Frictional Games have given an answer to why Amnesia and Penumbra series are being pulled out from GOG. In short, my understanding is that GOG forces them to pay the EU taxes, so these are not paid by the customer and the dollar/euro conversion is exact. For Frictional, a game like Amnesia should cost $20 and €17.50, while in GOG a $20 price tag is translated into a €15 price tag.

I'm quite confused about all this. For once, I'm looking at prices in euros today and I keep finding games with some exotic price tags. I guess €18.99 is the equivalent of $25 and €11.39 that of $15, but then a game like Mark of the Ninja costs €13.69 (??). And then there are the two Amnesia games: The Dark Descent is €15.19 and A Machine for Pigs is €17.49. I'm going to guess that those games with odd price points have maybe paid DLC included or something. Anyway, looking at the price of Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs, it costs what Frictional Games wanted it to cost and it says: "Get €2.30 back in Store Credit for any future purchase!". That is, it is GOG the ones paying the EU taxes on that one, which is what Frictional Games wanted, isn't it?

Can someone explain where exactly is Frictional's problem with the pricing in GOG? Maybe GOG wants to make the Store Credit thing temporary so they are not asked by every publisher to absorb EU taxes?

I believe that GOG accepted to cover the taxes expenses in the case of A Machine for Pigs, but not for Dark Descent and Frictional Games doesn't want to either. Covering the differences in conversion does add up, after all.

This have something to do with GOG bringing in regional pricing?

I don't get it either; If a company was OK to sell a game for 20$ everywhere what's the difference with this game now being sold for 20$ converted into Euro ?

Is there some laws that say that if the prices are in Euro you must pay the EU taxes but not if the prices remain in dollars ? (that would seem silly). Or is it because of conversion fees that would cause them to lose money.

Im confused. Who is *supposed* to pay for that tax?.

The customer.

These are exotic price tags, because they are regionally-priced, like all the games in that list.

I looked around on steam a little bit and, sure enough, A:TDD sells for 17,49 Euro. What I don't understand is - why now? Before this whole currency conversion thing was introduced to Gog it used to sell here for 20 $ for everybody, so it was always cheaper than on steam, wasn't it? So did they not have to pay taxes back then? That's the thing that really baffles me.

Edit: I'm referring to the fact that they also mention that they don't want big price differences between different stores...

"We want our games to have about the same price on Steam, GOG, Humble Store, App Store, Desura & Gamer's Gate for different currencies and countries. [...] As we could not agree on the pricing level for TDD/Penumbra we agreed to remove the games."

Same as with Nordic. Basically the new system gOg is trying is too confusing and open for fluctuation - and negotiations fell through. gOg did not manage to reach an agreement with the publisher.

Does not seem to be the case of Mark of the Ninja at €13.69, since it does not have any money back in Store Credit. I understand that, to identify a regionally priced game, it has to have money back in Store Credit, is that true? Any idea why Mark of the Ninja has such odd price tag then?

My thought exactly. I think the main problem GOG's partners may have with the new pricing model is that it isn't compatible with their pricing in other places and they are neither willing to make the games a lot cheaper on GOG than on Steam nor adjusting the Steam prices to the new GOG standards.

Heck, the Frictional dude actually stated so:

"We want our games to have about the same price on Steam, GOG, Humble Store, App Store, Desura & Gamer's Gate for different currencies and countries."

And now that I wrote it I noticed that Amok has already quoted the same section. :P

In case you pay more than the standard price, there will be a notice that you'll get back X money as part of the fair pricing package. As far as I know, Mark of the Ninja isn't a regionally-priced game, as $17.99 (which is indeed the standard price of Mark of the Ninja Special Edition) does correspond to €13.69.

I guess the differences in the pricing just became too obvious. They probably didn't expect much of a shitstorm if some Steam users noticed that on GOG they can pay the lower USD price but they aren't okay with different Euro price tags which make the inconsistencies too apparent.

Seeing Penumbra and Amnesia TDD being removed is really sad. I was always on the fence of getting these (bought them now obviously) and they are very popular games. I hope GOG manages to bring them back in the future since those are kind of big games that GOG should not be losing.
Would be nice to hear if there's a chance of bringing these games back