A quick guide on how to make your store even less attractive to potential customers.

Yeah the others went back up by much more than $1 USD, but I think they just went back to their previous price, for the most part.

Personally I find it discouraging, and if they want me to spend more money there, they need to go down not up. And I wouldn't be surprised if the two Duke games that went up in price, are their biggest sellers there, so hard to see any justification to what they said.

And REKKR: Sunken Land is back at $6.99 USD ($9.72 AUD), which is a lot for being what essentially amounts to an old Doom total conversion MOD.

For a store that did not improve much beyond the basics for a very long time, years, and so not going to any trouble to lure in new customers, it comes off as quite strange they now talk about costs.

I wish only the best for them, and would like to buy more from them, but they bewilder me and put me off with their pricing.

I think you're making a bit of meal out of it, tbh. The Duke games are still very affordable at their current prices (Duke 3D is $5.99 (including many DLCs) and the original Duke games $2.99 each). Let's not forget that, unlike GOG, Zoom Platform don't have a very large developer/publisher backing them financially and they are subject to the currently high inflationary pressures, like everyone else.

When was the last time GOG made a substantial improvement to the site, aside from the front page? Zoom have made more improvements to their website over the past year than GOG have. To me, that's impressive given the small team that they have.

Well, apparently they don't have any very large developer/publisher backing them financially, indeed. Those games are only exclusives based in a supposed exclusivity contract at perpetuity, whatever it means. Shouldn't it be enough to balance things and forget the victimism about the supposed small fish in the pool? If I am not wrong they are not the only games under those premises.

Come on, now. Let's at least make some effort to inject some truthfulness into this.

Zoom Platform don't have an 'exclusivity contract' with Gearbox. The reason that Zoom Platform is the only place the Duke games are available other than Steam is because they signed a perpetual license deal with the former IP owners, which Gearbox are legally bound to honor.

If you are a Duke Nukem fan, than you should be grateful, because without Zoom Platform's shrewd dealing in negotiating that perpetual license, those games wouldn't be available DRM-free anywhere at all. If you want to see them DRM-free on GOG, you'll have to go and speak to Gearbox.

Oh. I understand. They do not have an exclusivity contract, they have a perpetual license. I don't mind with whom. Because as you already knew I have not named Gearbox anywhere in my previos post

Mentioning Gearbox is highly relevant, since they are the current owners of the Duke Nukem IP and it would be their decision as to whether the Duke games are sold on GOG.

I'm not sure how much I can say without breaking the CoC but a few things to clear up!

To the guy saying 'a great way to put off new customers,' you spent the last 4 days saying you wouldn't buy Hatred without it being on GOG, then began to post untrue claims about 'promising a Devotion release' upon replying to you and highlighting this was not the case, you can begin to get angry so like, yeah hope you have a good Xmas tomorrow man goodwill and all

So the price increases on Duke Nukem 3D + Manhattan Project by $1 dollar isn't ideal. Nor is the lack of regional pricing, but as many have pointed out, it's not a huge storefront, nor it attached/owned by a multi-billion dollar company. No one is 'playing the victim' of being a small fish in a big pond, even more so when Zoom does not front itself as a 'rival' to anyone, it's merely a case of Zoom doing what Zoom does. The same way GOG can never rival Steam/Epic, Zoom can never rival GOG, nor is that the aim...hence why Zoom tends to pick up the stuff GOG does not have or has rejected. We want to offer options, options for the consumer is a core principle of DRM-Free. No matter the store.

As for the comment on Rekkr: The Sunken Lands...I'm not going to say you are minimizing the hard work of devs, but that's how I'd describe it over a dinner table. Personal tastes differ from person to person, as you can see here with the vast amount of porn games and the current arguments around them on the forum. Rekkr is fantastic, there was no DRM-Free option, now there is. Same with Hardwar, same with Postal 3, same with Counter-Action.

As for not doing anything to bring people in...again, can't say much here as it'll be a break of CoC. You guys need to understand your questions/queries can't fully be replied to here as it'll probably be deemed a breach of CoC :)

The content in the Duke packs has been detailed for some weeks now, this has nothing to do with the price change. The only recent updates were art changes and a version change on the launcher.

I hope this clears things up a little, as ever if you are after information the best place is the discord which I can't link due to it being advertising breaking CoC, or you can reach out to me via...well anywhere, easy enough to find on Twitch/Twitter/Reddit/Discord

More than open to answering questions, clearing things up, and general talking on DRM-Free/Preservation.

If any of this breaks CoC Mods, feel free to edit the part out or request its editing. No one wants to step on toes/hands/knees/limbs

Are you telling me that a legal concept like "perpetual license" is something possible for different stores and deals/contracts at once?.

Anyway. I will ask the question again. Shouldn't be enough this supposed perpetual license deal , to balance things and forget the victimism about the small fish in the pool? Isn' t it a decent advantage? At least in their best sellers classics?

Don't sell yourselves short. I believe users here have pointed out that Zoom-Platform's catalog of games is the same number or larger than that of GOG's at an equivalent point in their history. And I trust y'all to be 100% DRM-free where GOG's "re-commitment" to DRM-free remains to be seen and indeed implies they "un-committed" at some point.

As for releases, yes, there have been some nice ones recently. However, if I may be so bold, it seems to me that releases could be coming out at a faster rate, as other users have also referred to the Discord and suggested there are a lot of releases in the pipeline. So, while you probably can't discuss it, it does leave me wondering "what gives?".

Coming from someone satisfied with the site, just saying.

A 'perpetual license' and an 'exclusivity deal' are two completely different things. Of course it is possible for one store to have negotiated a perpetual license and for the IP owners to still sell the same game on other stores. I don't know how good your grasp of English is, but the words 'perpetual' and 'exclusive' mean two entirely different things.

If Zoom had an exclusivity deal for Duke Nukem, then Gearbox wouldn't be able to also sell it on Steam, would they? Besides, doesn't it seem highly unlikely that ZP would have been able to outbid GOG for an exclusivity deal for Duke, given GOG's vastly larger financial resources?

A perpetual license for the Duke games is equivalent to being backed by a multi-billion dollar corporation, not to mention the hundreds of games that GOG has that Zoom Platform don't? Hardly. What is it there you are smoking? Can I have some?

First, The terms I originally used were "exclusivity contract at perpetuity". Maybe I should have used the words more accuratelly. I meant "an exclusive contract at perpetuity", this is, a perpetual license exclusive for them, as it is now.

And Second. To me, those kind of unfair and phantasmagoric contracts are unfair enough and could break the laws of competence enough to consider them an advantage over the rest. Let me be prudent about it. So watch your words about what me or you do smoke.

This is not just an exclusive title in a store, as other cases, It is an ethically doubtful right to sell a game perpetually. You say that the contract shouldn't necessarily mean exclusivity for one store. Well. I have my doubts. We'll see.

None of that negates what I said, and if I am not buying because I don't like the prices, that says it all.

$5.99 USD = $8.33 AUD

I really don't want to have to defend GOG, but they do make changes here and there, just they don't fix many outstanding things. Their front page has undergone a revamp in the last 6 months, and they did those filters. And while we may not like its addition, they also added a Bot to support, and who knows how many other things, that are not that obvious.

ZOOM Platform is a small store, especially compared to GOG, and so to my mind they have bugger all to update in comparison, and I have long been bewildered at them taking their sweet time to improve the store. It's almost been like they don't really want customers ... that's certainly how it felt.

For GOG to do anything these days, it is likely a huge task for them. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if they had let things get away from them, and they are now between a rock and a hard place. They seem that way with Galaxy too. They should have kept on top of things, but for whatever reason, they apparently haven't. Maybe it is a staffing or expertise issue.

So yes you might be impressed with the changes at ZOOM Platform, but no, I'm not really, though I am glad they finally happened. It kind of has the feel of a one man show ... which is why everything takes so long to happen it seems.

I doubt that very much, and see it as an unsubstantiated rumor or guesswork.
Certainly in the time I have been aware of ZOOM Platform and buying from them, they have had long periods of no new releases, and my understanding is that they have been around for quite a while.

GOG in my experience, and from what I have been told, has always had a constant stream of new games, so the maths does not add up.

That said, I am open to seeing some facts that prove what I believe, to be wrong.

We keep hearing about releases in the pipeline, for quite a while now.
But it is a mute point for me, if the prices aren't attractive.

Yes I want DRM-Free, but I also want to pay a fair price.

And honestly, I really don't think we should be comparing ZP to GOG, as a store, as their scopes are different. Sure you can compare the prices of the same games, and how those compare DRM-Free wise, but that is about it.

Not a real achievement considering GOG did the hard part way before anyone else gave two shits about re-releasing old games. Just saying.