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mrkgnao:
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Cavalary: Was checking to link to it on that new thread, and say which table number I'm referring to :) May have checked while it was updating, because I got a read error (visible in source, I mean) while it was loading table 7 data the first time around.

So now the Russia+-discount has an exception too. This will complicate things a bit.
Is your new thread up yet? EDIT: Never mind, found it.
You're very lucky to have loaded the page during the update, for the update takes less than a second.

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Urnoev: If this trend continues, we'll end up with just as many regions as there are countries in the world.
The thought has crossed my mind.
Post edited February 21, 2015 by mrkgnao
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Urnoev: If this trend continues, we'll end up with just as many regions as there are countries in the world.
I certainly see a case for going a bit further down : regional prices by "regions" or "länder" . People in wealthy Bayern paying more than those of Jena The more, the merrier. In a sense.

Now this becomes downright silly
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mrkgnao: The prices for Russia:
* Regional price for Book of Unwritten Tales 2, The in RU $8.69 instead of $34.99
* Regional price for Book of Unwritten Tales 2 Almanac Edition, The [Premium] in RU $11.69 instead of $44.99

The prices for the other nine countries:
* Regional price for Book of Unwritten Tales 2, The in UZ $18.99 instead of $34.99
* Regional price for Book of Unwritten Tales 2 Almanac Edition, The [Premium] in UZ $24.99 instead of $44.99
You will (or will not) notice that these are the Ukraine (UA) prices for these games.
So, is that the Games industry's contribution to the "Russia is isolated" meme?
Post edited February 22, 2015 by Phc7006
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Phc7006: So, is that the Games industry's contribution to the "Russia is isolated" meme?
Sadly, "isolated" in getting the best deal...
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Was saying I'll do a summary after one year, so here goes. Just posted on my blog as well. Corrections welcome, and in case of the list of 25 actually expected.

Yesterday marked one year since GOG.com’s “good news” announcement, which promised day-one launches and preorders for big AAA titles and games from major studios and barely mentioned the price for this, namely introducing regional pricing for said titles, in passing. So, after all this time, what did we get as a result of them giving up on one of their two clear, specific, core values, and in fact on the one which made them stand out the most, since at the moment there are quite a few other on-line stores offering DRM-free games, but as far as I’m aware only one, ShinyLoot, left offering flat prices?

Well, the biggest title added during this time is quite clearly the preorder for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. However, being self-published by GOG.com’s parent company, CD Projekt, that would have obviously been sold on GOG regardless of circumstances.
Just like it happened with The Witcher 2, it may have ended up regionally priced as an exception, while the rest of the catalog was not, but one must remember that, when that happened back then, they fought back as much as they could, initially suggested how users could get around the pricing, only closed off that loophole when court orders gave them no other options, and then still struggled to get it back to flat pricing at the first possible opportunity. In case of The Witcher 3, on the other hand, CD Projekt simply signed a distribution deal with the same company that forced them into that mess right away and went forward with this pricing scheme as if it was the most normal thing there is. In other words, at the time of the mess with The Witcher 2, they still stood for something, proving that they were in this business to change how things work, while now they’re acting like any other business, only holding, or pretending to hold, values which generate enough profit to be worth it strictly in that sense.
And while I’m at CD Projekt, The Witcher Adventure Game, developed by a different company but also published by them, should be removed from the list as well, for the exact same reasons stated above. Some things could be said about the very fact that this game exists, not merely about using regional pricing for it, but that’s not exactly the issue here, so I’ll leave it aside.

Other than that, we did recently get titles, through [url=http://www.gog.com/games##devpub=disney]Disney, and even more recently Warner Bros. and older games, but the first two groups aren't regionally priced while the third only has the "Russian discount", and I'll talk about that later. The sole exception is the preorder for [url=http://www.gog.com/game/pillars_of_eternity_hero_edition]Pillars of Eternity and its increasingly ludicrously priced [url=http://www.gog.com/game/pillars_of_eternity_royal_edition]editions, which is published by Paradox Interactive, yet this was not added because GOG.com finally made a deal with them, but had already been added earlier, because the developers had pledged to make the game available on GOG while asking for funds on Kickstarter and would have therefore needed to be here regardless of circumstances. If anything, since that pledge was made back when GOG still held all of its old values, it can quite clearly be said that the very fact that it uses regional pricing is in itself a violation of that pledge and therefore the fact that GOG allowed this to happen made things worse than they would have been otherwise.
And while I’m on this topic, I must mention Wasteland 2 as well, which was in the exact same situation as Pillars of Eternity. It was funded via Kickstarter long before GOG.com gave up on the flat pricing principle, it was promised to be available on GOG, and it therefore would have had to be on GOG, most likely being expected to adhere to the principles GOG held at the time the funding effort started. After all, if we allow a developer to promise to have a game on GOG at a time when GOG didn’t allow regional pricing but also let them negotiate a deal with them to only keep that promise if they’ll get rid of that principle, what’s stopping some other developer from doing the same when it comes to the DRM-free principle at some later point?

So, to return to the question, it can be said that the more notable titles we did get as a result of accepting regional pricing were those initially announced, namely Age of Wonders 3 and Divinity: Original Sin. However, while good games that many, myself included, would otherwise want to play and even buy, I wouldn’t exactly call them AAA titles, and either way they are self-published by studios which already had their other games on GOG.com, with flat pricing, and in Larian’s case those other games also include the newer Divinity 2: Developer's Cut and even [url=http://www.gog.com/games##search=divinity:%20dragon%20commander]Divinity: Dragon Commander[/url], which was released only a year and a half ago.

And now that we have the specific names and titles out of the way, let’s look at what’s left by the numbers, starting from the fact that there currently are Retro City Rampage DX, which was switched to regional pricing when the DX edition replaced the original one, we’re down to 59.
Starting from that number, we must look at the situation generated by introducing support for multiple currencies on August 27. It is an entirely different issue and I’d like to keep it as such, so I won’t say much about the 33 games which were removed because of it and didn’t yet return. However, I must mention that 23 out of the 59 titles we’re left with on the list were switched to regional pricing at that time, because of this support, and two more, which were initially removed then, were added back later, also with regional pricing. As such, since these are obviously titles which could be on GOG, and which actually were on GOG, with flat pricing, the number goes down to 34. For anyone keeping track, that’s less than a third of the actual current number of 108.
Then we can look at ShinyLoot, to see which games are also available there, obviously indicating that they may be sold at a flat price. That allows us to also remove Randal’s Monday, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter and possibly also The Book of Unwritten Tales 2, though the last two are not DRM-free there and the last one only has the beta available at the moment. Still, especially since those last two are published by Nordic Games and the games they have there show that their problem isn’t flat pricing in itself, but flat pricing when multiple currencies are offered, I’d include all of them and get the number down to 29, since both of those last two have two entries in the catalog.

Now is the time for cleaning up what’s left a little, removing the Special Edition and for Dreamfall Chapters, as well as [url=http://www.gog.com/game/age_of_wonders_3_deluxe_edition]Age of Wonders 3 Deluxe Edition and the DLC for Divinity: Original Sin, to leave only base games and DLC released after the original game. That means I am leaving Guacamelee! Super Turbo Championship Edition, Mount & Blade: Warband – Viking Conquest and Surgeon Simulator Anniversary Edition, even though the respective base games have either been removed already or, in the latter case, aren’t regionally priced at all. These are a separate later release, which didn’t replace the original one, and two pieces of DLC, so it can be argued that they may not have been added except on these terms.

(cont...)
Post edited February 22, 2015 by Cavalary
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mrkgnao: From MaGog's logs for 19 February:

* Regional price for Book of Unwritten Tales 2, The [Upcoming] in AU: $31.49 instead of $34.99
* Regional price for Book of Unwritten Tales 2, The [Upcoming] in DE: $39.29 instead of $34.99
* Regional price for Book of Unwritten Tales 2, The [Upcoming] in GB: $45.29 instead of $34.99
* Regional price for Book of Unwritten Tales 2, The [Upcoming] in PL: $39.29 instead of $34.99
* Regional price for Book of Unwritten Tales 2, The [Upcoming] in RU: $8.69 instead of $34.99
* Regional price for Book of Unwritten Tales 2, The [Upcoming] in UA: $18.99 instead of $34.99
* Regional price for Book of Unwritten Tales 2, The [Upcoming] in CH: $39.29 instead of $34.99
* Regional price for Book of Unwritten Tales 2, The [Upcoming] in CZ: $39.29 instead of $34.99
* Regional price for Book of Unwritten Tales 2, The [Upcoming] in NO: $39.29 instead of $34.99
* Regional price for Book of Unwritten Tales 2, The [Upcoming] in SE: $39.29 instead of $34.99


* Regional price for Book of Unwritten Tales 2 Almanac Edition, The [Premium] [Upcoming] in AU: $40.89 instead of $44.99
* Regional price for Book of Unwritten Tales 2 Almanac Edition, The [Premium] [Upcoming] in DE: $50.49 instead of $44.99
* Regional price for Book of Unwritten Tales 2 Almanac Edition, The [Premium] [Upcoming] in GB: $60.39 instead of $44.99
* Regional price for Book of Unwritten Tales 2 Almanac Edition, The [Premium] [Upcoming] in PL: $50.49 instead of $44.99
* Regional price for Book of Unwritten Tales 2 Almanac Edition, The [Premium] [Upcoming] in RU: $11.69 instead of $44.99
* Regional price for Book of Unwritten Tales 2 Almanac Edition, The [Premium] [Upcoming] in UA: $24.99 instead of $44.99
* Regional price for Book of Unwritten Tales 2 Almanac Edition, The [Premium] [Upcoming] in CH: $50.49 instead of $44.99
* Regional price for Book of Unwritten Tales 2 Almanac Edition, The [Premium] [Upcoming] in CZ: $50.49 instead of $44.99
* Regional price for Book of Unwritten Tales 2 Almanac Edition, The [Premium] [Upcoming] in NO: $50.49 instead of $44.99
* Regional price for Book of Unwritten Tales 2 Almanac Edition, The [Premium] [Upcoming] in SE: $50.49 instead of $44.99
Hungary :

The Book of Unwritten Tales 2 $35.29 instead of $39.29
The Book of Unwritten Tales 2 Almanac Edition $45.39 instead of $50.49
high rated
(cont...)

That leaves us with 25, and here I’m definitely asking for some help, because I think that at least a few more titles should be removed because they’re either sold at a flat price elsewhere, possibly on the publishers’ or developers’ sites, or have been crowdfunded and pledged to be available on GOG before last February.
Later edit: Completely forgot, but Divinity: Original Sin was also a Kickstarter title pledged to come to GOG before 2014, so what I said above about Pillars of Eternity and Wasteland 2 applies here as well. As such, the 24 games left on the list are:

Age of Wonders 3
Age of Wonders 3: Golden Realms
Blackguards 2
Dreamfall Chapters
The Escapists
Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers – 20th Anniversary Edition
Guacamelee! Super Turbo Championship Edition
Hand of Fate
Hatoful Boyfriend
Infested Planet
Kromaia
Lumino City
The Marvellous Miss Take
Mount & Blade: Warband – Viking Conquest
Neverending Nightmares
Oddworld: New ‘n’ Tasty
Shadows: Heretic Kingdoms
Spacecom
Starpoint Gemini 2
Supreme League of Patriots
Surgeon Simulator Anniversary Edition
This War of Mine
TRI: Of Friendship and Madness
Wings!™ Remastered Edition

Saying once again that the list above isn’t final and a few titles may still need to be removed from it if we’re to look strictly for games that may perhaps have only been added on condition of giving up on the regional pricing principle, what do we have?
Well, one thing that’s immediately obvious is that, at least according to the information on GOG.com, we have 11 self-published titles, the ten companies involved being 11 bit studios, Bossa Studios, Daedalic Entertainment, Defiant Development, DrinkBox Studios, Infinitap Games, Red Thread Games, Rocket Bear Games, State of Play Games and Triumph Studios. Now, even with what I said previously about Triumph, do point me to those major names and AAA titles that regional pricing was supposedly introduced for, because even after reading that list several times, I still seem to somehow be missing them.
That leaves us with nine titles which once again can’t fit in that category we were promised, as six are indies, or at least listed as such by GOG, and three more are remakes or enhanced editions, and four others that may be different. Those four are Mount & Blade: Warband – Viking Conquest, Oddworld: New ‘n’ Tasty, Shadows: Heretic Kingdoms and Starpoint Gemini 2. Admittedly, personally I am interested in two of these, or I would have been under different circumstances, but do they actually fit what was promised? I rather doubt it. And even if all of them would, and then even if we also add Age of Wonders 3 and its DLC, in spite of them being self-published and by a company who already has the rest of their catalog on GOG and with flat pricing, we’re still down to six entries, at a maximum.

The question that remains at this point, even before others will perhaps check the list more thoroughly and possibly eliminate even more names from it after finding them flat priced elsewhere or pledged to be on GOG before the changes in policy, is whether the titles mentioned above, whether we’re talking about the six or even the full list of at most 24, were worth giving up on one of the two clear, specific, core values GOG.com had. In my view, they most definitely were not, but I’m rather biased, as I always stated that nothing could be worth that and no title that won’t be both DRM-free and flat priced should ever be on GOG, so what do you think?
Post edited February 24, 2015 by Cavalary
A really nice and actually interesting post, thank you Cavalary.

It's quite a shame to see how many titles we got thanks to regional pricing (none, to be honest?), though that isn't the point at all, in my opinion:
For me, GOG.com was always about ethics and rights, respect for the customer and so on. DRM-free is obviously the most important aspect, but flat pricing is indispensable as well. So I agree with you, there shouldn't be any titles with regional pricing here, even if it would guarantee us every single game ever releases to be releases here.
And since those principles are the truly important things to protect, maybe we should point out why regional pricing is unjust and a problem, rather than trying to explain why regional pricing isn't worth it, since there are no AAA-games here.
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mrkgnao: From MaGog's logs for 19 February:
* Regional price for Book of Unwritten Tales 2, The [Upcoming] in CZ: $39.29 instead of $34.99
* Regional price for Book of Unwritten Tales 2 Almanac Edition, The [Premium] [Upcoming] in CZ: $50.49 instead of $44.99
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ne_zavarj: Hungary :

The Book of Unwritten Tales 2 $35.29 instead of $39.29
The Book of Unwritten Tales 2 Almanac Edition $45.39 instead of $50.49
Hungary is part of the CZ region (see Table VIII). The prices MaGog lists for regional pricing are always the full (non-sale) prices, whereas the prices you mention are lower simply because of the current 10% launch sale.
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Cavalary: [...] The sole exception is the preorder for Pillars of Eternity and its increasingly ludicrously priced [url=http://www.gog.com/game/pillars_of_eternity_royal_edition]editions, which is published by Paradox Interactive, yet this was not added because GOG.com finally made a deal with them, but had already been added earlier, because the developers had pledged to make the game available on GOG while asking for funds on Kickstarter and would have therefore needed to be here regardless of circumstances. If anything, since that pledge was made back when GOG still held all of its old values, it can quite clearly be said that the very fact that it uses regional pricing is in itself a violation of that pledge and therefore the fact that GOG allowed this to happen made things worse than they would have been otherwise.
And while I’m on this topic, I must mention Wasteland 2 as well, which was in the exact same situation as Pillars of Eternity. It was funded via Kickstarter long before GOG.com gave up on the flat pricing principle, it was promised to be available on GOG, and it therefore would have had to be on GOG, most likely being expected to adhere to the principles GOG held at the time the funding effort started. After all, if we allow a developer to promise to have a game on GOG at a time when GOG didn’t allow regional pricing but also let them negotiate a deal with them to only keep that promise if they’ll get rid of that principle, [...]
I think you're overlooking one important point here - GOG didn't decide to adopt the regional pricing model overnight and came the next day and announced it. Companies don't make decisions on such matters on impulse, and I think it's quite safe to assume that at the time the developers of those crowdfunded titles pledged to bring them here, GOG had already decided to abandon flat pricing (not just for those titles, but for a bigger piece of the pie overall) and negotiated the agreement on that basis.

JMO
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Cavalary:
Nicely argued. +1.
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HypersomniacLive: I think you're overlooking one important point here - GOG didn't decide to adopt the regional pricing model overnight and came the next day and announced it. Companies don't make decisions on such matters on impulse, and I think it's quite safe to assume that at the time the developers of those crowdfunded titles pledged to bring them here, GOG had already decided to abandon flat pricing (not just for those titles, but for a bigger piece of the pie overall) and negotiated the agreement on that basis.
Wasteland 2: "This project was successfully funded on April 17, 2012."
Pillars of Eternity: "This project was successfully funded on October 17, 2012."
That's quite some way away from Feb 21, 2014. Plus, titles as wished for as these may have been mentioned in that initial announcement, or at least soon after it, if they'd have been part of the deal, yet initially only Age of Wonders 3, Divinity: Original Sin and The Witcher 3 were.
Your guys fight, not mine, but do what you think is best.
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Cavalary: Wasteland 2: "This project was successfully funded on April 17, 2012."
Pillars of Eternity: "This project was successfully funded on October 17, 2012."
That's quite some way away from Feb 21, 2014. Plus, titles as wished for as these may have been mentioned in that initial announcement, or at least soon after it, if they'd have been part of the deal, yet initially only Age of Wonders 3, Divinity: Original Sin and The Witcher 3 were.
You're not looking at this the right way. I was a backer of Wasteland 2, and the first mention of a GOG release was in late Apr. 2013, until then it was simply DRM-free. IMNO, it's not hard to think that GOG started toying with the idea less than a year earlier from the moment they announced it, especially if they saw that, aside from their own game, more would be released under this pricing model and they'd be excluded from carrying anticipated crowdfunded titles if they insisted on flat pricing.

I can't speak about Pillars of Eternity as I didnt' back this one and haven't followed its updates closely, but I can imagine it going down in a similar way.


As for them not being included in the initial announcement - if you check that thread, you'll see that GOG was initially unwilling to reveal even those three titles they mentioned as the first ones to introduce regional pricing; it's also well known that GOG is not big in communicating beforehand things they expect to cause uproar, and consistently holds off until the very last moment, and even then uses PR talk to paint them as great things everyone should be peeing their pants about.
Well, I'm done wrestling with apologias from Russians as to why their nation deserves to be exceptional. It's fruitless to debate why a beneficial circumstance is unfair with those very people who are benefiting.

I do believe this is the new status quo at GOG, though. They have made some nice negotiations on flat prices, and I'd prefer games which are only regionally discounted over ones which are fully regionally priced. However the days of across-the-board flat pricing though I believe to be gone from here. I'll still be shining a light on it, though.
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HypersomniacLive: You're not looking at this the right way. I was a backer of Wasteland 2, and the first mention of a GOG release was in late Apr. 2013, until then it was simply DRM-free. IMNO, it's not hard to think that GOG started toying with the idea less than a year earlier from the moment they announced it, especially if they saw that, aside from their own game, more would be released under this pricing model and they'd be excluded from carrying anticipated crowdfunded titles if they insisted on flat pricing.

I can't speak about Pillars of Eternity as I didnt' back this one and haven't followed its updates closely, but I can imagine it going down in a similar way.

As for them not being included in the initial announcement - if you check that thread, you'll see that GOG was initially unwilling to reveal even those three titles they mentioned as the first ones to introduce regional pricing; it's also well known that GOG is not big in communicating beforehand things they expect to cause uproar, and consistently holds off until the very last moment, and even then uses PR talk to paint them as great things everyone should be peeing their pants about.
Possibly, but that's still quite some time away, and quite some time for them to lie to users about it. And to their staff for that matter, as in a talk with support in Dec 2013 I actually brought it up and was told it'll never happen, it's a clear value of GOG and it won't change, except possibly for CDP games which they have to carry regardless of conditions.

Later edit: Reminds me though. Divinity: Original Sin was also a Kickstarter game promised to be on GOG, funded in April 2013... Had forgotten that. Meh, what a mess. Oh, we do things differently, crowdfunding allows us to be free of the demands of publishers and the market and so on, and then when it gets to selling it, look what happens, all of them.
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IAmSinistar: Well, I'm done wrestling with apologias from Russians as to why their nation deserves to be exceptional. It's fruitless to debate why a beneficial circumstance is unfair with those very people who are benefiting.

I do believe this is the new status quo at GOG, though. They have made some nice negotiations on flat prices, and I'd prefer games which are only regionally discounted over ones which are fully regionally priced. However the days of across-the-board flat pricing though I believe to be gone from here. I'll still be shining a light on it, though.
There is a matter of it making business sense there too. If more stores (not the big behemoth in the area, but others) started selling DRM-free and also adhere to the standard regional pricing, then if Russia+ gets a, say, $40 game for $9 elsewhere, it makes business sense to sell it also for $9 there in your own store, since nobody from there would have any reason to pay $40 for it. However, if said other stores, adhering to standard regional pricing as they do, sell that same game for $45 in the EU, it also makes business sense to sell it for $40 in yours and have everyone buy from you. But... yeah.
Post edited February 23, 2015 by Cavalary