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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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Fonzer: Question?
Can low paying regions gift us games who are in a region that pays more money for the game otherwise?
Yes. All gifts are at the US price unless the local price is higher than the US price. So a Russian, for instance, buying a gift code for a game would purchase it at the US price, where as an Australian would pay the Australian price for a gift code. Essentially, gift codes will never be sold for less than US MSRP,
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CipA666: so wait.. does this mean I won't be able to play with dollars anymore? being that I live in Europe... and a shitty part of Europe at that.
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Enebias: You will still be able to pay with dollars. Only, if the price of the game you are about to buy is higher than that of its equivalent in the US, you don't get the difference back anymore.

Edit: wait. I read "pay" but it was "play"! XD
yeah, my mistake :))) I've corrected it.
at least I think so, the GOG Forum is weird..
Post edited March 01, 2019 by CipA666
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Olauron: I can't find a quote now but I have read statements from some developers that they have no rights (as a result of agreement with Steam) to set prices for their games lower than on Steam. Steam doesn't care if prices are higher (thus the situation with Mexico, Indonesia, etc. judging by the comments in this thread).
The only thing Steam says is that you can't undercut the price on the steam store by selling cheaper steam keys elsewhere. Basically you can't sell a game for $19.99 on Steam, but the nhvae your own store that sells steam keys for $9.99.

The situation in Mexico/Indonesia/etc is a different thing. Steam supports regional pricing in various regions and supports their local currency. In this situation you can price your game in 2 ways

1) Use steam's automated currency conversion. This is where a dev sets a price in USD or EUR, and steam has its own algorithm to appropriately price a game in all the different regions it supports. This means a dev doens thave ot manully figure out how to price their game in 30+ different currencies. For this method regions like Mexico/Indonesia get much CHEAPER pricing than USD. For example a $24.99 USD game, the base price in their currency would be 53% off in Mexico, and 52% off in Indonesia the USD pricing

https://steamdb.info/app/262060/

2) Alternatively a developer can MANUALLY SET the pricing for each region. This is generally done only for AAA games and only done so that the digital pricing is in line with physcial pricing of hte game locally

https://steamdb.info/app/271590/

For example in GTAV we see that the Mexican version is about 3% more than the USD price, while in Indonesia its 31% less than the USD price (But a far cyry from the 52% off from the other example)

People generally complaining about 'pricing' in low cost regions, generally are only complaining about it for AAA titles, since they're the only ones that do this kind of pricing.

This is in comparison to Steam's automated regional pricing is in fact very fair to these low cost regions.
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Pheace: To be fair, I think that requirement is from the Steam Key Rules and Guidelines. I don't think it's entirely unreasonable to request you don't use their free keys service to then undercut Steam on another store.
If that's the case, it'd only apply to selling Steam keys elsewhere, and selling the product elsewhere, without including a Steam key, wouldn't be covered by any such agreement and any claims that they can't have another pricing model are bogus.
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Pheace: To be fair, I think that requirement is from the Steam Key Rules and Guidelines. I don't think it's entirely unreasonable to request you don't use their free keys service to then undercut Steam on another store.
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Cavalary: If that's the case, it'd only apply to selling Steam keys elsewhere, and selling the product elsewhere, without including a Steam key, wouldn't be covered by any such agreement and any claims that they can't have another pricing model are bogus.
For GOG they seem to have a very disjointed hodge podge of regional pricing that is kinda bizarre. It appears that GOG doesn't force devs to update regional pricing when new currencies come online like steam does. This means that older games on GOG will likely have very few regional pricing availabily, while more recent titles will have more.

Since it appears GOG doesnt notify devs when they add new pricing regions, and it doesnt' 'break' for customers if they don't update the pricing (on Steam not adding a new region causes a blank store page in that region where the game cant be purchased), it stays at whatever hte USD pricing is permanently.

So its highly likely devs are not aware of a 'problem' since GOG doesnt tell them about it, and existing users still can buy the game, which is different than how steam works. and even glancing at gog's regional pricing page, its actually not obvious that gog actually supports regions liek Mexico, since it doesnt actually say it does, despite the fact that it has regional pricing in Mexico just in USD. Its SUPER confusing
Post edited March 01, 2019 by satoru
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satoru:
Supporting regional pricing and supporting the local currency are entirely different things. GOG supports 47 regions for pricing, but 13 currencies (admittedly, Euro covers... 4.5 pricing regions, the .5 because non-Euro Romania, Bulgaria and Croatia are lumped with Eurozone Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia and Slovenia... of course, as of a certain point all the Eurozone plus those 3 non-Euro EU countries PLUS non-EU Serbia and Montenegro get the same price).
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elcook: 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.
Don't User Agreements have it written in that they can change at any time?

I don't really put much stock in the "ethics as a company" thing, considering how early adopters of Witcher 3 are threated when it comes to DLC vs those who would buy it now. (Both base game and game with DLC are sold at the same price, but those who paid the higher price for the base game early on are SOL on getting DLC at an equally reasonable price. But I digress, that's a sidepoint to show the "ethics" aren't that great, but it's not quite on topic here, so I'll leave it at that.)


Looks like it's time to re-download my full library (or anything that's updated since my last backup. Just in case.
Thanks for letting us know!

I am totally ok with GOG cancelling this feature. Even though I did receive some refunds, I never actually paid attention to them. I always look at the price asked for a game and would then decide if it was worth a shot. If not, maybe wait for a discount or that the price drops in a natural fashion with time. That's how I did it with actual, material game copies in the past and it works just fine today (plus you would usually get the patches delivered with newer game versions).

Since GOG is my #1 source for PC games, by very very far, please try and keep your company alive and your service up!
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CelineSSauve: Don't User Agreements have it written in that they can change at any time?

I don't really put much stock in the "ethics as a company" thing, considering how early adopters of Witcher 3 are threated when it comes to DLC vs those who would buy it now. (Both base game and game with DLC are sold at the same price, but those who paid the higher price for the base game early on are SOL on getting DLC at an equally reasonable price. But I digress, that's a sidepoint to show the "ethics" aren't that great, but it's not quite on topic here, so I'll leave it at that.)

Looks like it's time to re-download my full library (or anything that's updated since my last backup. Just in case.
I don't understand why it is "unethical" to sell the game cheaper now at a later point in time. But kudos for backing up your library! Not everyone does, but I think it's important to the idea of DRM-free.
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CelineSSauve: Don't User Agreements have it written in that they can change at any time?

I don't really put much stock in the "ethics as a company" thing, considering how early adopters of Witcher 3 are threated when it comes to DLC vs those who would buy it now. (Both base game and game with DLC are sold at the same price, but those who paid the higher price for the base game early on are SOL on getting DLC at an equally reasonable price. But I digress, that's a sidepoint to show the "ethics" aren't that great, but it's not quite on topic here, so I'll leave it at that.)

Looks like it's time to re-download my full library (or anything that's updated since my last backup. Just in case.
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rjbuffchix: I don't understand why it is "unethical" to sell the game cheaper now at a later point in time. But kudos for backing up your library! Not everyone does, but I think it's important to the idea of DRM-free.
It's more the notion of the game game and the "game of the year" versions now being sold at exactly the same price for every sale. At least from Canadian pricing.

That means new people get the DLC completely free. I wouldn't have an issue if the base game was cheaper than the "game of the year" version, but it is not. As such, by buying (and supporting GOG) earlier, I'm given an effective fee above those who didn't.

I'm not sure I'll ever bother to purchase the Witcher 3 DLC (or any other games developed by GOG early, it at all, for that matter) in the future.
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CelineSSauve: It's more the notion of the game game and the "game of the year" versions now being sold at exactly the same price for every sale. At least from Canadian pricing.

That means new people get the DLC completely free. I wouldn't have an issue if the base game was cheaper than the "game of the year" version, but it is not. As such, by buying (and supporting GOG) earlier, I'm given an effective fee above those who didn't.
Hm? The base price is $39.99 for base and $49.99 for GOTY, Canada pays 55.89 and 69.89 CAD, so some 5% more for each, and on last sale both were 70% off. Couldn't have been the same price.
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CelineSSauve: It's more the notion of the game game and the "game of the year" versions now being sold at exactly the same price for every sale. At least from Canadian pricing.

That means new people get the DLC completely free. I wouldn't have an issue if the base game was cheaper than the "game of the year" version, but it is not. As such, by buying (and supporting GOG) earlier, I'm given an effective fee above those who didn't.
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Cavalary: Hm? The base price is $39.99 for base and $49.99 for GOTY, Canada pays 55.89 and 69.89 CAD, so some 5% more for each, and on last sale both were 70% off. Couldn't have been the same price.
Nope.

$27.99 for basic or "game of the year".

And the Expansion Pass is $12.89.

So that's a roughly $13 fee on those who supported the company early.

Like I said: I won't make that mistake again.
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CelineSSauve: Nope.

$27.99 for basic or "game of the year".

And the Expansion Pass is $12.89.

So that's a roughly $13 fee on those who supported the company early.

Like I said: I won't make that mistake again.
Ah, yes, I see that was the case last year. Not in this last sale though.
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CelineSSauve: Nope.

$27.99 for basic or "game of the year".

And the Expansion Pass is $12.89.

So that's a roughly $13 fee on those who supported the company early.

Like I said: I won't make that mistake again.
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Cavalary: Ah, yes, I see that was the case last year. Not in this last sale though.
I saw that in multiple sales. Can't say if it was that way in the most recent one or not.

All I know is that it happened multiple times, and each time it felt like a nice middle-finger for early support.
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CelineSSauve: All I know is that it happened multiple times, and each time it felt like a nice middle-finger for early support.
When I still used to buy games on Steam and had bought Skyrim, I remember I felt punished later on when I saw that the whole package (DLC + original game) was always a better deal than getting the DLC individually. I resolved then to never buy the original Bethesda release again and always wait for the GOTY edition.

*But* it would probably serve you well to abandon this shtick about your early "support". The Witcher is not a small independent release that depends on your support or which will be financially grateful to you for providing it. You are just buying it early. There are games and game shops that turn this table, games you want to have early and which do not reward you for it, but which make you pay a premium for the privilege instead. Nowadays a lot of AAA franchises fall into this category. They have enough of a loyal, passionate, or indiscrimate customer base to be able to do this. There are two different philosophies, two different sets of principles at work here. One of them might honor your "support", others are looking to gouge you for money because they believe or know it's them dictating the terms.
Post edited March 03, 2019 by skirtish