It seems that you're using an outdated browser. Some things may not work as they should (or don't work at all).
We suggest you upgrade newer and better browser like: Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer or Opera

×
We'll be removing a number of games from the GOG.com catalog - here's your last call to get them with a special discount!

Today, we're here to honor the promise we gave you to announce ahead of time whenever we're taking a game down from sales. We wanted to give you one last chance to get the titles we're delisting with a considerable discount, and the partners involved agreed. There are 35 games on that list and you can get them all for up to 80% off until Tuesday, September 2, at 3:59AM GMT. Any title you buy will remain in your collection even after it's removed from our catalog, so you can always download and re-download the installers and bonus content. Check out the promo page to see which games this concerns.

We're still ironing out a few details. For now, the promo pages, like the one for the Last Chance Special, list all the game prices only in US dollars. But don't freak out: if you chose to use your local currency you will see the prices in local currency in checkout, and you can still finalize the transaction in local currency. We hope to have this issue fixed within the next weeks.
avatar
AlienMind: Kudos GOG for sticking to your guns.
I'd rather have a fair currency conversion for all games and fewer games than a broken currency conversion for all games and a few more games in the catalogue (Trust me, if some get away with it, all will follow)
Except, a bunch of games did get regional pricing with this change (Daedelic games) so that wasn't it.

avatar
PaladinWay: GOG changed their mind and made fair regional pricing one of their pillars again.
avatar
PaladinWay: Go back and read the posts where GOG was going to step away from fair regional pricing. They did it for new releases and were trying to offer local currencies for the different regional prices at the same time. Massive, massive anger on forums from that. Everyone responsible is a lot of their customers, and GOG listening to them.
Go back and read it yourself. Don't just read 'Back to our Roots' and think that's what they did, actually read the article.

Nothing changed to their plans for introducing Regional pricing in that article. In fact they reaffirmed in that statement that they were going to do go ahead with it as planned.
Post edited August 27, 2014 by Pheace
avatar
mm3n: One fixed price throughout the world was totally fair for everyone and no one felt they are being mistreated. It's also easier for GOG and publishers to collect their profits - in the end, publishers will pay the currency conversion fees that are supposedly saved from our pockets. But it can be a few cents for me as a customer, or a bag of money when enough sales are being made.

So in short: GOG, if you actually made a poll before making this change, maybe you would get enough feedback and rethink your position.
GOG dropped the original pricing model because they were having trouble getting enough publishers to agree with it when so many other outlets were going the other way. The publisher doesn't even have to want that kind of pricing if the publisher's main distributors put enough pressure on them to accept it. GOG doesn't exist in a vacuum.

Originally GOG was going to go with regional pricing where necessary. There was so much negative feedback that they decided to add store credit to make up the difference. To do that they need local currency prices from which they can make up the difference. I haven't been following it very closely, so there might have been other developments and problems with the new model I'm not aware of.

We never get the entire picture, but the general idea isn't hard to understand. GOG makes deals with publishers who make deals with other distributors at the same time. All the deals offer different advantages and drawbacks. If publishers and distributors all want to do things differently, GOG has a harder time making deals with them. So they have to strike a balance between what their customers want and what their suppliers are willing to deliver.
I'm only to page 10 but I thought I'd add an option I haven't seen suggested.

How about instead of just yes or no for regional pricing, make it a publisher choice. Now before I get flamed, there is a caveat. While it would be a choice, GOG could offer incentives for regional pricing to publishers and/or go back to the old method of giving credit to purchasers of games without regional pricing. Also, GOG should always list which way each individual game is priced.

I really want to have as many games on GOG as possible, and not see people get screwed because they live in the wrong place. This seems like a good option.

Seeing the situation in only black and white hurts us all.
Are the

Dark Fall
Black Mirror
Guild series

of games worth getting?. Any better than the others?
avatar
PaladinWay: SpellForce 3 is already gone and that was released along with GOG's announcement of stepping away from their fair regional pricing. Big brouhaha and a lot of surliness/anger from GOG customers. Some probably left and never came back. GOG changed their mind and made fair regional pricing one of their pillars again. My speculation is disappointing sales numbers and possibly more fallout from that.
avatar
Wurzelkraft: Spellforce 3? That game isn't even released yet. Are you sure you mean Spellforce?
You're right. I was thinking of Age of Wonders 3. My bad. Time to go edit posts with "Edit - I'm dumb".
avatar
Niggles: Are the

Dark Fall
Black Mirror
Guild series

of games worth getting?. Any better than the others?
Guild 1 has its share of bugs but it still is one of my favorite games. To get the most complete package of Guild 2 the right choice is Renaissance. It has all the features of the other Guild 2 versions (minus the tutorial IIRC).
Why is The Raven - Legacy of a Master Thief not on sale? It's published by Nordic Games as well, so I'm expecting it's going to be gone as well? Or not?
This kinda sucks, but I rather see these games go than to allow any more "exceptions" to your principles...
high rated
avatar
k1bell: Can I say I want an explanation of why this is happening from BOTH GOG and the 2 publishers involved?
avatar
Catmancer: I second this! Yeah, we've let slide in the past when we were never given any reason for removals, but this is different. We deserve to know why these games are being removed all of a sudden. A few of these game were either brought back from removal and were just recently added to GoG. This is really a slap in the face to loyal customers. We deserve an explanation and all parties involved do owe us one! Especially with Nordic Games. Seriously, what's going on? They were talking about new games coming to GoG and were big supporters of GoG and now this! Frictional Games isn't exempt from this either. They are effectively removing DRM-Free options for Penumbra!
They aren't going to post the details of their contract negotiations in public. One or both sides asked for more than the other could agree to. It could be something simple like not agreeing on the right price points, or the conversion rate. It could be more complicated, like being contractually bound by other distributors to not sell the game below a certain price in a particular currency. It doesn't take a giant bridge-burning fight or unreasonable greed to set up a situation where neither party could give enough to reach an agreement.
About some currency problems, I think there is a good way that companies in a Euro zone country sell their games in euros, and American companies in dollars. I don't know this is possible, I just don't want to miss good games on GOG!!!
avatar
awalterj: Why is The Raven - Legacy of a Master Thief not on sale? It's published by Nordic Games as well, so I'm expecting it's going to be gone as well? Or not?
I don't know, but it more expensive than any of the sale games, and it's on the http://www.gog.com/forum/general/newly_regionalpriced_games list.

If regional pricing is why these games are being removed, then maybe it's because it's not worthwhile for GOG to sell cheaper games with regional pricing when they have to offer store credit for them.
avatar
Djungelurban: This kinda sucks, but I rather see these games go than to allow any more "exceptions" to your principles...
Like these?
avatar
fish_lx: WTF - There are quite a number of GREAT games beeing removed.
Yeah, quite a few classics there. At least it means the first real decent sale at GOG since the summer sale :p.

Q: Pick up the Gothic 3 expansion? The review dates seem to be removed with the site revamp, which it makes rather difficult to evaluate them, and the top rated ones say it is a late cash grab made a completely unrelated dev studio with nothing to do with the gothic universe... or something?
avatar
PaladinWay: Go back and read the posts where GOG was going to step away from fair regional pricing. They did it for new releases and were trying to offer local currencies for the different regional prices at the same time. Massive, massive anger on forums from that. Everyone responsible is a lot of their customers, and GOG listening to them.
avatar
Pheace: Go back and read it yourself. Don't just read 'Back to our Roots' and think that's what they did, actually read the article.

Nothing changed to their plans for introducing Regional pricing in that article. In fact they reaffirmed in that statement that they were going to do go ahead with it as planned.
I'm in US, so I don't see what regional prices were. I'm not finding the posts on the new site and I'm only finding the middle announcement on archive.org (http://web.archive.org/web/20140228104144/http://www.gog.com/news/letter_from_the_md_about_regional_pricing). The first one was where they said they were going to do new releases with the same pricing everywhere else. They came back and said they'd offer specific game codes to make up the price differences with Age of Wonders III announcement (http://web.archive.org/web/20140228104150/http://www.gog.com/news/preorder_age_of_wonders_iii) and then changed it to any $6 or $10 game when it was released. At some point after that I recall them coming back and saying they would continue with the deals they had but wouldn't pursue future deals that required that.
avatar
awalterj:
avatar
Grilledfish: I don't know, but it more expensive than any of the sale games, and it's on the http://www.gog.com/forum/general/newly_regionalpriced_games list.

If regional pricing is why these games are being removed, then maybe it's because it's not worthwhile for GOG to sell cheaper games with regional pricing when they have to offer store credit for them.
^^ Thanks, makes sense, sadly