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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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TheFrenchMonk: Regional pricing
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TheEnigmaticT: regional pricing
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GOG.com: 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 don't think it will come to this, and hope for all our sakes that it does not. But i'll play along.

Dress up as Smurfs and walk around mainstreets for a sufficient amount of exposure time. But most critically, dye your bodies blue, such that this humiliation will last for days to come.
Post edited February 27, 2014 by WhiteElk
Posted February 27, 2014
Painfully apparent a lot of people here have no idea of the realities of running a business.
GOG needs to sell new product to stay in business. They are quickly exhuasting the catalog of classsic game sthey have access to ,and frankly, seem to have reached a impasse with getting access to the libraries of the publishes they do not have a deal with like Lucasarts,etc.
Some of the most likely large selling new games have publishers that insist on regional pricing. So GOG has the choice of either doing regional pricing or not selling the games.
Would you rather have regional pricing or have GOG go bankrupt?
Now if they had to give up their no DRM policy I would agree, that would be a serious deal. But regional pricing,not so much.
Get real, people.
Posted February 27, 2014
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StormHammer: If GOG.com had maintained flat pricing policy, those 45 countries would have paid the same as everyone else buying the game from this site: $39.99
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geminidomino: If GOG had maintained flat pricing policy, those 45 countries would have likely had to buy the game on another site for the same amount, encumbered with DRM.
Possibly. No one can know with absolute certainty, and now it's all rather academic.

However, the developers now run the risk of lower sales in those countries if people decide they are unwilling (or unable) to pay that inflated price.
Posted February 27, 2014
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StormHammer: If GOG.com had maintained flat pricing policy, those 45 countries would have paid the same as everyone else buying the game from this site: $39.99
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geminidomino: If GOG had maintained flat pricing policy, those 45 countries would have likely had to buy the game on another site for the same amount, encumbered with DRM.
Well, probably all countries, not just 45 of them.

Honestly, that's pretty much the debate and something that, if they'd taken an honest poll of their customers on the question "Would you be willing to accept us ditching our commitment to no regional pricing if it means signing new releases?" and done as the customers said and had someone sitting and referencing that poll for the first 10-20 pages of comments they'd have a tenth of this firestorm. Some people would be pissed but, "90% of our customers that answered the survey told us to drop that pillar, so we did! We're really sorry we disappointed you, but we're just trying to serve the community at large" would be a lot harder to pin on GoG as a company. And if they wanted to go for good style, they could've added, "If you show up to our headquarters in Poland and prove you're you and either one of our marketing or management people will go buy you a beer."
Posted February 27, 2014
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dudalb: Painfully apparent a lot of people here have no idea of the realities of running a business.
GOG needs to sell new product to stay in business. They are quickly exhuasting the catalog of classsic game sthey have access to ,and frankly, seem to have reached a impasse with getting access to the libraries of the publishes they do not have a deal with like Lucasarts,etc.
Some of the most likely large selling new games have publishers that insist on regional pricing. So GOG has the choice of either doing regional pricing or not selling the games.
Would you rather have regional pricing or have GOG go bankrupt?
Now if they had to give up their no DRM policy I would agree, that would be a serious deal. But regional pricing,not so much.
Get real, people.
It doesn't look like they are on the verge of bankruptcy: https://www.cdprojekt.com/Press_Room/Informacje_prasowe,news_id,1905

Google translate:

More than 4 million zł profit in the first quarter , excellent results GOG.com Added: 2013-05-15

Group CD PROJECT eight improves profit last year and ends the first quarter with 4.07 million zł consolidated net profit.

The Company continues to generate positive cash flow , while funding work on two high-profile video games highest quality.

Very dynamic growth results in the segment "global digital distribution " - GOG.com .

Consolidated net profit of the CD PROJECT in the first quarter of 2013 totaled 4.07 million to 0.47 million zł zł year before. Consolidated revenues totaled 27.81 million to 17.68 million zł zł in the first three months of last year. Group efficiently generate cash and net cash flow from operating activities amounted to 4.98 million to 0.91 million zł zł year before.

"We produce at this time two big -budget video games, and although since the release of The Witcher 2 on Xbox 360 passing year , continues to generate positive cash flow and high . " - Said the president of the CD PROJECT Adam Kicinski .

In the first quarter, the Group improved its financial results in all three business segments . Particularly dynamic development of global service made ​​digital distribution of games - GOG.com . Its revenue rose to 13.26 mln zł zł to 6.25 million in the previous year and net profit to 2.72 million to 0.89 million zł zł . GOG.com , recently recognized by the magazine " Time" as one of the 50 best websites in the world , at the beginning of the year, announced that it has already offered 500 computer games from more than hundreds of manufacturers and publishers. Service is one of the most popular independent digital distributors of computer games in the world and a serious alternative to the global market leader - Steam service . Area of ​​digital distribution, but limited to the Polish market is developing very dynamically also belongs to a group company CDP.pl. To offer a platform CDP.pl introduced , in addition to games, including e -books and comics in a digital version . Including them offer a platform CDP.pl is already more than 600 products . Even after the end of the first quarter CDP.pl signed a very important agreement for the digital distribution of Electronic Arts .

The most important event of the first quarter for the Group was the announcement of release in 2014, "The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt " . The third part of the saga became the subject of a cover of the March issue of " Game Informer " - the biggest and most prestigious magazine devoted to games in the world and will soon be presented at June's E3 game expo in Los Angeles. Studio CD Projekt RED continues to simultaneously work on the game, " Cyberpunk 2077 " . Increased interest in the press and fans future titles studio CD Projekt RED preferred translates into sales animation currently available on the market Witcher series of games .
Post edited February 27, 2014 by Ichwillnichtmehr
Posted February 27, 2014
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dudalb: Painfully apparent a lot of people here have no idea of the realities of running a business.
GOG needs to sell new product to stay in business. They are quickly exhuasting the catalog of classsic game sthey have access to ,and frankly, seem to have reached a impasse with getting access to the libraries of the publishes they do not have a deal with like Lucasarts,etc.
Some of the most likely large selling new games have publishers that insist on regional pricing. So GOG has the choice of either doing regional pricing or not selling the games.
Would you rather have regional pricing or have GOG go bankrupt?
Now if they had to give up their no DRM policy I would agree, that would be a serious deal. But regional pricing,not so much.
Get real, people.
That is assuming this doesn't bomb from backlash and that it will enable them to actually convince various publishers.

"They are quickly exhuasting the catalog of classsic game sthey have access to"

Except there are a bunch of titles of various ages (from publishers they appear to have deals with and still occasionally get newer titles from) that aren't here (even though they are everywhere else).
Posted February 27, 2014
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geminidomino: If GOG had maintained flat pricing policy, those 45 countries would have likely had to buy the game on another site for the same amount, encumbered with DRM.
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PaladinWay: Well, probably all countries, not just 45 of them.

Honestly, that's pretty much the debate and something that, if they'd taken an honest poll of their customers on the question "Would you be willing to accept us ditching our commitment to no regional pricing if it means signing new releases?" and done as the customers said and had someone sitting and referencing that poll for the first 10-20 pages of comments they'd have a tenth of this firestorm. Some people would be pissed but, "90% of our customers that answered the survey told us to drop that pillar, so we did! We're really sorry we disappointed you, but we're just trying to serve the community at large" would be a lot harder to pin on GoG as a company. And if they wanted to go for good style, they could've added, "If you show up to our headquarters in Poland and prove you're you and either one of our marketing or management people will go buy you a beer."
Even though I am against GOG.com's move, this is something I would have accepted.

Unhappily accepted, but accepted nontheless.
Posted February 27, 2014
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Bloodygoodgames: LOL, I've been in the PR and Marketing field for 25 years. I'd say I have a few more 'credentials' than you have on that score.

I must say I'm loving reading some of the comments on here from the GOG fanboys though. I'm going to enjoy reading them even more when new games come on GOG where you're all being shafted with ripoff prices. The outrage then will be hilarious to watch.

I'll laugh even harder when GOG introduces DRM. Which......they eventually will.....with yet another excuse as to why they 'had to'.
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dhundahl: Well, if you're claiming to have worked PR for 25 years then I'm sure you have. Why would you lie about it? But it does give me pause that you're inclined to write "LOL", which is not something I've seen from 40+ year old veterans in the communication business, and you're also displaying a very odd use of the ellipsis. Then again, I don't know anyone with 25 years of experience from marketing in Thailand, so admittedly my instincts aren't exactly super accurate.

By the way, I'm also not sure many 40 year olds are busy trying to troll like you are. Accusing people of being fanboys, looking forward to their outrage, and so on. Yada, yada. A guy who has been doing marketing for 25 years should know better, shouldn't he?

In any case, as long as GOG is offering DRM-free games at a good price then I'm game. When they stop doing that, I'm gone. That's business. DRM-free they have a fairly solid niche. With DRM they're a miniature version of Steam with angry customers and no competitive advantages. If your 25 years of experience is telling you that they'll think it's a smart decision to go with DRM then I think your 25 years of experience aren't serving you too well.
I can't believe you are putting someone down for using "LOL".
Posted February 27, 2014
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dhundahl: Well, if you're claiming to have worked PR for 25 years then I'm sure you have. Why would you lie about it? But it does give me pause that you're inclined to write "LOL", which is not something I've seen from 40+ year old veterans in the communication business, and you're also displaying a very odd use of the ellipsis. Then again, I don't know anyone with 25 years of experience from marketing in Thailand, so admittedly my instincts aren't exactly super accurate.

By the way, I'm also not sure many 40 year olds are busy trying to troll like you are. Accusing people of being fanboys, looking forward to their outrage, and so on. Yada, yada. A guy who has been doing marketing for 25 years should know better, shouldn't he?

In any case, as long as GOG is offering DRM-free games at a good price then I'm game. When they stop doing that, I'm gone. That's business. DRM-free they have a fairly solid niche. With DRM they're a miniature version of Steam with angry customers and no competitive advantages. If your 25 years of experience is telling you that they'll think it's a smart decision to go with DRM then I think your 25 years of experience aren't serving you too well.
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monkeydelarge: I can't believe you are putting someone down for using "LOL".
LOL ;)
Posted February 27, 2014
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hedwards: Dude, this is a forum post on a forum where he's not representing anybody. Just because somebody is in PR doesn't mean that everything always needs to be perfect. I teach English and I don't waste time spell and grammar checking all my posts.
I'm not thinking of grammar and spelling, though. It's more a matter of the language totally not fitting what I'd expect from a 25 year marketing veteran. The ellipsis use is odd since it's used regularly in qualitative research which a marketing veteran should've come into plenty of contact with. The LOL is odd because of the. A 45 year old saying LOL, not for a particular purpose, but just to express amusement has me spooked. And then there's that general tone, which strikes me as childish. By the way, why the need to emphasize 25 years of experience? Insecurity? From someone who has worked in that field for 25 years?

It just adds up to something that gives me pause. It's a gut feeling that could be wrong, obviously, but it still gives me pause. But I'll be happy if (s)he takes me to school and explains exactly what TET totally should have done to make a bunch of really angry internet-users happy. It might make me look silly but then maybe I'll learn something and that's not a bad outcome.
Posted February 27, 2014
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hedwards: Dude, this is a forum post on a forum where he's not representing anybody. Just because somebody is in PR doesn't mean that everything always needs to be perfect. I teach English and I don't waste time spell and grammar checking all my posts.
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dhundahl: I'm not thinking of grammar and spelling, though. It's more a matter of the language totally not fitting what I'd expect from a 25 year marketing veteran. The ellipsis use is odd since it's used regularly in qualitative research which a marketing veteran should've come into plenty of contact with. The LOL is odd because of the. A 45 year old saying LOL, not for a particular purpose, but just to express amusement has me spooked. And then there's that general tone, which strikes me as childish. By the way, why the need to emphasize 25 years of experience? Insecurity? From someone who has worked in that field for 25 years?

It just adds up to something that gives me pause. It's a gut feeling that could be wrong, obviously, but it still gives me pause. But I'll be happy if (s)he takes me to school and explains exactly what TET totally should have done to make a bunch of really angry internet-users happy. It might make me look silly but then maybe I'll learn something and that's not a bad outcome.
You probably haven't had much experience with middle-aged (or older) people that use the computer regularly.
Posted February 27, 2014
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hedwards: Dude, this is a forum post on a forum where he's not representing anybody. Just because somebody is in PR doesn't mean that everything always needs to be perfect. I teach English and I don't waste time spell and grammar checking all my posts.
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dhundahl: I'm not thinking of grammar and spelling, though. It's more a matter of the language totally not fitting what I'd expect from a 25 year marketing veteran. The ellipsis use is odd since it's used regularly in qualitative research which a marketing veteran should've come into plenty of contact with. The LOL is odd because of the. A 45 year old saying LOL, not for a particular purpose, but just to express amusement has me spooked. And then there's that general tone, which strikes me as childish. By the way, why the need to emphasize 25 years of experience? Insecurity? From someone who has worked in that field for 25 years?

It just adds up to something that gives me pause. It's a gut feeling that could be wrong, obviously, but it still gives me pause. But I'll be happy if (s)he takes me to school and explains exactly what TET totally should have done to make a bunch of really angry internet-users happy. It might make me look silly but then maybe I'll learn something and that's not a bad outcome.
It seems you haven't dealt with people who are experienced in any field then! That's how arguments are handled in business world, 25yrs of experience vs 5yrs of experience then you lost even if you have valid point hence the emphasis as that's how the game is played.

Anyhow since I am neutral to both of your discussions, I just want to add that LOL and emphasis on 25yrs of experience is not weird or showing any weakness from my point of view.
Posted February 27, 2014
Speaking about this being badly communicated, lack of PR skills, etc... I prefer companies that do not filter all their public communications through 10 levels of legal an PR departments. I prefer a more candid message, that shows the human behind the message, it doesn't sound completely apersonal and like talking to a machine as most public messages of any large tech company. Inevitably, that results in blunders. They seem to have clearly stated that they weren't going to implement regional pricing (was not aware of that) and now clearly they changed their mind. You can argue for many hours that someone should be burned alive for doing that, that your trust was broken and now can't expect any quality service from GoG, that fixed pricing is more important to you than anything else, and you may be right, everyone has their own priorities. Which gets me to the main point of this post.

Ask yourself, what do you want? Does GoG satisfy those needs? (doesn't matter if they go against everything they're saying, if they're hypocrites, if they sacrifice babies on a full moon, if you somehow have feelings or emotional attachment for GoG services, seriously?!)

My needs are to play older games without having to worry about DRM servers going down, being overused, number of computer upgrades I perform every day, playing alternatively on different computers at a time, etc.

GoG clearly satisfied this need. Their move to change some of the things they were doing for hopefully getting even more DRM free titles can only help in that regard. I woudn't mind even if games have some DRM at release day which gets removed after a finite amount of time (I don't care if that time is 1 month or one year, but might be bothered if it's more than 3 years). Hell, I could probably be happy even with Steam if they were to encourage DRM removal for older titles.

What do _you_ want? Reflect on that and act accordingly. Waste less forum space :)
Posted February 27, 2014
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dudalb: Painfully apparent a lot of people here have no idea of the realities of running a business.
GOG needs to sell new product to stay in business. They are quickly exhuasting the catalog of classsic game sthey have access to ,and frankly, seem to have reached a impasse with getting access to the libraries of the publishes they do not have a deal with like Lucasarts,etc.
Some of the most likely large selling new games have publishers that insist on regional pricing. So GOG has the choice of either doing regional pricing or not selling the games.
Would you rather have regional pricing or have GOG go bankrupt?
Now if they had to give up their no DRM policy I would agree, that would be a serious deal. But regional pricing,not so much.
Get real, people.
See, to me that seems more like poor communication with their customers for a community-based business than a business necessity. Taking a poll a month before this along the following lines would've done wonders and possibly solved their problem before it started:

"Ok members, here's where we're at. Additional old games and revenues from them are dwindling. We're getting some newer games but the publishers that will allow no DRM and flat regional pricing are fairly tapped out. We've found newer games where the publishers can accept no DRM but cannot legally accept flat regional pricing. We're at a spot where we either need to grow the business (i.e. sign new titles) or shrink the business (i.e. lay people off, provide less services, and have fear increase productivity in the short term but morale reduce productivity longer term). We have a very strong aversion to either of these two choices, but we've been searching for months and haven't found a third. So we're putting it to a vote from the people who have made us successful. 1) Allow regional pricing and start incorporating new day 1 releases to grow our business; 2) Hold our principles and don't allow regional pricing and reduce our staff, offerings, and services as needed if things continue as projected."

Chances are that would've come out to #1, i.e. what they're doing, winning in a landslide. Some people who are impacted and feel strongly would still leave, but the people who weren't impacted would stay with no loss of trust. Some people impacted would blame other users more than GoG and would stay to some degree, probably at reduced sale rates. New people would be drawn to the site as it has always been and more drawn to new releases without DRM after they get burned by one of the many issues DRM can cause from another game.

In some ways it's like the difference between someone walking up to you and saying, "Uh...this is uncomfortable, but it seems like your mom is having sex with my dad. Yeah, I'm sure. I walked into the room in the middle...no, her purse had been tossed across the room and her driver's license was face up by the door. I'm not real comfortable about this, and I don't imagine you are either, but it's disturbing the hell out of me and I want to talk to you about waht the hell makes sense to do" as opposed to the same person in the same situation walking up to you and screaming at you telling you that your mother's a whore in as many awful ways as they can manage and not letting you finish even about a quarter of a sentence. Sometimes you have to accept a truth you don't like, but if it's presented in the wrong way you may get to a point where you just aren't willing to accept it no matter what else is said or comes to pass.
Posted February 27, 2014
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monkeydelarge: I can't believe you are putting someone down for using "LOL".
I wouldn't do it if we were talking about a youth. Or someone who was a youth a some point during the last decade. But a 25 year veteran with a solid education? Call me sensitive, but that just totally freaks me out. It's like when your grandparents start using youthful slang to try and sound like they're not senior citizens. Some things just shouldn't be said by old people. "LOL" is one of them. :-)
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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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