I generally oppose regional pricing because, as you said, rich countries have poor people and poor countries rich people too, and games can be considered luxury items anyway. I don't expect that in e.g. Latin America or Asia, genuine Gucci or Louis Vuitton bags should cost e.g. 20% of what they cost in Europe.

However, I don't fret about it that much, fine, the publisher can even decide to give their game for free in e.g. Latin America and Asia, and that is their decision. If they feel that makes sense for their business, I guess there is little I can do about it, besides deciding to boycott the game because they want me to pay more for it.

So instead, I just try not to think about it, and only care about the price they ask from me. Do I find the price reasonable and agreeable, e.g. in a discount? If so, fine, I buy it. After that I don't really care if South Americans can buy it much cheaper, as long as I got an agreeable price.

For these two latest Legend of Heroes games, the "Ultimate Edition" prices seem surprisingly high, if they really have just some cosmetic and cheat DLCs over the standard edition. Double the price for the cosmetic/cheat DLC.
Yes, I was specifically referring only to this game or publisher, not the whole GOG store library.

If US folks have to pay the same as me, then I don't feel scammed by regional pricing, in this particular case.

(Well, to precise, there is the "$1 = 1€" conversion there so it is not exactly the same price between EU and US... but close enough, since it seems to be the same in Steam apparently?)

I was just alarmed at first because many customer complained the GOG version is much more expensive than the Steam version... but apparently this was a "Brazilian issue" in this case, for whatever reason (GOG not supporting Brazilian currency when doing the conversions, or something, I don't know the details and don't really care much either...).

One thing i can say: They do nothing for free... they do the thing that will provide them the best "competitive ground", even if it means to have high losses for a long period. The price is paid by those who may be, for whatever reason, willing or used to become "overcharged"... but, the final rule simply is: Someone will always have to pay the price, nothing is for free. Those affected are usually not the ones with the highest salary... reason why the wealthy are still growing with every new year.

I do absolutely agree... every country, no matter "rich or poor" got "rich and poor people", so this sort of generalization according to a "buying power" is actually useless or at least on the individual level in most cases unfair.

Yes, the two latest titles had the highest pricing ever... starting with the biggest basic price, and even more "crazy" with the "special edition price". However... Trails into Reverie was the highest priced ever and... it apparently did not work out to well, so NIS was lowering prices for the latest title "Daybreak" (some countries or some versions) yet still high.

Guess because people, at the time of "Reverie" had in mind "Nihon Falcom" is still a very nice company which needs support and... the additional content is somewhat reflecting the price. Which... we found out... is nowhere the case. Nihon Falcom "as a company" is now pretty much hiding behind NIS, as a "high market force" and basically is almost like their slave, slowly losing their "humble nature" in my mind, so, it is not the thing anymore i really want to fully support... but the series is still nice, sure.

Sure, you can say to yourself: If i do not agree with a price i simply are not buying it. It may work out for a bunch of games simply passing on it... i even did it with some games already, but, this can not be the solution for a huge amount of games... else... those affected can safely say "goodbye to gaming" and... in many cases not necessarily because a game can not be cheaper... just because they are "poor" and living in the wrong country. So... fairness is a word that should be taken serious, else... the reaction may not be that gentle, at some point.

Luckily, i have to say... most games are offered with a pretty good discount or at least a fair price on GoG, so in general, getting games that are fair priced is not a issue to me, but, indeed... some companies are clearly more greedy than others... sometimes above a healthy level.

No, the conversion is most likely not the issue (it is pretty accurate, CHF to USD, did not check other currencies), you can view it on the topic)... the publisher simply is asking for more on GoG and there is not much GoG can do about because they are not in charge of the "initial price asked".

I'm super excited, but on the other hand, also super irritated. lol I have a tendency to hoard games. So, I have the entire library of the Trails series, but sadly.....I'm 15 hours in and only on chapter 2 of Trails in the Sky FC. I've heard that they truly do need to be played in order to understand the story arcs. So, I was gonna do Trails 1-3, Zero, Azure, Cold Steel 1-4, Reverie, then Daybreak. I'll probably get around to finishing them all by 2077. Nayuta...have that too...but it's a different Universe supposedly.

Forgot to add that the Cold Steel Series desperately needed SENPatcher because of the controls, bugs, missing features, etc. I tried them, but never played beyond patching them up and making sure I could make them flawless as possible. Here's hoping no need for SENPatcher.

Not that troublesome hoarding games unless it is up to 24 TB because such a HDD can cost 500 hard earned coins and several of them are required. I know some people hoarding cars, the entire place is of full of cars... they can barely put down a deckcair at this place anymore, and the scrap is that heavy... they had to use a crane in order to put a broken car on the roof of another car. Data is a pretty compact thing, and even a fat PC is still a small object... compared to a junkyard.

I currently got close to 7 TB of games installed and indeed most games has only been played a few hours or not even a hour, so i am more of a collector than a gamer in this case. For me it is a lot of joy trying to tune the installed games the best way possible, not without sweat but happy if i succeed: I am still a gamer at heart but my time knows some bounds, as this is not my only interest in life. I still hope somewhere in the future i can put more time into games and actually finishing many more games. The entire "PC tuning" and "collecting" is pretty sophisticated already.

Guess some people have to understand, there is not just the soul of a raw performer but also the soul of a "technician", perhaps devs or mechanics may understand it even better, which is striving to improve things and without knowing all the tools and other games (or cars) there is no way becoming a deeper insight for this stuff. In the end, those people are even becoming a better gamer (or driver) because of all the knowledge they was able to accumulate.

1. Yes. But not the same for NA and EU in themselves, since they do the rotten USD = EUR thing.
2. Yeah, in some, but not in the poorer ones. But it's Australians that get the best deal on GOG. And those are GOG things, for some reason games here are typically cheaper in NO/DK/SE/AU.
3. Yes, for NIS games. But that's definitely a NIS thing and not a GOG thing, because for other games on GOG typical regional discounts apply for LA, CIS and some Asian countries. Steam has quite a few more though.

DLC costing more than a full game each, to add… swimsuits for the characters?

This is beyond insulting.

Maybe someone should develop better Swimsuits as a mod for free... this would be a mental breakdown for NIS. We can be glad no one is doing it because... either they fear the consequences or there is simply no one doing this effort for a niche game.

Indeed, NIS is kinda abusing the fanbase by this rather cheap "development". A fan usually want all the bells and whistles, no matter "how useless"... some collectors-DNA they barely can get ride off. I still say again, just not worth it people... if someone is not having way to much coins to spare... hold yourself back, so NIS is either reducing prices or in the future hopefully offering a "better value".

Yes i want to support this game/series and GoG too but NOT this robbery DLC practice with stuff of low value.

Still, the price increase Standard vs. Deluxe Edition is somewhat bearable to me, but not the increase Deluxe vs. Ultimate Edition, with a Edition simply not Ultimate at all and the only changes are cheat-items and a accessory-set.

Normal: 65.99
Deluxe: 89.89 (+23.90)
Ultimate: 130.99 (+41.10)

Compared to the Normal version, yes, the Ultimate version is about 2 times more and... to me, not worth it, thats clear.

Besides: At some point the goodies of "Trails into Reverie" got removed from GoG, so it can not be downloaded anymore, from the account.

Affected items:

-Art Book and Mini Art Book
-Digital Novel
-Soundtrack sampler

No statement from GoG or simply evasive statement, as the decision is solely the publishers thing, GoG does not bother to interfere at all.
https://www.gog.com/forum/the_legend_of_heroes_trails_into_reverie/launch_week_download_items_no_longer_available_normal_behaviour

Of course, it is removed everywhere... even for the people who was buying it at launch. Well, this is NIS, not Nicholas...
What it means... "version upgrades, i would be careful about", but the game itself surely is totally worth it.

Sounds interesting :). I found a wishlist entry, hopefully it will appear here sometime. You should get a very good idea if you like the Trails series or not from Sky. They do take a while to play :/, particularly if you try to chat with everyone (which is not necessary, there are only a few minor sidequests that can be found that way). One of the distinctive things about these games is that everyone has something to say. I think Xseed mentioned when they were having trouble getting the translation of Sky SC done that it has more words than War and Peace. Every NPC you can reach at any particular point has something new to say after almost every significant main story event and some of them are relatives of people that play a major role in the story. Nothing that earth shattering (and there is quite a bit of overlap) so it is easy to skip but you can chat with the family of many people you know from the main story and anyone else you see in the game and get a feel for the relationships of different characters and their personalities (one annoying thing is that occasionally if you chat with minor characters twice in a row they have something else to say but sometimes there is no indication of that and almost always they don't have anything else to say; there is a "collect all book in a series that random people give you" side quest but even chatting with everyone once you can miss a book that someone would give you if you chat with them twice in a row at just the right time).

They were all made by Nihon Falcom in Japan, Xseed and NISA are just different localizers. The release order is Zero, Azure, then they did Nayuta and Ys: Memories of Celceta. They might not have been certain if they would get back to the main Trails games for a while and made the ending of Azure the way it is in case they didn't. I'm not sure what they had in mind for future Trails games when making Azure, however covering the events mentioned in Erebonia seems like the obvious next thing to do so I'm guessing they did expect to do that. Then Cold Steel I and II then Tokyo Xanadu. All seven of these released in five years from a company with well under a hundred people according to wikipedia. I think they might contract out some stuff like voice acting but still tend to work with many of the same people as you can easily tell playing Nayuta. I would guess for most people just playing the release order will be fine but some people who would particularly enjoy a larger surprise might possibly prefer the interleave.

As others have said you don't need to worry about any DLC unless you have lots of money and want to give some of it to Falcom (and even then just buying gift copies of the base game might be better). For CSIV the difference with the Deluxe is the "standard cosmetic set" which costs more if you get it independently vs in the Deluxe edition. They do this DLC stuff with the Ys games too and the costumes in the DLC seem to usually clash with the game story (although some of the accessories might go ok). Someone mentioned that the Revarie Summer Splash DLC has an extra scene in the game and now there is the voice pack for Daybreak that might or might not conflict as badly as the costumes but the games will be completely fine without them. Ys VIII has a free "HQ Texture Pack" that anyone with a 4k monitor would likely want but it doesn't look like they have done that for any Trails games and I think the only other essential DLC Falcom has for any game is for Tokyo Xanadu but it is included in the base game for the localized version that GOG has. The full artbook launch bonus might be interesting for some and a full soundtrack would be if they offered it (they did for Nayuta as a launch bonus, I'm not sure why they don't sell these items at all outside the launch). However, for music note that there is compressed audio as individual files in the game directory (music or bgm subdirectory, mostly opus but vorbis for the Sky games) although without any metadata other than loop points. I copy my favorite tracks to a "favorite game music" directory after I play a game.

Trails in the Sky is not published by NIS and Zero + Azure are fan translated, from a team known as "Geofront", which has been made "official", and not really the work from NIS. Surely a very rare thing... at the request of Nihon Falcom. The first two Trails of Cold Steel-titles was still handed by XSEED and way lower priced.

All the other titles are then basically "fully handled by NIS" for localization and publishing and yes... the DLCs and prices was growing.

Nope. NIS is surely not in favor of any fan translation, as far as i can tell, because a lot of their actions are not proving it. Reasonable? Well, the thing is... it takes NIS several years... every time... for a english release and in the case of "Trails into Reverie" the fans are not even happy with the translation... which, so far, still has not been "fixed" for the well known complaints. There is simply no agreement on how it should be done, but in general, fan translations are always the most accurate thing, as they want it as close to the original as possible, not allowing themself "for room of own interpretations" and in general this is the way a fan is enjoying it.

NIS as a translator, is typically trying to "americanize" the content with many words that are almost surreal in the Japanese original... which might be the way the "officials" in US may enjoy it but most likely not the fans.

As with Nihon Falcom, they simply do not have the "manpower" to handle all the stuff outside Japan themself, so they had to put this series into the hand of someone with more "foreign power". I do not think they are happy with everything but they respect the high "buisness sense" of NIS which apparently seems to work pretty fine so far, taking the niche-condition into account, so they let NIS handle it as they please... even while going way "overboard".

Actually, NIS is just a "marketing instrument" because the ones actually handling many of the important tech stuff is a small studio known as PH3 games, which is not even a NIS thing as they have been providing support even at the time of the old XSEED games (including the 2 fan translated titles), reason why it "might run so well, and even better than the stuff from an Asian-only publisher": https://games.ph3.at/

I guess at this point I could buy the 2nd and 3rd Trails game, and Zero + Azure, as they are fully self-contained and don't even offer any additional DLCs. That's already 5 games, then I could decide whether to move on to the rest.

Considering those older non-DCL LoH-games have a smaller discount (20% or so) now than e.g. the Cold Steel games (50-67%) but have lots of DLCs to make them "complete", I guess the publisher is just experimenting with different pricing schemes to get the most profit out of them.

Yes I also get a feeling the high pricing of the Ultimate Editions in the last two games is to charge lots of extra from those who want the "complete experience".

In the past I had no problem buying the base versions of GOG games and not soundtrack editions which came with separate soundtracks and making-of videos, but frankly lately that "have to have it all" DNA has unfortunately kicked in. Maybe I should try to break the mold in this case... With the first five games, no need to ponder over it.

I have a 18TB USB HDD (WD MyBook) specifically for my GOG offline installers. :) Luckily still some terabytes free... Naturally you can also divide them to several HDDs, like I have two 5TB USB HDDs, several 2-3 TB HDDs etc... It would be nice to be able to combine those effortlessly and securely into one big storage pool, by using software RAID with e.g. btrfs or OpenZFS filesystems...

While I have a hoarding tendency when it comes to digital content, especially games, luckily I don't have quite the same tendency for physical objects. I do recycle old PCs and electronics if I don't find meaningful use for them (in fact, by now I should recycle my PS2 console even if it might still actually work; and also recycle my Roland SCC-1 soundcard and CM-32L MIDI module, they are unneeded in this time and age to thanks to superior Munt emulator and General MIDI soundfonts. I admit they probably still are somewhere in the cupboard because I still figured maybe they are worth some money and someone wants them... but nah, to recycling. I'll do it when I bring that massive Apple HD Cinema monitor to recycling too, as it doesn't work anymore.

I still have couple hundred physical PC and console games, but with the PC games I already years ago got rid of the cardboard boxes to save space (I could fit the physical games to like 1/10 of the space by putting the CDs and manuals into small plastic bags). The boxes might have had actual value for collectors if I chose to sell my games, but meh, I didn't feel like trying to sell them nor keep the boxes. I could just as well throw those physical games to trashbin, at least those where I have e.g. a GOG version too. The reason I didn't do it yet was that in the GOG versions, in some cases, there was missing or incomplete soundtrack from the original game; I recall e.g. Total Annihilation being like that, some of the music would cut short or something?

Digital content is fortunately quite easy to keep (hoarding), but it does take money for those hard drives.

Somehow I feel though "hoarding" is in quite many people's genes? For instance, I know lots of normal people who have thousands of old photos in their phone. They don't want to flat out get rid of them because they fear they'd lose something precious, the last photo of their dog or grandma or something, while in reality 99% of the photos are just selfies from 25 different angles.

Apple even had a TV ad recently where they suggested that with the new Apple phone you don't have to try to delete your old photos because the new Apple has so much more space for them, so keep hoarding your photos folks!

EDIT: Oh yeah, this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bks2zGnssMY

Shame on you Apple, shame on you, taking advantage of people's hoarding mentality and inability to let the past just be, making money with people needing more and more room for their thousands of selfies... It is mental disease, just like alcoholism and pr0n addiction!

Naturally people claim it is not about hoarding, but them just being lazy to go through several thousand photos, trying to figure out which to keep and which not. Frankly, here AI could really help, identifying pictures which are very close to each other (e.g. taken on the same day and seem to be the same face from several different angles), and offer to semi-automatically remove the ones which seem to be redundant to the AI, and keeping only the photo which seems sharpest, has the best lightning/colors, and the AI deems as most "beautiful" face?

I am not a photo hoarder, I take no selfies and photos of a pizza I ate yesterday. The only photos I take is e.g. if I need to take a note of some sign or written instructions on some paper, or trying to read some food label that is too small to read for my weary eyes, take a photo of it and zoom, old folks' trick. I regularly delete those photos, when they've become irrelevant, sometimes even the same day. I think I have only like 50 photos in my phone, taken over many many MANY years.

I would recommend it... because Trails in the Sky, including Zero and Azure are a truly "honest work" and even very affordable, so the best way to start and checking out the series.

Well, the first 2 "Trails of Cold Steel" was published by XSEED with rather few and low priced DLCs, it was generally very affordable... base game with DLC included.

With the 3. title in this series, NIS was "stepping in" and drastically was boosting the "coin-matter". However... now it is already long time ago and i guess NIS had in mind making those "older titles" more popular by... finally... offering a very high discount so those titles are more "in line" with the first 2 XSEED releases... reaching out to new customers not anymore feeling well with the originally high price level of NIS on those titles. So, if there is a discount, even Trails of Cold Steel can be pretty affordable now. Not that i think it is the best "series" or simply arc... but good games nonetheless.
XSEED was rather straight and honest with the pricing scheme, not trying to manipulate or testing out the waters at all.

With the "taking over" of the series by NIS, the matter has changes. Now there is a pretty... well lets say "financially active" publisher at work and trying to manipulate as well... testing out the waters a lot "is it to hot or maybe to cold": The honest nature kinda has been depleted but in the end, the thing every company want to achieve is "making sufficient profits" and as long as the fans are accepting even the most crazy price or lowest value... it is kinda a causality both or all sides may have some "guilt". So, always remember to say stop to yourself if something seems to taste to bad... very helpful.

Me too, i can be naive at times because i enjoy handing out lot of trust at times and i let myself become driven by emotions. With increased age i know myself... and those other peoples (whoever it is) way better and i kinda got some deeper view of "how stuff works" or "how it should not work" and "how i could become manipulated"... so, i use the critical brain to kinda stop my heart... and my... sometimes to high trust... for example "the trust that a high price is actually reflecting a real value", which is not always the case... this is a important life experience, especially for people who enjoy handing out lot of trust, in a society which is not really based on trust but rather on "how to abuse or exploit"... sorry to say this insight but rather know it sooner than later... in order to survive even better and even being able to keep a "pure heart" without unnecessary damage.
Honestly, by all common sense... those DLCs are just not worth it unless you are way to much into cosmetics and you critically need a swimsuit and some eyeglasses in order to feel satisfied. At least, wait for a high discount... there are now some high discounts for some titles.

As far as soundtracks goes: Zero value because they are not complete... a usual Japanese thing because there are actually games with a full soundtrack.

Already gobbled it up.

I try to use huge redundant single drives but even with the biggest available it is hard without splitting it up. RAID i consider less safe as there is always a dependency on a RAID controller or RAID software, it is basically a complicated system for server use but rather not the most secure way for home users, if there is any chance of avoiding it. It may work but the space demand is drastically increasing and the new big HDDs can barely "catch up" with the new data size of all the stuff. Whats worse is: The price per TB is pretty steady so a bigger HDD may not only increase TB, it may even scale with price. We kinda are now unable to make "more performance" cheaper... as it simply is challenging even to create such a drive.

They say "Moores law is dead"... which is kinda the case for HDDs and even GPUs, which are not anymore offering much better value, instead mostly performance only with minor increase in value. I am not sure it is only the "technical" difficulties... it is as well because the greed simply got insane and some people surely make the biggest profits ever. We all know "the drastic rise of Nvidia", kinda "overnight"... like all the capital has been pumped into this company.

Finally, it is simply a pricey thing storing high amount of data nowadays... and a fast GPU is another expensive thing.
The say "I am a wise being who can explain the whole world in a single small sentence and for everyone confused... they clearly can not catch up to their level of telling you more, in a single sentence... than even a holy book is capable of".