Which leads us to the other issue, which is a price fixing mess that certain regulatory bodies would really look into if it was about physical goods. Shouldn't the manufacturer, under normal market rules, charge the reseller a certain amount, and then leave it to said reseller to decide which price to set on the product when they sell it to their clients? Under some circumstances, such as promos, manufacturers can set maximum prices or discount percentages, but that's about it, otherwise it's price fixing and it's illegal... Unless it's on-line, apparently.
So wouldn't a fair arrangement be to say that for every copy sold, on GOG, Steam or whatever, you want $10.5 (if it's 70% of $15), and then it's their business what they set as the end user price (possibly with a max cap so as not to scare away potential buyers, but not more than that)?

I hope you enjoy spam. ;-D

Better edit it to something like alexvostrov at rocketbeargames dot com

That's an interesting thought. G2A do something like what you describe. I sold a whole bunch of keys to them a while ago and I don't control what they do with them.

Given that Steam, GOG and Apple all do developer-set pricing, I'm assuming that it's legal.
Haven't had trouble with it yet and I've posted it a bunch on the Steam forums. I'll trust in the spam shields holding.

I don't have a good solution as well. But overall I think flat-pricing world wide (maybe + VAT) is more fair than regional pricing (at least the way it is done at the moment), because it doesn't make any assumptions on your weath just because of the place where you live. An in my eyes it also reflects economical reality better: For example if I can't afford a BMW, I have to save to get one or buy a car that isn't that expensive. I don't get it cheaper just because I'm poor.

But even if I don't like the regional pricing of your game, I want to say thank you for bringing it here and especially for discussing the pricing matter with us. I think you are the first developer who ever did that.

Glad to be able to talk about it. Thanks for helping me understand where you guys are coming from.

And we appreciate being able to discuss it with you. As you can see, it's a complex issue, and no two people hold the same stance on it. The best we can do is provide our perspectives, and hope that informs yours in turn.

Basically they made the business choice cause there was a big amount of older gog members that rebelled against regional pricing since flat pricing was one of the founding principles of goodoldgames.com now known as gog.com next to drm-free games and people felt betrayed and there were around 10.000 posts of enraged people - link to that thread: http://www.gog.com/forum/general/letter_from_the_md_about_regional_pricing

The thread with gog declaration for fair pricing package after the regional pricing shitstorm: http://www.gog.com/forum/general/getting_back_to_our_roots

One of the catalysts for the fair pricing package was also definitely this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvjzg7yiOOQ

Hope that explains it additionaly why this is a sore point here.

Coming from idealistic point of view, the Internet is a place where we like to feel equal, regardless of our location, nationality, gender, or whatever. If you use regional pricing, regardless of the reasons behind it, the net result is that you are charging different people different prices for the very same product in the very same store. I think it's quite natural it might rub some the wrong way :)

Furthermore, technically the Internet is just one whole, and any barriers on it are purely artificial. If you start to divide your customers into better and worse, they will try to cheat on you and avoid the barriers you put to be in the 'better' group. (read: using proxies, or having a Russian friend gift/trade them the game). This can of course can be combated (and is on Steam) by regional locks of different sorts, which, similarly to DRM, tends to negatively affect honest customers, who eg. simply travel around. All around, lots of bad blood back and forth, which can be just avoided.

As for the actual reasons you mentioned:
VAT has already been questioned; GOG as an European company charges VAT one way or another (I think right now they do charge Cyprus VAT for US-based purchases as well?), so regional pricing doesn't change a whole lot. If you really are set back by the VAT surcharge, you could simply increase the base flat price to some sort of weighed average to cover for it - you know, just to be the good guy :)

And Russians paying less because of a lesser mean income? Well, come on. It is said that women have lesser mean income than men. Would it be "fair" for women to pay less for games than men do? The same argument could be made for eg. black people or any low-income group of your choice.

My understanding is that GOG only pays VAT for purchases made from European countries. I would be very surprised if they paid VAT on purchases made from the US. I guess that I'll know once GOG sends me the info at the end of the year.

I'm guessing that you're not from Eastern Europe yourself, judging by your last comment. I am, which is why I have a different perspective.

No, but I don't really have a way to fix it as far as I know. I don't believe that GOG sells in Gryvnas (I think that it's $US for Ukraine). Even if I set the price to the US equivalent, it'll still be way too much.

If you're from Ukraine, I wouldn't blame you for obtaining the game *cough* in other ways. When I came to Canada, I was surprised that people actually sold software for money.

See, the thing is that most, if not all of us here, don't want to get any game via "cough* other means, so it's either pay and get or not get at all.

Anyway, thanks for engaging in this discussion.

As someone who makes games, I appreciate that. :) It allows me to do things like eat and pay rent. Thank you!

Fair enough. I was honestly just guessing there.
I guess it's central Europe :) It just seems my definition of "fair" is different than yours - I'd like to think that "fair" means "same rules for everyone". No discrimination and no perks. Even if I have less money that people in US or Canada, I don't feel entitled to buy games created there (and therefore with "western" job costs) for lesser price than the "locals". For all intents and purposes, I consider these an imported product. If it happened that I really wanted a game but couldn't afford it, I would just wait for a discount.

Eating is overrated. ;-P