from games sold in the 80s/90s.
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Vythonaut: Could it be Mass Effect?
Does the word "intel" have an association with Mass Effect, or is that a random guess? I do maintain that getting ME 1 here is a possibility because - like Dragon Age Origins, Dead Space, Spore, SimCity 4, etc. - they are pre-Origin games still on Steam.

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Desmight: Dovahkiin, Dovahkiin, naal ok zin los vahriin, wah dein vokul mahfaeraak ahst vaal!
Ahrk fin norok paal graan, fod nust hon zindro zaan, Dovahkiin, fah hin kogaan mu draal!
That'd be sweet too of course. But I wonder if GOG would want to have a Steam Workshop-like service running first, since - unless I'm mistaken - Skyrim and Workshop have a bit of a connection because of all the mods Skyrim has.
Post edited February 27, 2019 by tfishell
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Pheace: EU has VAT included in the price though, US is pre- sales tax. We do pay more but that's because of our own taxes and after calculating the currency exchange a publisher actually makes less off us than a US sale (since currency diff is less than the tax)
VAT has nothing to do with it, and that has been established long ago. Some publishers tried to use it as the justification but it doesn't hold water, and even if it did you can take it as the cost of doing business in the EU, same as apparently the cost of doing business with digital stuff in Russia is giving them a 70% discount. And for example Australia also has tax on digital content, but while other stores tend to have massive price hikes for AU, way more than the tax by the way, GOG for most games has discounts for AU, though, again, there is the tax, and they're definitely not poor.
For the EU it's just that ever since digital distribution became a thing, before GOG even launched, somebody apparently decided that 1 EUR = 1 USD and that became the norm, and one thing GOG specifically and firmly fought against... until they no longer did. So when the Euro was 24% stronger the price was 24% higher, when it was 8% stronger it was 8% higher, it didn't matter whether the VAT was paid according to the rate in the seller's country and everyone (GOG included) moved financial headquarters to Cyprus to have 15-19% (grew over the years), didn't matter whether after a certain point it was paid according to the buyer's country and therefore varied between 18% and 27%, the regional pricing model was the same, at least all Eurozone countries got charged as if 1 EUR = 1 USD. The only difference came recently, after the decision to ban price differences within the EU, which actually specifically excludes digital content but publishers took it as the opportunity not to align EU prices to US ones, but to align all European prices to the higher Eurozone ones, so even the poor non-Euro countries, and even non-EU countries (Serbia and Montenegro), get charged as if 1 EUR = 1 USD.
Again, there's no justification that holds water other than the fact that they can get away with it.

Five years ago, people at least weren't willing to let GOG get away with it. That's literally the first paragraph in their response to the mess, which brought the FPP: "We're not perfect, we're exploring new frontiers, and we make mistakes. We thought DRM-Free was so important that you'd prefer we bring you more DRM-Free games and Fair Price was less critical and that it could be sacrificed in some cases. The last two week's worth of comments in our forums (nearly 10k!), show that's not the case. We didn’t listen and we let you down. We shouldn't sacrifice one of our core values in an attempt to advance another. We feel bad about that, and we're sorry. Us being sorry is not of much use to you, so let’s talk about how we will fix it."
Now, however, it seems that users do let them get away with it. People just more and more willing to allow themselves to be pissed on in more and more ways, and less and less willing to show solidarity with others, fighting for something because others are negatively affected even if they may not necessarily be, personally.

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Zetawilk: You mean some games are more expensive in North American than elsewhere, right? The dollar usually gets pretty screwed over these days.
The FPP applied ONLY to those paying MORE than the USA price, which as was pointed out includes poorer EU countries or even non-EU countries, like Serbia and Montenegro. Nothing will change for anyone paying the same or less (so those paying less will still get the same discounts too).

And since that ad was posted already but that presentation not yet, here it is too:
First (longer piece, quoting the end of it), they even named two publishers they gave up on specifically because they demanded regional pricing and, to quote them: “If there is a backbone of your business and you change it, you are destroying your business. It will come in time, maybe today you will make a fast dollar, but afterwards you will deeply regret it. That’s how we see that.” And later in that same talk: “The moment we will betray our values, the whole GOG will explode and that’s the end of it.”
Oh, and the end of another older commercial, about new games: "You'll release them with goodies?" *nods* "And no DRM?" *nods* "And fair prices for all?" "But of course!" Heh...
Post edited February 27, 2019 by Cavalary
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elcook: snip
Off topic , but i'm waiting for a reply for this : https://www.gog.com/forum/general/questions_to_the_owners_employees_of_gog/post31
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elcook: We have some intel that many GOG users will be happy about it ;)
Buck Rogers ?! Wheeeeee !
Oh whait ... I think I'll be the only one who will be happy with this release....


Sooooo....

Tiberian Dawn & Tiberian Sun then ?
Or maybe AvP2 ?
Alpha Protocol ?
DoW 1 ?
Spelljammer ?
NOLF 1-2 ?

Please, make it happen !
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rjbuffchix: We see the same phenomenon with game genres all the time..."no one in this day and age would buy a turn-based RPG/a survival horror game/a collectathon"
...depending on how the story telling is....and the urm....overall difficulty of the game, whether it is literally press this button to win(Or even easier a walking sim game where all you do is just walk and you win by walking(or sprinting if the game lets you if you prefer a faster pace game....) to the end of the game....), or dark souls masochist level (ps - I hate that game with a passion! hahaha), I wouldn't mind a turn-based survival horror RPG.....otherwise yes, you do have a point......survival horror games are meant to be fast pace action and turn-base only goes well with RPGs that have a strong storyline......and in a fantasy/open world setting......or strategy type - so that it's not longer a RTS classified........though others may beg to differ....
Post edited February 27, 2019 by Newbie
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elcook: Be patient, just a bit, please.
No, it's not about GOG Direct to Account - we're literally informing about it all GOG users with the User Agreement update email.
Don't tell me, you've finally convinced EA to release C&C here?
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I think it would be good to clearly say how much price which we see is _base price_ and how much of it is "mandatory extra" imposed by dev for given region. For sure it is unfair to expect that you cover all difference.... but ultimately it is unfair that there is a difference at all (when I can understand concept of lower price for certain region I am unable to understand what moral guidance was needed to allow higher price).
Ultimately if we do not see dev greed we cannot fight with it. So let us see the greed.
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Runaurufu: I think it would be good to clearly say how much price which we see is _base price_ and how much of it is "mandatory extra" imposed by dev for given region. For sure it is unfair to expect that you cover all difference.... but ultimately it is unfair that there is a difference at all (when I can understand concept of lower price for certain region I am unable to understand what moral guidance was needed to allow higher price).
Ultimately if we do not see dev greed we cannot fight with it. So let us see the greed.
Would still want to see games marked according to pricing. Now it was argued that if a label stating that a game has price hikes would be negative and drive publishers away (well, that's their own darn fault now, isn't it?), maybe a positive label, one for flat-priced (still a handful of those), one for discounts for poorer countries only (I guess they could throw marketing on it and label that as "fair-priced", though I'd protest against the term, since there are many poor countries not covered and poor people even in wealthier countries), and if you see neither listed you know somebody's getting screwed.