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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 March 03, 2019
I've seen it mentioned often enough to take notice that people in certain regions end up paying more on GOG than Steam. I'd be interested if someone could expand on that. Is that due to Steam's frequent sales and having larger percentage discounts during them or are they negotiating better deals with publishers in those regions? I wonder if there might be a path for GOG to follow to reduce prices for customers in those regions without having to take a financial hit themselves.
Posted March 03, 2019
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Barry_Woodward: I've seen it mentioned often enough to take notice that people in certain regions end up paying more on GOG than Steam. I'd be interested if someone could expand on that. Is that due to Steam's frequent sales and having larger percentage discounts during them or are they negotiating better deals with publishers in those regions? I wonder if there might be a path for GOG to follow to reduce prices for customers in those regions without having to take a financial hit themselves.
It's more about the currency exchange: https://www.gog.com/forum/general/any_plans_on_locking_currency_exchange_rates_for_specific_regions
Posted March 03, 2019
The question then becomes, who takes on the financial burden of those fixed exchange rates? The store or the publishers in those regions? If GOG has to absorb the bulk of the costs, then they're in a similar position they were in with the fair price package. If, however, it's something they can work out with the publishers on their end, it might be doable. Would the prerequisite to making those sorts of deals require GOG to accept more and more local currencies? What are the logistical hurdles they'd have to navigate to get there?
Post edited March 03, 2019 by Barry_Woodward
Posted March 03, 2019
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satoru: I wish the API for looking up pricing wasnt so kinda mind numbing because its really hard to actually look up and compare pricing with tehway the json gives back the information.
Seems very simple to me. I mean, wasn't even aware of it till it was pointed out to me in this thread, and now just using it right away. Grab the game id from page source, put it in the API link with the country code you're interested in, and check the USD price listed there, always the last if there are more currencies.
Posted March 03, 2019
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Barry_Woodward: The question then becomes, who takes on the financial burden of those fixed exchange rates? The store or the publishers in those regions?
you, the customer. the game will be priced higher for you and all money will go to publisher and gog instead of
publisher
gog main part
gog minor part which then goes to you via a discount on another purchase.
Posted March 03, 2019
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Barry_Woodward: The question then becomes, who takes on the financial burden of those fixed exchange rates?
On Steam the games tend to be fixed prices, so depending on how the exchange rate is doing, the revenue will be more or less depending how favorable it is. The cut for the publisher/store remains the same though.
Posted March 03, 2019
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Barry_Woodward: The question then becomes, who takes on the financial burden of those fixed exchange rates? The store or the publishers in those regions?
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lukaszthegreat: you, the customer. the game will be priced higher for you and all money will go to publisher and gog instead of
publisher
gog main part
gog minor part which then goes to you via a discount on another purchase.
What you say is true for EU countries (and more recently Serbia and Montenegro as well) and that standard 1 EUR = 1 USD fixed rate. But that particular exchange was about fixed exchange rates for countries with weaker and weakening currencies, as in the example given by Quantus in the thread linked to by Melvinica, with Steam fixing the exchange rate in Turkey to 1.8 TRY = 1 USD even though at the time of that post it was about 3.5 TRY = 1 USD, so keeping the price in local currency fixed regardless of exchange rate fluctuations, and at that point basically giving people from Turkey just about 50% discount without actually having a discount in the USD price.
Posted March 03, 2019
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Barry_Woodward: I've seen it mentioned often enough to take notice that people in certain regions end up paying more on GOG than Steam. I'd be interested if someone could expand on that.
Beside the currency fluctuation and tax, Steam cover all parts of the world with their regional pricing scheme. This old article is one that attempt to dig deeper about it: https://www.pcgamer.com/the-weird-ecomomics-behind-steam-prices-around-the-world/

GOG only have certain areas within their scheme, with the rest of the world pays in base price. The most interesting example is CDPR's own Witcher 3 GOTY. While russian pays about the same on GOG and steam, depends on where you live, some could get it for $30 now or even $10 last lunar year sale there. Thronebreaker is even more interesting, as only Russia and China price that are significantly cheaper. The rest of the world that use to get some cut didn't get any deal on Steam. I'm really curios if the allegedly low number of sales Thronebreaker partially caused by that.

https://isthereanydeal.com/game/witcheriiiwildhuntgameofyearedition/compare/
https://isthereanydeal.com/game/thronebreakerwitchertales/compare/

I've abandoned any hope that GOG will copy Steam price scheme, so I will refrain to mention anything about regional price as I've realized this is a sensitive topic for some that pays more than the base price. Except if there's one from my region that ask about that cause I remember there's 2/3 people made a thread asking about it past year. It will be interesting though to see Cyberpunk 2077 price scheme at Steam.
Posted March 03, 2019
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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.
Pricing for other platforms like GoG, Origin, Uplay, Epic, and any other pc gaming digital platform that sells pc games But not Steam keys are covered in the contracts that dev/pubs sign, and in those contract Valve does not allow the dev/pub put Steam at a higher base price than those other platforms. Double Damage , developers of Rebel Galaxy , talked about this on Twitter
Posted March 03, 2019
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eisberg77: Pricing for other platforms like GoG, Origin, Uplay, Epic, and any other pc gaming digital platform that sells pc games But not Steam keys are covered in the contracts that dev/pubs sign, and in those contract Valve does not allow the dev/pub put Steam at a higher base price than those other platforms. Double Damage , developers of Rebel Galaxy , talked about this on Twitter
*nods* And that's called price fixing and is banned for physical goods (just recently 3 hypermarkets and a few distributors got fined millions here for this, agreeing on a minimum price for products in all stores). But apparently if it applies to a stream of bits, nobody bats an eye.
Posted March 04, 2019
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satoru: I wish the API for looking up pricing wasnt so kinda mind numbing because its really hard to actually look up and compare pricing with tehway the json gives back the information.
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Cavalary: Seems very simple to me. I mean, wasn't even aware of it till it was pointed out to me in this thread, and now just using it right away. Grab the game id from page source, put it in the API link with the country code you're interested in, and check the USD price listed there, always the last if there are more currencies.
Is ther a way to pull the pricing of a game for all regions simlutaneously via the API? I can do it per region but that's just monstrously annoying
Posted March 04, 2019
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Thank you Epic Games store for ruining us and making good platforms like GOG get rid of these things. I will be supporting GOG and buying from them ALWAYS. From here i want to state that i won't buy anything from the epic shit store.

We understand you GOG that you need to make money and that this loses come at a high cost due to what i said above, it was a hard choice to do, i believe you and myself will keep supporting you.
Posted March 05, 2019
If this is becoming the norm now, no wonder GOG dropped it at this point, see attachment:
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rp.jpg (50 Kb)
Posted March 05, 2019
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Klumpen0815: If this is becoming the norm now, no wonder GOG dropped it at this point, see attachment:
I see your The Occupation and I raise you The Caligua Effect: Overdose. Current £49.99 UK price (pre-order) gives no less than £10.70 Wallet funds. So assuming the headline price stays the same, it'll be a very significant effective price hike for people here after this month ends. This is pretty close to the dreaded £1 = $1.

I'll underline that I do understand GOG's position and why they feel they have to make this change. And of course I know it's not GOG that sets regional prices, so I don't blame them for this pricing decision. But it's hard not to feel a slightly bitter taste in the mouth at massive differentials like the one for TCE:O. I'll be less likely to buy games that do this now I just have to suck it up.
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tcepricing.jpg (61 Kb)
Post edited March 05, 2019 by Loganberrybunny
Posted March 05, 2019
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Klumpen0815: If this is becoming the norm now, no wonder GOG dropped it at this point, see attachment:
That's actually the norm? The standard EUR = USD rate, currently making prices ~13% higher. And that in itself is actually a small difference, comparatively speaking. Not so long ago it was 24% higher, at least. May have been even more in the past, not sure, but definitely at least 24%.
Post edited March 05, 2019 by Cavalary
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This is my favourite topic
Community
General discussionConclusion of the Fair Price Package program(910 posts)(910 posts)
(910 posts)