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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 March 03, 2014
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Avaniar: ...The only way you can stop this whole thing is by making the prices adjust daily due to convertion rates. ...
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Trilarion: I just thought about it and I think if daily changes are impractically (which at least in the past bothered GOG customers not really if their games became more or less valuable on a daily basis) then why not adjust prices during slightly larger intervals, like monthly or quarterly.

So instead of defining the prices today and promising to keep an eye on them (whatever this means), it would be much more transparent to say that the prices in currencies not dollar compute by the average conversion rate of the last month / last quarter of a year and rounded to the next .x9 decimal place and are updated at the end of each month / quarter of a year. This way you would have stable and nicely looking local prices while also being guaranteed to be quite equal worldwide.

If you don't want to go to $1=1€ I would say something like this probably is the best solution.
That's nice and all, but Gameolith, a totally unknown and small indie game store does hourly conversions for its "fair price" tagged games. The fair price thing was introduced on the same day that GOG announced its dropping of fair prices, by the way. :)
Posted March 03, 2014
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Trilarion: I just thought about it and I think if daily changes are impractically (which at least in the past bothered GOG customers not really if their games became more or less valuable on a daily basis) then why not adjust prices during slightly larger intervals, like monthly or quarterly.

So instead of defining the prices today and promising to keep an eye on them (whatever this means), it would be much more transparent to say that the prices in currencies not dollar compute by the average conversion rate of the last month / last quarter of a year and rounded to the next .x9 decimal place and are updated at the end of each month / quarter of a year. This way you would have stable and nicely looking local prices while also being guaranteed to be quite equal worldwide.

If you don't want to go to $1=1€ I would say something like this probably is the best solution.
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Selderij: That's nice and all, but Gameolith, a totally unknown and small indie game store does hourly conversions for its "fair price" tagged games. The fair price thing was introduced on the same day that GOG announced its dropping of fair prices, by the way. :)
bitcoin?!

Eeewww...
Posted March 03, 2014
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silentbob1138: Oh, I get it. You're saying Gog would not abandon its core principle of DRM-free games. What I and others try to get into your head is that that argument makes no sense because Gog already proved that they are willing to abandon their core principles.
I do think that they won't abandon DRM-free games this easily, though. It is their last core principle they have left. There's just no way they can sugarcoat abandoning that one too.
It actually makes perfect sense unless someone is tremendously outraged, thinks GOG is evil and will do everything and anything evil and actually survive it financially. The fact of the matter is that GOG's absolute core principle is DRM-free and any other principle they have is at best 1/10th as important as that. If that principle alone didn't exist, GOG wouldn't exist. You could not build as successful of a business as GOG without DRM-free at it's core if you were to eliminate DRM-free but keep all of the other "principles" they've touted.

As has been stated many times in this thread already, both speculatively by many people including myself and later confirmed by GOG, the fact of the matter is that GOG's DRM-free goal, isn't just to offer some DRM-free games and take random table scraps forever, they started out by going after a particular market segment that they felt was right for the Polish market at the time of bringing old games back from the dead DRM-free, and expanded the vision to see a future where all games are DRM-free and right from the first date they're released. Everyone might not share that vision but that is their vision and theirs to decide what their business's goals are and it is a very amiable goal. DRM-free is _the_ underlying principle that underlines everything, and that includes all other principles. It is the absolute base of the pyramid without which there is no GOG and there are no GOG customers.

Now that we've got that out of the way, their other principles are well intentioned towards eliminating other problems and annoyances and disservices to gaming customers along the way as well, however each of these things are really separate unrelated things that are not married to each other but are good principles all around for a better experience for the customer and GOG still believes what they've always believed in that regard. Many people wish or choose to not believe that in light of the recent changes, but if you look at their track record and what they are saying still without negative emotional bias against them, it is clear that they still believe regional pricing is not a good thing - but it is a thing that exists that is at the current time a more or less impossible nut to crack on the path of seeing their ultimate goal achieved of having all games DRM-free on release day.

It's pretty clear that many big companies wont budge on that issue, and so GOG is faced with a dilemma. They can either continue to release old/classic games, indie games, and the odd/rare release of a new game (that isn't indie) in perpetuity and thus never end up on a path to actually achieve the goal of DRM-free games for everyone on release day across the board including AAA titles from big companies and just plod along restricted to the prison of classics and indies. With the number of available classics (that they'd actually be interested in selling and to which they deem there is a viable market for here) slowly dwindling due to difficult/impossible legal tie-ups between rights holders. The newer the game, the less likely companies are to embrace DRM-free, and the more likely they are to require things like regional pricing, with new big budget AAAs etc. pretty much demanding it and having legal contracts with other distributors that prevent any particular distributor from getting favourable pricing.

GOG then either says no to regional pricing forever and along with it no to AAA games being released on day 1 DRM-free here, as well as a lot of other popular games they might be able to bring to the catalogue and continue on that path of old/indie games, while time moves on and the "old" games of 5 years from now when the time comes haven't changed their minds about pricing and they enter a situation where very little newer titles are willing to come to the catalogue at all even ones considered "old" 5-10 years from now. At the same time Steam is sucking up all games out there from all angles, indies, classics, you name it and grabbing up the whole market and making it less likely that publishers will ever care about GOG if they can only ever float 1% of the market or whatever it is. The majority of people just go to Steam for simplicity and because they're the big guy in the room and so the odds are tilted heavily away from GOG and thus heavily away from DRM-free.

This pretty much guarantees that the goal of all games being DRM-free on release day at some point in time is a naive utopian fantasy that will never happen if every single "principle" is not only held in everyone's hearts, but also gripped with an iron grasp which is firm and unmovable and all or nothing my way or the highway mindset.

(continued in next post)
Post edited March 03, 2014 by skeletonbow
Posted March 03, 2014
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Ichwillnichtmehr: They have already abandoned one of their core principles.

Saying that they will not abandon another core principles doesn't change that.
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Tankman101: Seems like your sense of deduction is failing you.

DRM free isn't simply one of the core principles, it is THE core principle. Removing that will make them exactly like Steam, which means that they will be battling for the same clients. Looking at the failures of competitors trying to battle Steam as a distribution service by trying to be Steam but not Steam (That arn't exclusive, such as UPlay and Origin) I can safely assume that this is one thing that they won't drop.

Engaging in slippery-slope fallicies instead of using logic is a bad habit, please stop doing it.
GOG.com has stated several times, that "One world, fair price" is(was) one of their core values, just like "DRM-free" is one of their core values.

GOG.com has removed core value "One world, fair price" from their store:

Saying that GOG.com only had one core value, and that they are not abandoning that core value is not factual.
Posted March 03, 2014
(continued from post http://www.gog.com/forum/general/letter_from_the_md_about_regional_pricing/post4611)

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silentbob1138: Oh, I get it. You're saying Gog would not abandon its core principle of DRM-free games. What I and others try to get into your head is that that argument makes no sense because Gog already proved that they are willing to abandon their core principles.
I do think that they won't abandon DRM-free games this easily, though. It is their last core principle they have left. There's just no way they can sugarcoat abandoning that one too.
You can cold call a game company and negotiate with them 24/7 for 50 years and if all they say is "no, sorry we'd consider DRM-free for some of our titles but not without regional pricing, plus you're the small guy in town so what incentive do we have to give you special treatment?" which is particularly true if that publisher has legal agreements with Steam and other distributors specifically that they can not legally give GOG or anyone else special treatment. For the publisher to change their stance, they'd have to be against regional pricing themselves or they'd have to be convinced regional pricing is bad and renegotiate contracts with all other distributors out there and only then if they even wanted to do so which it seems they do not.

So you have GOG refusing to change their stance and grouping all of these principles together in one take it or leave it basket stalemate with publishers saying "We'll accept DRM-free on some things but only with regional pricing" which is never resolvable.

How does one reach the end goal of DRM-free everywhere day 1 for titles if the system is stacked against it entirely? The only way two opposing minds can come together to solve problems and move forward to reach their particular goals is to try to find ways in which they can make compromises and come to a common consensus. This sometimes means that you have to compromise on your ideal set of circumstances by for example giving in a bit on one principle you hold dearly in order to achieve greater heights with another principle that you hold much more dearly, and that is what GOG has done here.

They have not reversed their minds on region free pricing, they've realized that while they still believe that is better for people that it is also something that prevents them from reaching DRM-free everything status and that without compromise of that in the short term at least, the long term goal of DRM-free everything appears to be infinitely unattainable.

I don't know about others here, but in my life I have had to make some very hard decisions in which I had to choose to do something that I very much disliked and very much went against principles I stand for and hold in high regard so that I would be able to achieve a more important goal of higher principle which would have otherwise been unattainable. While I made the decision to do what I did not want to do so that I could realize my more ultimate goal, it wasn't something I was happy about and it didn't change my core beliefs about that. GOG's decision to allow regional pricing is not a change of heart but a change of action for a greater good but not without some internal pain to swallow it just like I mention above.

So why aren't they going to allow DRM next now? Because that would make no sense if you understand the goal is DRM-free everything. Compromising on DRM would not only harm the business by pissing off the absolute majority of customers and more or less destroying the business completely and irreversibly the day it might be announced, but even if it was posted as a joke for one day they'd probably be irreversibly damaged and go out of business. Not to mention the fact that they "sell" the idea of DRM-free to the publishers for a long time now with a lot of arguments showing DRM to be harmful for sales and that it actually increases piracy. To start selling games with DRM would be to send an opposite message to publishers. Why would a publisher bother to be convinced by them to offer their games DRM-free in a negotiation if they allowed DRM enabled games? They'd get the odd game here and there where the publisher themselves embraces DRM-free already, but the tough nuts to crack wouldn't likely care and would just view them as any other random retailer.

Every GOG customer who knows anything about GOG and their history should know that DRM-free is the absolute core base of their business pyramid as I've said above, their absolute primary purpose for existence. Without that, the entire business is gone 10 minutes after they abandon DRM-free and nothing is left.

This isn't about abandoning principles, it is about realizing that two core beliefs conflict with each other in a way that results in mutual gridlock and inability to achieve the ultimate long term goal (DRM-free everywhere), and that in order to break the gridlock you have to compromise on some things that leave a bad taste in your mouth, your mind and your heart in order to achieve the end game. As the company grows in size and they carry more weight and perhaps compete more heavily with other distributors out there, perhaps their influence on game publishers will become larger as well, and perhaps they will be able to convince some of the ones that wouldn't budge in the past to give global fixed pricing a shot in the future also, not just on GOG but elsewhere as well. That can be a battle for another day, although they can continue to try to push for that all along going forward too and they most likely will.

Fearing DRM coming here is rather irrational despite how emotional people are about the recent issue because it would destroy their business completely and totally and defeat the underlying core premise for their existence. You can take away the doors of a car, the hood, the windshield, and the seats and it is still a car and can still drive from point A to B. Take away the engine (DRM-free in this analogy) and you have a non-functional car that goes nowhere.

This is of course my opinion based on what I have read, watched and observed over the years on GOG.com including how they've responded to things now and in the past and what they themselves have stated their goals are. Others are free to have their opinions as well and regardless of what anyone thinks or says including GOG, people will have their own thoughts and speculations and only time will tell. This is my attempt to get people to rationalize things at least for better or worse.

Anyone please feel free to link back to this post whenever someone is angry and thinks that GOG is going to compromise and add DRM in the future, it just might give them a different perspective and something to think about to realize it is extremely unlikely, and if it ever does happen, say goodbye to GOG.com forever - and I'll be the first one off the sinking ship.
Posted March 03, 2014
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Tankman101: Seems like your sense of deduction is failing you.

DRM free isn't simply one of the core principles, it is THE core principle. Removing that will make them exactly like Steam, which means that they will be battling for the same clients. Looking at the failures of competitors trying to battle Steam as a distribution service by trying to be Steam but not Steam (That arn't exclusive, such as UPlay and Origin) I can safely assume that this is one thing that they won't drop.

Engaging in slippery-slope fallicies instead of using logic is a bad habit, please stop doing it.
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Ichwillnichtmehr: GOG.com has stated several times, that "One world, fair price" is(was) one of their core values, just like "DRM-free" is one of their core values.

GOG.com has removed core value "One world, fair price" from their store:

Saying that GOG.com only had one core value, and that they are not abandoning that core value is not factual.
Pretending that DRM-free isn't the underlying principle of the entire business and thinking all of their principles carry equal weight in reaching the long term goal of DRM-free games everywhere is the problem. Everyone including myself loves GOG's stated principles but they don't all have equal weight in achieving their long term DRM-free everywhere goal. As I said above, there is a difference between "abandoning" a principle, and believing in a principle but realizing you need to make compromises in one of your principles in order to achieve your other principle(s) which you consider the foundation of your being.

Everyone makes compromises every day in their principles without actually abandoning their principles. Think of religious/ethical/moral beliefs for example. Some we believe in and adhere to strictly at all times. Others we relax a bit in order to follow a larger agenda that helps us to achieve greater heights with our other beleifs. How many people of $some_religion practice that religion 100% never breaking a value/principle or one of their deity's so called "laws" or "commandments" ever? If they bend the rules for something, does that mean they abandon their religion or belief system entirely? This is a daily occurrence for most people I imagine in one way or another conscious or not.

I am a big open source software advocate and it's a core principle of mine. I'm typing this message in Windows 7... go figure. I'm not evil, nor have I abandoned my principles about open source. Being able to compromise on this has allowed me to achieve a lot more things than pigeon-holing myself with tunnel vision to run Linux 24/7, such as for example to be able to run the vast catalogue of games I own. Sure, lots of them might run in Linux or be coaxed to run in Linux and if I found that to be acceptable I probably would do it. I want them all, or as many of them as possible to run and to run as problem free as possible so I can actually spend my time enjoying the games themselves and not trying to figure out how to hammer them into working mashing config files all day long etc. I'm ok with making that compromise and don't have any problem with someone criticizing me for using Windows. Doesn't change who I am or what I believe in. I don't think GOG has changed what they believe in either.

[Edited: corrected typos]
Post edited March 03, 2014 by skeletonbow
Posted March 03, 2014
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Ichwillnichtmehr: GOG.com has stated several times, that "One world, fair price" is(was) one of their core values, just like "DRM-free" is one of their core values.

GOG.com has removed core value "One world, fair price" from their store:

Saying that GOG.com only had one core value, and that they are not abandoning that core value is not factual.
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skeletonbow: Pretending that DRM-free isn't the underlying principle of the entire business and thinking all of their principles carry equal weight in reaching the long term goal of DRM-free games everywhere is the problem. Everyone including myself loves GOG's stated principles but they don't all have equal weight in achieving their long term DRM-free everywhere goal. As I said above, there is a difference between "abandoning" a principle, and believing in a principle but realizing you need to make compromises in one of your principles in order to achieve your other principle(s) which you consider the foundation of your being.
Pretending that "One world, fair price" isn't the underlying principle of the entire business and thinking all of their principles carry equal weight in reaching the long term goal of "One world, fair price" games everywhere is the problem. Everyone including myself loves GOG's stated principles but they don't all have equal weight in achieving their long term "One world, fair price" everywhere goal. As I said above, there is a difference between "abandoning" a principle, and believing in a principle but realizing you need to make compromises in one of your principles in order to achieve your other principle(s) which you consider the foundation of your being.

GOG.com has stated several times that they would follow their core values, to make the gaming world better and more fair for the customers.

If they had stated that they were all about DRM-free, and not about all of their proclaimed core values, that would be different.
Post edited March 03, 2014 by Ichwillnichtmehr
Posted March 03, 2014
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Ichwillnichtmehr: Pretending that "One world, fair price" isn't the underlying principle of the entire business and thinking all of their principles carry equal weight in reaching the long term goal of "One world, fair price" games everywhere is the problem. Everyone including myself loves GOG's stated principles but they don't all have equal weight in achieving their long term "One world, fair price" everywhere goal. As I said above, there is a difference between "abandoning" a principle, and believing in a principle but realizing you need to make compromises in one of your principles in order to achieve your other principle(s) which you consider the foundation of your being.
That's just indicative of a disconnect in understanding that DRM-free is the base of the business pyramid. (Or maybe we'd see fixed global pricing remaining here and DRM-enabled games being added, which we're not)
Post edited March 03, 2014 by skeletonbow
Posted March 03, 2014
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skeletonbow: ...As the company grows in size and they carry more weight and perhaps compete more heavily with other distributors out there, perhaps their influence on game publishers will become larger as well, and perhaps they will be able to convince some of the ones that wouldn't budge in the past to give global fixed pricing a shot in the future also, not just on GOG but elsewhere as well. That can be a battle for another day, although they can continue to try to push for that all along going forward too and they most likely will.

Fearing DRM coming here is rather irrational despite how emotional people are about the recent issue because it would destroy their business completely and totally and defeat the underlying core premise for their existence. ...
I really agree with most of what you wrote but maybe this seems a bit unlikely. I believe they trade one of their core value away to strengthen the other. But then argueing that this increases the chances of later re-introducing their former core value I find this far-fetched and unlikely. I guess regional prices on GOG will get a boost by the recent policy change and the chances for going back to global prices are lowered. It may be, but I think it is unlikely.

Also DRM coming here might be already the case with online MP account requirements for example for AoW3. Obviously DRM itself isn't that clear defined.

Finally just let me add one comment. It all may not be enough for the DRM free revolution. It simply may not be enough to get many AAAs to GOG and to make the customers prefer GOG to Steam or others. Even a concentration on DRM free and everything else can go to hell might fail. But of course it's worth trying.
Post edited March 03, 2014 by Trilarion
Posted March 03, 2014
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Ichwillnichtmehr: GOG.com has stated several times, that "One world, fair price" is(was) one of their core values, just like "DRM-free" is one of their core values.

GOG.com has removed core value "One world, fair price" from their store:

Saying that GOG.com only had one core value, and that they are not abandoning that core value is not factual.
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skeletonbow: Pretending that DRM-free isn't the underlying principle of the entire business and thinking all of their principles carry equal weight in reaching the long term goal of DRM-free games everywhere is the problem. Everyone including myself loves GOG's stated principles but they don't all have equal weight in achieving their long term DRM-free everywhere goal. As I said above, there is a difference between "abandoning" a principle, and believing in a principle but realizing you need to make compromises in one of your principles in order to achieve your other principle(s) which you consider the foundation of your being.

Everyone makes compromises every day in their principles without actually abandoning their principles. Think of religious/ethical/moral beliefs for example. Some we believe in and adhere to strictly at all times. Others we relax a bit in order to follow a larger agenda that helps us to achieve greater heights with our other beleifs. How many people of $some_religion practice that religion 100% never breaking a value/principle or one of their deity's so called "laws" or "commandments" ever? If they bend the rules for something, does that mean they abandon their religion or belief system entirely? This is a daily occurrence for most people I imagine in one way or another conscious or not.

I am a big open source software advocate and it's a core principle of mine. I'm typing this message in Windows 7... go figure. I'm not evil, not have I abandoned my principles about open source. Being able to compromise on this has allowed me to achieve a lot more things than pigeon-holing myself with tunnel vision to run Linux 24/7, such as for example to be able to run the vast catalogue of games I own. Sure, lots of them might run in Linux or be coaxed to run in Linux and if I found that to be acceptable I probably would do it. I want them all, or as many of them as possible to run and to run as problem free as possible so I can actually spend my time enjoying the games themselves and not trying to figure out how to hammer them into working mashing config files all day long etc. I'm ok with making that compromise and don't have any problem with someone criticizing me for using Windows. Doesn't change who I am or what I believe in. I don't think GOG has changed what they believe in either.
As I stated before, I don´t really think Gog will abandon DRM-Free, if they do I´m out.
My problem is about trust; they spread the word about one world one price for a long time, now without even consulting their "loyal" community, just abandoned it.
I´ll keep buying old games here, but with fear of what other things they can do to the site to make it even more unpleasant for me to buy here.
I had trust in them, I don´t have it anymore.
I accepted season passes, pre orders, new games, indie games, expensive new titles, just igonred it and kept looking for old games.
But now they went too far.
Posted March 03, 2014
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Ichwillnichtmehr: Pretending that "One world, fair price" isn't the underlying principle of the entire business and thinking all of their principles carry equal weight in reaching the long term goal of "One world, fair price" games everywhere is the problem. Everyone including myself loves GOG's stated principles but they don't all have equal weight in achieving their long term "One world, fair price" everywhere goal. As I said above, there is a difference between "abandoning" a principle, and believing in a principle but realizing you need to make compromises in one of your principles in order to achieve your other principle(s) which you consider the foundation of your being.
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skeletonbow: That's just indicative of a disconnect in understanding that DRM-free is the base of the business pyramid.
Perhaps I missed were GOG.com said, that DRM-free is the base, and the rest of the core values are just optional Add-Ons.(Before they abandoned them of course)
Posted March 03, 2014
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Trilarion: I really agree with most of what you wrote but maybe this seems a bit unlikely. I believe they trade one of their core value away to strengthen the other. But then argueing that this increases the chances of later re-introducing their former core value I find this far-fetched and unlikely. I guess regional prices on GOG will get a boost by the recent policy change and the chances for going back to global prices are lowered. It may be, but I think it is unlikely.

Also DRM coming here might be already the case with online MP account requirements for example for AoW3. Obviously DRM itself isn't that clear defined.

Finally just let me add one comment. It all may not be enough for the DRM free revolution. It simply may not be enough to get many AAAs to GOG and to make the customers prefer GOG to Steam or others. Even a concentration on DRM free and everything else can go to hell might fail. But of course it's worth trying.
Sure, there's no guarantee as the publishers ultimately get to decide, but it's still a fight GOG can fight for all along and hopefully convince them to change their minds along the way, possibly from seeing great results from their games selling on GOG.com and them giving GOG a stake in future global negotiations if/when they have a market share large enough for a given game. Either way they're two separate fights even if GOG has tried to fight them as a single unit traditionally.

People debate about whether online multiplayer requiring license keys is DRM or not, but then people argue that a EULA is DRM and that "not doing what I like" is DRM if you read enough forum posts and youtube videos. No sense arguing or debating it with people as people generally have made up their minds what they think to be true about that and it doesn't have any useful payoff to debate the use of the term much. :)

Yeah, this isn't a guarantee that DRM-free everywhere is now absolute in the future, just that it is actually more of a possibility now for a somewhat reasonable tradeoff. Hopefully the business it generates both sides will influence the publishers to be more flexible in the future, that would be something for sure. :)
Posted March 03, 2014
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Wishbone: Ah, thanks for clearing that up. So I take it that's an official statement that Russian users are henceforth banned from making giveaways?
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TheEnigmaticT: No, not really. Russian users are, what, 15% of the market? The regional price they have is also much less than the rest of the worldf. The kind of market-distorting effects required to have Russia spontaneously outsell the rest of the world by a factor of some 3 to 1 aren't going to happen organically by some people going giveaways in the forums.

If some website sells 50,000 codes for Age of Wonders 3 on GOG.com, yeah, then we have problems. Even if in a spirit of generosity brought on by love of their fellow man in the wake of the Olympics we see dozens of Russian codes being distributed, it would pretty much sink into the statistical noise. You seem to be underestimating the kind of tomfoolery that is required for this to be an issue.
I wanted to mention something about that "russian gift codes" problem.
There is absolutely no way "some site will sell 50000 gift codes" because, sad to say, GOG is ABSOLUTELY NOT POPULAR in Russia. Yeah, there is Steam madness here too. Gamers in Russia almost no interested nor in Desura nor in GOG keys, "if its not Steam- i dont want it". Many just give away non-steam keys or trade them away with huge discount (i know, its not only in Russia, but it looks like they even less valuable here).
So, i kinda doubt you will ever see surge of crossborder gifting on GOG - some, maybe, but not a lot. And definitively you will not see real reselling here, because "GOG will not give me Steam key? forget it then".
Posted March 03, 2014
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Avaniar: ...The only way you can stop this whole thing is by making the prices adjust daily due to convertion rates. ...
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Trilarion: I just thought about it and I think if daily changes are impractically (which at least in the past bothered GOG customers not really if their games became more or less valuable on a daily basis) then why not adjust prices during slightly larger intervals, like monthly or quarterly.

So instead of defining the prices today and promising to keep an eye on them (whatever this means), it would be much more transparent to say that the prices in currencies not dollar compute by the average conversion rate of the last month / last quarter of a year and rounded to the next .x9 decimal place and are updated at the end of each month / quarter of a year. This way you would have stable and nicely looking local prices while also being guaranteed to be quite equal worldwide.

If you don't want to go to $1=1€ I would say something like this probably is the best solution.
Setting a price and promising to keep an eye on it is exactly what you're talking about. TeT said they'd be adjusting whenever the price differential got too big. What you're suggesting wouldn't provide a stable price useable in advertising, which is what GOG is worried about. Truth in advertising laws are no joke.
Posted March 03, 2014
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When a publisher enforces unfair pricing the effect of that should be less sales because of it, not more. For a store to say 'ok, that's not fair but we'll take the loss and give out a free game with every title you unfairly priced' is exactly the wrong reaction.
Publishers can only dictate pricing like that if buyers let them, and we shouldn't.

For me it's not about the actual price that may be reasonable or not; I've bought games here that were much cheaper on steam. I want to buy games from a store that stands up to these publishers instead of bowing for them and if that store is not gog I'll look further. And if it turns out every single store is spineless, well I have other hobbies too.
So unfortunately, no gog games for me while this is in effect.

BTW is it actually technically possible to close your gog-account? Haven't found a way yet...
Post edited March 03, 2014 by handsfree
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