Because I don't want to buy new versions of Windows, even if I did want to buy them, I'm giving up a ton of disk space to have a security risk on my computer. And what's more, there's already a Linux version of some games here, I see no reason why I should have to dual boot when there's a copy of the game out there that doesn't require it.

But, what's more, the attitude that we should just dual boot is a large part of why this is still a problem. I can't get Flash 11.3 or greater to work on Linux without resorting to running the Windows version because Adobe no longer supports Linux. What's more Google supports it on Linux, but only in a way that works with Chrome, AFAIK, it can't run on any other browsers.

Short and sweet:

Thank you!

You are not understanding the issue...

It is not me, or my choice, it is law.

In Brazil, if you have no option for BRL in your site, and no legal presence in Brazil, Brazillians buying on your site are considered like people doing imports on their own, they only legal thing they have to do is pay a tax that is automatically charged on their cards or bank account.

If your site have the option for BRL, it does not matter if the user is using it or not, if he is in Brazil, he has to comply with stupid regulations.

The whole point of GOG was fight piracy the right way, with low prices and no-DRM. And I must say that in Brazil since Steam started using BRL, piracy rose instead of declining, because paying legally became harder (not easier).

Um, 1 price world wide has been one of their 3 main principles going back to the start. They built their business on the basis of our support and loyalty, we all had other choices for a lot of the recent additions and we've chosen to buy here instead.

I'm not sure how on Earth you can come to a conclusion that they hadn't done something immoral or at bare minimum compromised their principles.
The US already charges it, it's just that it isn't being enforced. Because GOG isn't required to report back their sales to the authorities in the US, they get to benefit from what is technically illegal tax dodging.

But, yes, these sales are supposed to be subject to taxation.
That's how sales tax is typically done here as well. I'm not really sure why, but all stores decided to not include the sales tax in the shelf price. But, there's no law telling folks that they can't include the tax in the advertised price, you see it from time to time in cases where vendors are needing to sell without a cash register.

I don't think they currently sell any DRM-free games, but they did release Arena and Daggerfall as freeware.

http://www.elderscrolls.com/arena/
http://www.elderscrolls.com/daggerfall/ You say that almost like they're not being pirated already :P Bethesda could only gain from releasing their games here, regional pricing or not. To be honest, I wouldn't even mind if they released their games here with a single price, but used the most expensive (Euro) prices.

Edit:

Thinking about it, let's say Bethesda released their games here without regional pricing, instead using the highest of the regional prices available elsewhere, so:

Morrowind GOTY: $29.99
Oblivion GOTY Deluxe: $34.99
Skyrim Legendary Edition: $59.99
Fallout 3 GOTY: $29.99
Fallout NV Ultimate: $29.99

And of course also re-released Fallout 1/2/Tactics here, along with "premium" (i.e. preconfigured, tested & supported and with a bunch of extras) versions of Arena and Daggerfall as a double pack for $5.99.

What I think would be a good idea would be for them to offer permanent series discounts of e.g. 20-25% and in addition to this, include Arena & Daggerfall free when buying Morrowind, Oblivion & Skyrim together and include the first 3 Fallout games free when buying Fallout 3 & New Vegas together.

I'm not sure I follow you - exactly what sort of exception are you talking about?

Well haven't been visiting the site in a while.....
An actual apology i didn't expect that, that's pretty nice.
Maybe i'm drinking the cool aid a bit quick but anyways i just picked up the 3 games i was holding out on :D

Interesting. I guess this is a part of why that whole $1=1 euro thing got started. I'm all for customer protection, but this seems excessive. I'm not even sure how they managed to determine where to advertise the prices appropriately.

The exchange rate of USD and EUR has mostly been higher than the highest VAT in any EU member, so I highly doubt it had anything to do with VAT - another thing that may not be known is that when the $1=1€ started it was even less justifiable as a number of countries had a lower VAT back then.

I'm not sure I follow you on the part I highlighted - could you elaborate, please?

A bit late to the party, but I have to join other goggers in thanking GOG for reconsidering their stance on regional pricing. This goes to show that GOG is still #1 when it comes to customer care and fairness, and that they do believe in their own offer and in what they're trying to accomplish in the digital delivery industry. And I firmly believe that proving this to the user base can be ultimately much more beneficial to GOG than simply chucking out newer titles.

Gotta say though, skimming through the thread I was actually puzzled by some people questioning GOG's decision to 'get back to their roots', and to those I wanted to ask: why exactly are you guys worried that because of this GOG won't be able to offer us newer games?

I mean, I understand that the letter itself says so, but as far as I can understand things don't really change that much: through the whole ordeal GOG's got to know how important fair pricing is to their customers, and will now try to get flat worldwide pricing when possible. However, when GOG's convinced that its user base is gonna love a certain game for which flat pricing is not possible, they can and will have to adopt regional pricing.

In such cases, GOG'll have to give out store credits to make up for the regional rip-off (god I love that vid, GOG should do more of those!), but my understanding from TET's updated post is that while GOG won't be making money, it isn't actually a terrible deal for them. I'm not an economics expert, but surely this wouldn't be the first time a company sells their product at loss, right?

GOG's offer, because of the new store credits refund, will actually be superior (or at the very least on par with) to other shops': for the same price we get more value (one or two extra games, hell it could be more during huge sales), and on top of that there's the DRM-free part and the goodies. Such an offer is bound to be attractive to some people, and in the long run it's going to help GOG establish themselves as a place to buy new games too, which is what they're trying to accomplish here.

To me all of this *does* make financial sense, because as already mentioned GOG won't be losing much money (if any?), and they've stressed before that they've been doing great and growing up to this point - meaning, they should be able to keep things up while transitioning into a bigger store. And if GOG's been growing, it's undeniable that it is also because of the competitiveness and uniqueness of their offer (DRM-free, customer first approach, great prices worldwide etc).

I obviously know things won't be as easy as I'm making them out to be, but I really think that GOG's decision doesn't necessarily mean that newer games won't be coming to the store, or that this will just make GOG go bankrupt without any sort of return, as some seem to think.

Again, thank you GOG for not only giving us the chance to voice our opinion, but for also listening to it and coming up with possibly the best solution based on what people suggested. I really wish other companies would do the same, but sadly greed seem to be the name of the game for pretty much everybody else.

The exception of the "we will always offer a compensation". So in these cases where it is absolutely inevitable and the games are also really much wanted, they should not offer a compensation but do what they wanted to do before yesterday. Kind or rolling back the back to the roots. But only if it's really, really necessary and onyl partially and only as an exception. The rule should be that there is an adequate compensation which makes the prices much more fair. Of course difficult to say when it really is necessary and nothing else works.

Sorry wouldn't have my blessing for that, making exceptions just opens flood gates.

You're right. GOG doesn't need to be a direct competitor of Steam, I just hope that GOG gets somewhat similar relevance in the digital gaming distribution so many more classic and new games, which are already on Steam, will get published here, without DRM-chicanery, because the big publishers would miss out on significant revenue otherwise.
I buy all the games I can get on GOG, but some I don't want to miss out on I have to buy on Steam. It would be awesome if I someday would have the choice wether to buy a game with or without DRM rather than to buy with DRM or not at all...