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General discussion (archive)<b>Letter from the M.D.</b>: About Regional Pricing(5517 posts) (5517 posts) 
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This is my favourite topic
Posted February 25, 2014
Hey Goggers;

As many of you know, we announced on last Friday that we are going to introduce regional pricing for 3 new games coming up on GOG.com soon. Looking at the amount of reactions (over 3,500 comments at this very moment), it is obvious that this change is making many of you guys worried. We must have failed to clearly explain why our pricing policy for (some) newer games will change and what this means as a matter of fact for our PC & MAC classic games, which account for over 80% of our catalogue.

To be honest, our announcement was a bit vague simply because our future pricing policy is not 100% set in stone yet and we were just worried to make any promises before it was. You know, GOG.com has been growing quickly (thanks to you!), and the more we grow, the more we are worried to make some of you guys disappointed. This is why we were so (over-)cautious with our announcement.

We should have just been upfront about why we've made these changes and what they mean for us in the future and what we're planning. So let's talk. To be clear: what I'm talking about below is our plan. It's a plan that we believe we can accomplish, but while it's what we want to do with GOG, it may change some before it actually sees the light of day. Please don’t blame me for talking open-heartedly today and telling you about the plans and pricing policy we want to fight for and eventually achieve. The below plans aren't sure. The only guarantee I can give you is that we’ll do our best to fight for gamers while still making sure GOG.com as a whole grows (because well, we still want to be around 50 years from now, you know!). So, enough for the introduction, let’s get things started.

Why does GOG.com need to offer newer games at all?

We've been in business for 5 years now, and we've signed a big percentage of all of the classic content that can be legally untangled. There are still some big companies left we're trying to bring into the GOG.com fold, like LucasArts, Microsoft, Take2 and Bethesda, but what classic titles will we sign in the future once we have those partners on-board? We need to sign newer games or else just fire everyone and keep selling the same limited catalog. Either we bring you “not so old” releases from 2010+ or brand-new AAA titles, because these will become classic games tomorrow. It’s as simple as that.

Also, well, we want to expand beyond just classic games, hence the fact we have been offering you brand-new indie releases for almost 2 years now. Why expanding? Well, obviously, because the more games we sell, the more legitimacy we have on the market and the more likely it is that we can achieve our mission: making all PC & MAC video games 100% DRM-free, whether classic or brand-new titles.

To be straightforward (excuse my French):DRM is shit-- we'll never have any of it. It treats legitimate customers like rubbish and pirates don't have to bother with it. It's bad for gamers, and it's also bad for business and our partners. We want to make it easy and convenient for users to buy and play games; rather than give piracy a try. Happy gamers equals a healthy gaming industry; and this is what we fight for. Anyway, I am sure you well know our opinions about DRM.

To make the world of gaming DRM-free, we need to convince top-tier publishers & developers to give us a try with new games, just like they did with classic games. We need to make more case studies for the gaming industry, just like we successfully did back in 2011 with The Witcher 2. It was our first ever 100% DRM-free AAA day-1 release. GOG.com was the 2nd best-selling digital distribution platform worldwide for this title thanks to you guys, despite having regional prices for it. We need more breakthroughs like this to be able to show all the devs and publishers in our industry that DRM-free digital distribution is actually good for their business and their fans. And when I say breakthroughs, I am talking about really kick-ass games, with a potential metacritic score of 85% or more, AA+ and AAA kind of titles.

And this is exactly why we signed those 3 games we told you about last Friday. We believe those 3 games can be massive hits for hardcore gamers, that they can help us spread the DRM-free model among the industry for newer games and we did our best to convince their rights holders to give GOG.com a try. One of those games, as you see already, is Age of Wonders 3. We're planning more titles even beyond these first 3 soon.

Alright, but why is regional pricing needed for those (only 3 so far!) newer games then?

First of all, you have to be aware of an important fact when it comes to newer games: GOG.com cannot really decide what the prices should be. Top-tier developers and publishers usually have contractual obligations with their retail partners that oblige them to offer the game at the same price digitally and in retail. When they don’t have such contractual obligations, they are still encouraged to do so, or else their games might not get any exposure on the shelves in your favorite shops. This will change over time (as digital sales should overtake retail sales in the near future), but as of today, this is still a problem our industry is facing because retail is a big chunk of revenue and there’s nothing GOG.com can do to change that. We need to charge the recommended retail price for the boxed copies of the games in order for developers (or publishers) to either not get sued or at least get their games visible on shelves. You may recall that our sister company CD Projekt RED got sued for that in the past and we don’t want our partners to suffer from that too.

On top of that, you have to know that there are still many top-tier devs and publishers that are scared about DRM-free gaming. They're half-convinced it will make piracy worse, and flat pricing means that we're also asking them to earn less, too. Earn less, you say? Why is that? Well, when we sell a game in the EU or UK, VAT gets deducted from the price before anyone receives any profit. That means we're asking our partners to try out DRM-free gaming and at the same time also earn 19% - 25% less from us. Other stores, such as Steam, price their games regionally and have pricing that's more equitable to developers and publishers. So flat pricing + DRM-Free is something many devs and publishers simply refuse. Can you blame them? The best argument we can make to convince a publisher or developer to try DRM-Free gaming is that it earns money. Telling them to sacrifice income while they try selling a game with no copy protection is not a way to make that argument.

Getting back to those 3 new upcoming games coming up. The first one is Age of Wonders 3, which you can pre-order right now on GOG.com. The next 2 ones will be Divine Divinity: Original Sin and The Witcher 3. We’re very excited to offer those games DRM-free worldwide and we hope you’ll love them.

Still, we know some countries are really being screwed with regional pricing (Western Europe, UK, Australia) and as mentioned above, we’ll do our very best, for every release of a new game, to convince our partners to offer something special for the gamers living there.

And don’t forget guys: if regional pricing for those few big (as in, “AA+”) new games is a problem for you, you can always wait. In a few months. The game will be discounted on sale, and at 60, 70, or 80% off, the price difference will be minimal indeed. In a few years it will become a classic in its own right, and then we have the possibility to to make it flat-priced anyway (read next!) The choice is always yours. All we are after is to present it to you 100% DRM-free. We are sure you will make the best choice for yourself, and let others enjoy their own freedom to make choices as well.

So, what is going to happen with classic games then?

Classic content accounts for about 80% of our catalog, so yes, this is a super important topic. We've mentioned here above that we can’t control prices for new games, but we do have a lot of influence when it comes to classic games. GOG.com is the store that made this market visible and viable digitally, and we're the ones who established the prices we charge. We believe that we have a good record to argue for fair pricing with our partners.

So let's talk about the pricing for classics that we're shooting for. For $5.99 classics, we would like to make the games 3.49 GBP, 4.49 EUR, 199 RUB, and $6.49 AUD. For $9.99 classics, our targets are 5.99 GBP, 7.49 EUR, 349 RUB, and $10.99 AUD. This is what we’ve got in mind at the moment. We’ll do our best to make that happen, and we think it will. How? Well, we have made our partners quite happy with GOG.com's sales for years - thanks to you guys :). We have created a global, legal, successful digital distribution market of classics for them. This market didn't exist 5 years ago. By (re)making all those games compatible with modern operating systems for MAC and PC, we've made forgotten games profitable again. When it comes to classic games, we can tell them that we know more about this market than anyone. :) Being retrogaming freaks ourselves, we know that 5.99 EUR or GBP is crazy expensive for a classic game (compared to 5.99 USD). We have always argued that classic games only sell well if they have reasonable prices. Unfair regional pricing equals piracy and that’s the last thing anybody wants.

What’s next?

We will do our very best to make all of the above happen. This means three things:

First, we will work to make our industry go DRM-free in the future for both classic and new games (that’s our mission!).

Second, we will fight hard to have an attractive offer for those AA+ new games for our European, British and Australian users, despite regional pricing that we have to stick to.

Third, we will switch to fair local pricing for classic games, as I mentioned above.

TheEnigmaticT earlier mentioned that he would eat his hat if we ever brought DRM to GOG.com. I'm going to go one step further: by the end of this year, I'm making the promise that we will have converted our classic catalog over to fair regional pricing as outlined above. If not, we'll set up a record a video of some horrible public shaming for me, TheEnigmaticT, and w0rma. In fact, you know what? Feel free to make suggestions below for something appropriate (but also safe enough that we won't get the video banned on YouTube) so you feel that we're motivated to get this done quickly. I'll pick one that's scary enough from the comments below and we'll let you know which one we're sticking to.

I hope that this explanation has helped ease your worry a bit and help you keep your faith in GOG.com as a place that's different, awesome, and that always fights for what's best for gamers. If you have any questions, comments or ideas, feel free to address them to us below and TheEnigmaticT and I will answer them to the best of our abilities tomorrow. We hear you loud and clear, so please do continue sharing your feedback with us. At the end of the day GOG.com is your place; without you guys it would just be a website where a few crazy people from Europe talk about old games. :)

I end many of my emails with this, but there's rarely a time to use it more appropriately than here:

“Best DRM-free wishes,

Guillaume Rambourg,
(TheFrenchMonk)
Managing Director -- GOG.com”
Posted February 27, 2014
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tammerwhisk: What is to ever stop the cop-out excuse that it is "out of [our] hands". As much of a juggernaut as Steam is in the market people still use the excuse that pricing and policy is entirely "out of Valve's control". Is anyone ever going to hit a point of growth where they are confident enough to say "No fuck you and your policies." to these publishers cannibalizing the industry?
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dhundahl: I dislike bad excuses as much as the next guy, but at the same time it's sort of important to realise when someone literally had no recourse. I believe Stalin liked to execute commanders who couldn't do the impossible but that never did lead to much improvement on the battlefield.

In this case, GOG is a very tiny actor with a very tiny revenue relative to the big players and the option you're talking about is essentially a refusal to grow big enough to matter at this stage. Steam could potentially affect the pricing of anything but the really big titles but GOG is nowhere close to that. That they're even allowed to sell a DRM-free version on release day is arguably quite a breakthrough in itself.

Obviously there might come a time where "it's out of our control" is complete rubbish, but I don't think we're quite there yet. Steam is getting close for the most part, and they really can dictate terms with smaller developers, but if GOG tried to play hardball then the only consequence is that the title doesn't go here. And that doesn't benefit anyone, does it?
I wasn't necessarily implying that is what they should do now, or the best course of action. It was more rhetorical. When does a company have enough weight to actually take a stand? Unless they perform some kind of sales-pitch miracle with these companies, once it is in place what makes anyone think they will ever go back? Or manage to convince these companies to change terms later? The whole scenario almost seems like it requires the "stars and planets to align" and specific titles to be runaway success stories and certain titles to bomb and sell like shit.
Post edited February 27, 2014 by tammerwhisk
Posted February 27, 2014
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Matruchus: Well that true steam does have better offers at least discount offers.
...
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cmdr_flashheart: I agree, I recently got three copies of Warlock Master of Arcane; two to gift to friends. I do agree GOG should expand it's catalogue, but I would like to see newer games, hopefully big or AAA titles, and only the best/most interesting classics, like Sword of the Samurai.
Yeah, agree its just that they should approach differently to it.
Posted February 27, 2014
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pbmacros: @MoP
Thank you very much for the ?staff=yes tip, Very useful.
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MoP: All credit and/or potential up-votes to mondo84 who I believe was the first to point this out during this brouhaha ;)
I do give him credit, but I give you credit too. Both for giving proper credit and for using the word brouhaha.
Posted February 27, 2014
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lostwolfe: it doesn't have to be a full-on "we tried x tactic and it failed, so we tried y tactic." it can be as simple as five or so lines that make up a communication back to the core audience.

"we pursued game x, but didn't manage to secure it this time around, but stay tuned! we'll try again in the future."

this will do a couple of things: it'd let the public here know that the wish list was being looked at and worked through.

it would also allow customers to help steer gog. and this would help them have better metrics for working through their lists. for example. if game x was an adventure that had comic elements and game y was a deeply serious adventure with no sense of humour at all, but most people voted for game x, then that suggests that they need to find more space quests and monkey islands and the like.

and, really, this is just an idea. you're completely right. there may be better and more robust ways of doing it, but since the "vote fore three" got thrown out as a specific thing to try, i was thinking of ways to make that work so that it's fair on everyone. not everyone likes rpg's. but if the type of game cycled, then everyone gets a chance. for example.
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cmdr_flashheart: No, sorry, but that doesn't sound appealing at all- no one but the most ardent forum dweller, or other entities which would like to use that information to spread FUD about GOG, would care for such reports.

I get that you want to feel like you're involved, but I think the best thing would be to just vote on the wishlist- to be honest, so many games have come here BECAUSE they were on the wishlist, like BloodNet (and it only had around 30 votes!).

I do get what you mean, though, but honestly I think their recent new releases have been pretty balanced; just off the top of my head I count a strategy (deadlock), fps (full spectrum), platformer (fractured soul) etc.
i'm highlighting my text because i think it says much of what i need to say: we're not talking about pages-long reports, here. we're just talking about a line or two describing that it didn't pan out.

people will spread fud regardless of how much information is out there. i'm pretty sure [i don't really dwell on these forums much, but i imagine it's much the same as with any forum] that people here are very pro and anti specific games on the wishlist.

as a bad example: lots of people here want the lucasarts games really badly, but there are some folks here who are non-adventure gamers, and the mere idea that those games would get here faster than - say - a good 4x space sim makes their skin crawl. they'd probably get right on the forums and tell everyone: "HEY DON'T VOTE FOR THAT LUCASARTS GAME, IT'S TERRIBLE BECAUSE IT'S SO BUGGY AND HAS BAD VOICE ACTING. RATHER VOTE FOR MY WONDERFUL 4X GAME WHICH IS PERFECT IN EVERY REGARD AND HAS ZERO BUGS!"

fud will happen regardless, i'm afraid.
Posted February 27, 2014
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Matruchus: It tells us that gog agrees with the pricing model. And that is a big problem.
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dhundahl: No, it doesn't tell us that at all. It tells us that they're going along with it, which is an entirely different thing.
So GOG.com is not ripping us off, they just let publishers rip us off, on their own site.
Posted February 27, 2014
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cmdr_flashheart: No, sorry, but that doesn't sound appealing at all- no one but the most ardent forum dweller, or other entities which would like to use that information to spread FUD about GOG, would care for such reports.

I get that you want to feel like you're involved, but I think the best thing would be to just vote on the wishlist- to be honest, so many games have come here BECAUSE they were on the wishlist, like BloodNet (and it only had around 30 votes!).

I do get what you mean, though, but honestly I think their recent new releases have been pretty balanced; just off the top of my head I count a strategy (deadlock), fps (full spectrum), platformer (fractured soul) etc.
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lostwolfe: i'm highlighting my text because i think it says much of what i need to say: we're not talking about pages-long reports, here. we're just talking about a line or two describing that it didn't pan out.

people will spread fud regardless of how much information is out there. i'm pretty sure [i don't really dwell on these forums much, but i imagine it's much the same as with any forum] that people here are very pro and anti specific games on the wishlist.

as a bad example: lots of people here want the lucasarts games really badly, but there are some folks here who are non-adventure gamers, and the mere idea that those games would get here faster than - say - a good 4x space sim makes their skin crawl. they'd probably get right on the forums and tell everyone: "HEY DON'T VOTE FOR THAT LUCASARTS GAME, IT'S TERRIBLE BECAUSE IT'S SO BUGGY AND HAS BAD VOICE ACTING. RATHER VOTE FOR MY WONDERFUL 4X GAME WHICH IS PERFECT IN EVERY REGARD AND HAS ZERO BUGS!"

fud will happen regardless, i'm afraid.
Look it does not botter me if those games come here sooner. The problem is games i wishlisted on gog for years now did not arrive at all. None. It just shows the whole system is flawed.

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dhundahl: No, it doesn't tell us that at all. It tells us that they're going along with it, which is an entirely different thing.
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Ichwillnichtmehr: So GOG.com is not ripping us off, they just let publishers rip us off, on their own site.
good joke
Post edited February 27, 2014 by Matruchus
Posted February 27, 2014
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HGiles: 2) Taking the AoW3 release as typical of new releases, EU customers are going to be charged wildly higher prices. EU customers make up a lot of GOG customers, often because their prices were more reasonable.
I can totally understand why someone would perceive this to be true but if you take it apart one piece at a time I believe it turns out to not be true at all. Let me explain...

First, as we understand from what we have been told by GOG that Age of Wonders 3 is going to have regional pricing, and that this is the decision of the publisher which they were unable to convince to use globally fixed pricing for this game on GOG.com.

From this information alone I think one can reasonably infer that that publisher is using regional pricing for this game on Steam and every other service they are going to sell this game through, and thus the price that everyone will pay for this game in every region is the same price that every other retailer charges in that region because that is what the publisher has decided the pricing will be for every retailer that they choose to have business arrangements with to sell their game. In other words, they wont allow a distributor to sell their game except if they use regional pricing.

Someone might pay more for it (or less for it) than I do perhaps, but they aren't going to be paying more or less for it at some other retailer from what we understand (modulo sales promos or similar I imagine) within that region. That is to say if you buy it from Steam you'll pay the same price in a given region as you do at GOG, and so you're paying the same price as any other option you have on the table, or you just wont be buying the game at all. So...

Option 1) GOG does not sell the game, you buy the game from Steam or elsewhere with regional pricing and pay the regional price.

Option 2) GOG does not sell the game, you don't buy the game at all anywhere.

Option 3) GOG does sell the game with regional pricing, you buy the game from GOG at the same price as it is sold for on Steam or anywhere else you might consider buying the game - but you get it DRM free and perhaps with bonus materials or other goodies they're able to scrounge up.

Option 4) GOG does sell the game with regional pricing, you don't buy the game at all anywhere.

Option 5) GOG does sell the game with regional pricing, you buy the game at Steam or somewhere else.

If you compare the actual options that are available, they simplify down to "pay the same regional pricing for the game somewhere wherever that is and play the game" or "don't buy the game at all" ultimately, however with the "buy it from GOG" option you not only get the game and get it DRM-free, but you support GOG's mission to convince publishers to even consider DRM-free releases and to bring them to GOG.com.

Yes, someone in one country might pay more than someone in another country, but in the actual country one lives in you're not going to pay any more for it than anyone else in the same country. If the price is not reasonable for the value the game provides at whatever price it is offered for - totally don't buy it! I wouldn't!

But I have to say, if a game is $2 and I'm positive I'm going to get say 100 hours of gameplay out of it, and with regional pricing I am going to have to spend $3 for it (a ridiculously higher and probably unrealistic percentage to help illustrate a point), that looks bad at being 50% higher price I admit, but taken in a the larger context, if I get 100 hours of gaming out of the game that works out to $0.02 per hour before versus $0.03 now. Whether or not that is fair, and whether or not the game developer is evil and greedy, 3 cents for an hour of entertainment value in a highly enjoyable and addictive game is practically giving the game away. One could argue it's almost paying someone to play the game even. ;o)

Now granted, that is for a $2-3 game and not the same with all prices of course. Let's consider a more realistic example for a newer game. Let's say a $40 new release normal, and that it's now going to be 10% higher for someone somewhere. That's $40 for person A, and $44 for person B. Again, 100 hours of fun gaming in this example. That means that you're paying 44 cents per hour for being entertained or 40 cents per hour. Considering a large percentage of passtimes, and other entertainment is $5/10/20 or more per hour, 40 cents an hour is a pretty cheap price per hour to be entertained in comparison. The price difference is less than a single cup of specialty coffee at Starbucks, or a bottle of beer in a bar here in Canada, or something like 50 cases of beer in the USA (we're taxed heavily on alcohol, while the Americans have it falling out of trees and practically give it away <grin>).

Hey... I want BEER that is ONE WORLD FIXED PRICE! This price gouging we have in our beer stores here is unfair! GOG should subsidize Canadian beer prices! ;oP
Posted February 27, 2014
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cmdr_flashheart: No, sorry, but that doesn't sound appealing at all- no one but the most ardent forum dweller, or other entities which would like to use that information to spread FUD about GOG, would care for such reports.

I get that you want to feel like you're involved, but I think the best thing would be to just vote on the wishlist- to be honest, so many games have come here BECAUSE they were on the wishlist, like BloodNet (and it only had around 30 votes!).

I do get what you mean, though, but honestly I think their recent new releases have been pretty balanced; just off the top of my head I count a strategy (deadlock), fps (full spectrum), platformer (fractured soul) etc.
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lostwolfe: i'm highlighting my text because i think it says much of what i need to say: we're not talking about pages-long reports, here. we're just talking about a line or two describing that it didn't pan out.

people will spread fud regardless of how much information is out there. i'm pretty sure [i don't really dwell on these forums much, but i imagine it's much the same as with any forum] that people here are very pro and anti specific games on the wishlist.

as a bad example: lots of people here want the lucasarts games really badly, but there are some folks here who are non-adventure gamers, and the mere idea that those games would get here faster than - say - a good 4x space sim makes their skin crawl. they'd probably get right on the forums and tell everyone: "HEY DON'T VOTE FOR THAT LUCASARTS GAME, IT'S TERRIBLE BECAUSE IT'S SO BUGGY AND HAS BAD VOICE ACTING. RATHER VOTE FOR MY WONDERFUL 4X GAME WHICH IS PERFECT IN EVERY REGARD AND HAS ZERO BUGS!"

fud will happen regardless, i'm afraid.
I did read your highlighted text before, but that's what I find unappealing- that kind of "honesty" just invites criticism and scrutiny, whether it's one line or five. Personally, I hope GOG never does anything like that, but they know better about what they should do, I think.

And lol- I know what you mean, I am not interested in LucasArts games either, so my suggestion is to just highlight your 4X space sim by making a post about it in the general forum, best you can do.
Posted February 27, 2014
Yeah more DRM free games and cheaper to boot. . .good job GOG.
Post edited February 27, 2014 by DeadlyBuzz229
Posted February 27, 2014
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dhundahl: How do you know the underlined part? Assumption? Guess? Did someone in the know actually tell you? I'm pretty sure the classics will remain mostly as they are for now. New releases are a different animal but what do you propose GOG does about that, aside from refusing to distribute new release games with no DRM?
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Matruchus: Look if they allow one regional priced game it means they will allow more and where will that stop. As soon as publishers see they can increase game prices on gog they will do that.
They've softened up on a policy but that doesn't mean they've lost all principles. The world isn't black and white. Publishers see that GOG will now differentiate on the price of new release AAA titles but the change in that is that GOG is offering a new release AAA to begin with. They're seeing that GOG is differentiating on the prices of classics but the level of differentiation is so far quite minimal and GOG hasn't done anything to indicate that they'll do anything more extreme than that.

How do you say no when you've opened the door? The same way you always do. "No". It really isn't any harder than that. The hard principle is broken but that doesn't mean GOG can't always decide that the terms aren't acceptable. It could be that GOG has turned away from principles. That they've sold out. But we don't know that just yet, and until we do, it really is premature to give them too much of a shitstorm.
Posted February 27, 2014
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ViDRa: on facebook they said:
"region locking IS a form of DRM, and for that exact reason we never plan to introduce it. We didn't take that extra step now to be able to secure more DRM-Free games, only to abandon our DRM-Free mission afterwards."
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Wishbone: I took the liberty of highlighting the operative word in that sentence. We've seen a lot of phrases of that nature these past couple of days. Note how they very carefully avoid saying they will never introduce it, just that they haven't planned to do so. The plans could be made tomorrow. Or more likely, once a few regionally priced new titles have been released here, and people start gifting them across differently priced regions, a publisher will "force" GOG to implement it.

It's completely outside their control, you understand. No, they would never willingly do something like that. They will however willingly put themselves in a situation where this can be "forced" on them.
hm, good point.
Posted February 27, 2014
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lostwolfe: i'm highlighting my text because i think it says much of what i need to say: we're not talking about pages-long reports, here. we're just talking about a line or two describing that it didn't pan out.

people will spread fud regardless of how much information is out there. i'm pretty sure [i don't really dwell on these forums much, but i imagine it's much the same as with any forum] that people here are very pro and anti specific games on the wishlist.

as a bad example: lots of people here want the lucasarts games really badly, but there are some folks here who are non-adventure gamers, and the mere idea that those games would get here faster than - say - a good 4x space sim makes their skin crawl. they'd probably get right on the forums and tell everyone: "HEY DON'T VOTE FOR THAT LUCASARTS GAME, IT'S TERRIBLE BECAUSE IT'S SO BUGGY AND HAS BAD VOICE ACTING. RATHER VOTE FOR MY WONDERFUL 4X GAME WHICH IS PERFECT IN EVERY REGARD AND HAS ZERO BUGS!"

fud will happen regardless, i'm afraid.
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cmdr_flashheart: I did read your highlighted text before, but that's what I find unappealing- that kind of "honesty" just invites criticism and scrutiny, whether it's one line or five. Personally, I hope GOG never does anything like that, but they know better about what they should do, I think.

And lol- I know what you mean, I am not interested in LucasArts games either, so my suggestion is to just highlight your 4X space sim by making a post about it in the general forum, best you can do.
that's fair enough. different people do, in fact, like different things. i am very into the history of computer gaming, so for me, those couple of lines would be interesting as a "view into" what happens with this sort of thing.

and while that may be "too honest" for your tastes, i find, for mine, it'd be just right. scrutiny is somewhat important, i think. especially since we're in the age of the disposable customer.
Posted February 27, 2014
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Matruchus: Look if they allow one regional priced game it means they will allow more and where will that stop. As soon as publishers see they can increase game prices on gog they will do that.
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dhundahl: They've softened up on a policy but that doesn't mean they've lost all principles. The world isn't black and white. Publishers see that GOG will now differentiate on the price of new release AAA titles but the change in that is that GOG is offering a new release AAA to begin with. They're seeing that GOG is differentiating on the prices of classics but the level of differentiation is so far quite minimal and GOG hasn't done anything to indicate that they'll do anything more extreme than that.

How do you say no when you've opened the door? The same way you always do. "No". It really isn't any harder than that. The hard principle is broken but that doesn't mean GOG can't always decide that the terms aren't acceptable. It could be that GOG has turned away from principles. That they've sold out. But we don't know that just yet, and until we do, it really is premature to give them too much of a shitstorm.
Look the thing is gog had the principle of fair price written on this site with all the other and now it has been erased. You can look it up on the main site and this is what really makes me worry.
Post edited February 27, 2014 by Matruchus
Posted February 27, 2014
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MoP: All credit and/or potential up-votes to mondo84 who I believe was the first to point this out during this brouhaha ;)
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mondo84: Hehe I just took the link from clicking the ( ! ) icon next to thread titles. Needless to say in this thread, the credit and upvotes shall go to you, my friend. :)
I'd say you both deserve credit. If you look at the staff replies, and mouseover next to "Posted X ${unit_of_time} ago" you'll see the post number. This post that I'm replying to is post 1923. The last post before this one from staff was 99 (one of exactly 4 replies). The next post after 99 is 2073 and as of the time of this posting, there are now 16 more replies from staff members (staff member JudasIscariot started posting, and I know he's used that name for a long time, but man is it amusing as a GoG staff name in this context).

In other words, either this was a hell of a coincidence or next business day after [url=http://www.gog.com/forum/general/letter_from_the_md_about_regional_pricing/post1919]MoP[/url] pointed out the helper link mondo84 found was pointed out they decided they should bother to show some interest in this thread.
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tajemniczybeton: >Third, we will switch to fair local pricing for classic games, as I mentioned above.
kurwa 2

Time to check what classics I'm still missing and buy them.
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TheEnigmaticT: Did you...read the letter? The pricing for classic games is going to likely be better for most everyone once it's implemented.

I understand that other stores have trained a basal ganglia to fire that "regional pricing = BAD", but we're trying to do something new here.
You know, if your desire here is to be fair with regional pricing as an option on old games, why not offer the choice? Nobody could be mad about that. So for Eurozone customers with old games list both the US $ and Euro prices on the store page and at checkout put a radio button saying "Pay in Euros" or "Pay in US dollars" and let the individuals decide which is better for them personally. Anyone who says you're being greedy bastards for giving them an additional option is clearly dumb, however you can have a lot of people who've figured out nice exchange rate tricks or perhaps keep an account in US dollars that they populate at favorable exchange rates for this sort of purchase and you can't argue with all the possible scenarios there.
Post edited February 27, 2014 by PaladinWay
Posted February 27, 2014
Well at this point after two days off rant i would just recommend to gog to close this thread since they dont care about it.
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General discussion (archive)<b>Letter from the M.D.</b>: About Regional Pricing(5517 posts) (5517 posts) 
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