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General discussionConclusion of the Fair Price Package program(910 posts)(910 posts)
(910 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted February 26, 2019
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.
Posted February 26, 2019
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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
Posted February 28, 2019
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tfishell: apehater apparently went of the rails a few years back and is now basically a troll and/or batshit insane and obsessed with nursing a grudge against GOG. :P Some of his points are important - missing patches is imo key - but basically the only thing he does now is complain so for his posts I unfortunately throw the baby out with the bathwater.
And insulting someone you most probably don't know makes you much better so sure.
Posted February 28, 2019
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Nightblair: So, for us affected, do you know a shop without regional pricing?
yes, use a VPN
Posted February 28, 2019
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TARFU: I think this should quiet some fears and hopefully expose that Kotaku article as irresponsible fear-mongering.
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A-Dazz: People still read and trust Kotaku?
Apparently so:

https://www.gog.com/forum/general/kotaku_facing_financial_pressures_gog_quietly_lays_off_at_least_a_dozen_staff/page1
Posted February 28, 2019
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TARFU: I think this should quiet some fears and hopefully expose that Kotaku article as irresponsible fear-mongering.
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A-Dazz: People still read and trust Kotaku?
Jason Schreier has been pretty good and a trustworthy journalist recently, apparently. I stopped following Kotaku with the whole Gawker media dilemma. So I don't actually know now. Just what I've heard/read.
Posted February 28, 2019
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tfishell: apehater apparently went of the rails a few years back and is now basically a troll and/or batshit insane and obsessed with nursing a grudge against GOG. :P Some of his points are important - missing patches is imo key - but basically the only thing he does now is complain so for his posts I unfortunately throw the baby out with the bathwater.
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john_hatcher: And insulting someone you most probably don't know makes you much better so sure.
Well obviously I don't know him as a person, I've only seen his posts on here. He developed a reputation here for complaining in basically every post, at least all the posts I've seen. Maybe saying he's "batshit insane" is unfair (I thought it was obvious it was hyperbole), maybe "obnoxious" is more fair.
Post edited March 01, 2019 by tfishell
Posted March 01, 2019
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A-Dazz: People still read and trust Kotaku?
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Kelevra216: Jason Schreier has been pretty good and a trustworthy journalist recently, apparently. I stopped following Kotaku with the whole Gawker media dilemma. So I don't actually know now. Just what I've heard/read.
Jason Schreier seems to be privy to a lot of information. That part is true. He clearly has many contacts in the industry. But when it comes to opinion and the spin on those scoops and other stories, his journalistic qualities are often lacking in my opinion.

It's kinda like Rich Johnston of Bleeding Cool. He clearly has industry ties and gets interesting scoops too. If he tells you about an upcoming DC comic release, you shouldn't doubt him. But his opinions can go off the rails...
Posted March 01, 2019
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toxicTom: Yeah... a shame that they can't get someone with a spark to replace him...


and... Good to see you *hugs* :-)
Well, they could get in touch with Selderij, always thought his video had more than enough spark.

And good to see you too.



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Fesin: I honestly still feel like GOG hasn't really recovered from that. To me it seems like that was the moment where the downturn began and GOG felt a lot more corporate and less personal. [...]
They haven't, TheEnigmaticT proved irreplaceable.
Posted March 01, 2019
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Fesin: I honestly still feel like GOG hasn't really recovered from that. To me it seems like that was the moment where the downturn began and GOG felt a lot more corporate and less personal. [...]
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HypersomniacLive: They haven't, TheEnigmaticT proved irreplaceable.
Exactly, I miss the man; to me, he was the face of GOG, in a very good way.

What he´s up to nowadays anyway?
Posted March 01, 2019
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AlbertCole: Are things looking so grim? First the layoffs, now this. By all means, do everything to stay competitive and able to offer your amazing service. As long as the games stay DRM-free, I'm on board.
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jamotide: Don't worry, CDP stock is near all time high, they are very profitable, drowning in in cash and have no debt. They just need even more profits.
Maybe the shareholders are getting greedy.
Being publicly traded puts you at the mercy of shareholders, who can just sell you off to EA should they get a majority share and get enough short-term enticement from a hostile takeover party.
And they will force the management to lay off people to cut cost and maximize their share prize and thus their short-term profits.

I like GOG, but it has only eroded it's values over the years of it's existence. The Unique Selling Point is almost gone.
What I still like about GOG is:
1- Mostly (see below) DRM free.
2- Big selection of (classic) games
3- Being able to download installers to your hard disk for offline use.
4- active, open community, hampered a bit with a forum system from the stone age.
5- good customer service for refunds

I consider GOG to be mostly on par with itch.io right now.
I consider games that require a service that can not be installed by users locally to be at least partially DRM' ed.
Following this logic most of the mutli-player modes of modern games are suffering from these kind of chains.
This is not really GOG's fault, apart from keeping GOG Galaxy closed source.
Please GOG release the source code of Galaxy so that we need not worry about this any more.

I don't like to be treated as a second-class citizen just because I don't live in the USA.
This will mean that you will get less business from me.
Post edited March 01, 2019 by jorlin
Posted March 01, 2019
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Pheace: I'm curious about this as well since the opening posts implies (though little beyond that) that it will be used to lower their cut, but no mention of what the cut will be or when it'll happen.
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elcook: GOG has a unique approach to digital distribution as we don't just release games "as is" but often spend great deal working on many of them, at times for months leading to release. Think of fixing classics and making them compatible with modern OSs, removing DRM, implementing GOG Galaxy powered features ourselves or operating cross play infrastructure supporting multiple platforms. Therefore there is no universal answer on the question of revenue split that fits all games and partners. Our goal is to balance expectations of our partners with providing a valuable and quality service to you, our customers.
How long have you guys been having this unique approach you are talking about here? Was it just recently, as in just the last 3 months or so, of before that?
Posted March 01, 2019
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SPTX: [...] Maybe CDP should open a real store on GOG. I mean a PHYSICAL store.
Sell the games on GOG in a box, giving back DRM-free its true meaning. [...]
What about updates/patches? Or do you mean that you wouldn't mind if you had to come online here to get them?



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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 [...]
Leaving the pirating bit out as it's outside the scope of my point - is it? Purchasing the game(s) of a developer/publisher that implements regional pricing sends the message that one doesn't mind, or even embraces, the current regional pricing model, and whatever rationale is used by devs/pubs to justify it. The only way to send the message that one objects to these regional pricing schemes is to not make them any money, even at the level of the US base price (or lower), and let them know.




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Cavalary: [...] On a different note, damn, what a difference. Five years ago, the "good news" brought a veritable firestorm, thousands of comments, the large majority extremely negative, hardline stances, raising enough of a fuss to make them change things, introducing the FPP among others (such as choice of currency, which wasn't part of the original plan, which was to force the local currency at all times) to try to make up for some of it. Now, most is understanding and supportive and the few still wanting to stand for something get bashed... As Pratchett put it, those on the side of the people find that the problem isn't that you have the wrong kind of government, but the wrong kind of people. Same here, wrong kind of customers, not standing up for themselves and what would do them good.
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Cavalary: [...] 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. [...]
The context is very different - see how the necessity of regional pricing was framed and what sort of arguments to support it were made at a time where GOG had three core values and a mission to change the industry clearly stated on their site, and how the necessity of the discontinuation of the FPP is framed now with the recent leaked lay-offs freshly in the background. Add to it that the userbase has been trained/accustomed for a good while now to the removal of any and all of their (old) values and mission from the site, plus a good number of people that are not affected by regional pricing, or even benefit from it (regional discounts), an we are where we are.
Post edited March 01, 2019 by HypersomniacLive
Posted March 01, 2019
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HypersomniacLive: The context is very different - see how the necessity of regional pricing was framed and what sort of arguments to support it were made at a time where GOG had three core values and a mission to change the industry clearly stated on their site, and how the necessity of the discontinuation of the FPP is framed now with the recent leaked lay-offs freshly in the background. Add to it that the userbase has been trained/accustomed for a good while now to the removal of any and all of their (old) values and mission from the site, plus a good number of people that are not affected by regional pricing, or even benefit from it (regional discounts), an we are where we are.
If people would still care about doing something right, the framing wouldn't matter, they'd still demand those values to be adhered to again. But they don't... And the few who still do pay the price. (Well, I mean those who don't care pay it too, but they don't care that they do, and even lash out against those trying to get better conditions for all for taking issue with people, them included, being taken advantage of.)
Posted March 01, 2019
FPP was a really nice gesture and its loss is unfortunate, but I do understand the reasons. DRM is a winnable fight because it's really just a developer/publisher internal company policy thing, but regional pricing is a complex and thorny issue that touches everything from contract law to international relations. Gotta choose your battles.

Also worth noting that Epic is about to kick off a massive war involving most of the game industry's heavyweights, and the OP announcement shows clear awareness of this. It's in everyone's best interest that GOG be flexible enough to deal with whatever is about to happen.
Posted March 01, 2019
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richlind33: Dear CDP,

learn to manage, or learn to code. ;p
Why not both? Are the mutually exclusive?



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paladin181: You can search the game on MaGOG. That will display they regional pricing disparity.
Except that MaGog doesn't track titles released after 2018.01.01, unless they were released as InDev before that date or are DLC to titles released up to 2017.12.01.



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immi101: you can get the price via the API, without relying on the cookie:
you just need the game id.

https://api.gog.com/products/1492171024/prices?countryCode=US

maybe ask the GreaseMonkey wizards behind the Barefoot Essentials or Adalia Fundamentals script if they can add that ?
Good idea. I pinged adaliabooks, since Barefoot_Monkey is MIA.
Posted March 01, 2019
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elcook: GOG has a unique approach to digital distribution as we don't just release games "as is" but often spend great deal working on many of them, at times for months leading to release. Think of fixing classics and making them compatible with modern OSs, removing DRM, implementing GOG Galaxy powered features ourselves or operating cross play infrastructure supporting multiple platforms. Therefore there is no universal answer on the question of revenue split that fits all games and partners. Our goal is to balance expectations of our partners with providing a valuable and quality service to you, our customers.
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eisberg77: How long have you guys been having this unique approach you are talking about here? Was it just recently, as in just the last 3 months or so, of before that?
Its pretty much what they've done for awhile.

But I feel also this is part of the core problem This kind of model doesn't scale.

The Long Dark left GOG. A frequent complaint was that GOG versions were behind the Steam ones, and GOG versions couldn't participate in various community events like the steam version.

GOG also rejects games for 'reasons' that are utterly inexplicable and mostly non-actionable feedback or just unknown reasons.

https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/54khiq/be_careful_if_you_want_to_release_your_game_on_gog/

https://rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/gog-turns-down-grimoire-for-publishing.126050/

https://www.othersideentertainment.com/forum/index.php?topic=6437.0

https://www.polygon.com/2018/1/6/16858740/opus-magnum-gog-rejected

Their system is fine at small scale. But now they're functionally running into the same problem Steam did with curation. It was impossible to keep up with demand, more and more agmes were coming out and it was not possible to 'predict' what was good or bad. Do you honestly think GOG would approve a game like Unturned or Undertale. They can't scale and are now rejecting more games than they're accepting. Their 'curation' system rejected Opus Magnum a game that was doing 95% rating on Steam and came from Zachtronics who they already had all their previous games. They're actively reducing their revenue pipeline because they 'insist' on being a middle man, and one wonders what value this provides at this point.

If you're wondering why "some game" isn't on GOG. its likely because they either rejected it, or are simply too busy to deal with it. Yet GOG seems to want to insist that they are 'bringing value' to a developer and customers. Well devs seem to not be seeing a lot of that value and are jumping ship or are frustrated by 'rejections' that make no sense.
Post edited March 01, 2019 by satoru
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This is my favourite topic
Community
General discussionConclusion of the Fair Price Package program(910 posts)(910 posts)
(910 posts)