Thanks, it's a long time ago (and GOG was I think a lot smaller then with a lot fewer transactions which probably made it harder for them to negotiate good rates) but it seems the only indication we have from GOG. I take it they were accepting credit cards directly rather than via PayPal at the time?

BTW, in case there was any confusion, as I indicated at in my first post, I'm well aware that there's usually a payment processor involved in some fashion (although it does depend on what you mean by 'payment processor too). When I said 'direct Mastercard payment', I meant payment with a credit card via the website rather than going through PayPay, however they process that paymentl.

Also just to emphasise, as I also mentioned in my first post, there's no difference for me between using PayPal or direct payment in terms of convience or cost (and don't feel I need whatever added security PayPal may provide compared to GOG since GOG are large enough that I trust them particularly since I am using a credit card as with many, with decent protections, in fact there are some advantages to using GOG such as being able to use my credit cards dispute resolution without risking being permabanned from PayPal). Well to be fair, if I haven't used PayPal recently it's slightly faster to pay directly because PayPal tries to use my PayPal USD balance which I don't want them to so I have to hide it. If i have used PayPal recently, it's nowadays slightly faster to use PayPal because I've had two recent credit card number changes so can't remember my number any more. Ultimately it's a mixmatch and the amount of extra time I spent on either is likely dwarfed by the time I spent discussing this :-P

May be things are different in different countries, but here in NZ it's trivial to choose whether to use PayPal's conversion or your credit card's conversion process when paying with PayPal via credit card. (If you have balance in the currency in question or IIRC your local currency, you do have to hide that first nowadays.) So it's also easy to see which would have been better. First tell PayPal to use their conversion and see how much it would cost in your local currency and record it but don't pay. Then tell PayPal to use your credit card's conversion, pay and wait for your bill (well I can check online in a few days). Then compare the 2 and see if you should have used PayPal, or your bank was better.

Hence why if I do use PayPal, as mentioned in my first post, I never use PayPal conversion because I've found using my banks credit card currency conversion is generally better no matter the price since my bank only charges a fixed percentage which tends to be lower than PayPal and they also provide decent exchange rates (as I think many large banks though). Because of timing issues relating to exchange rate differences, once or twice PayPal would have been slightly better than my bank as in a few cents better, but it's rare.

Hence why in my particular case, none of that is a deciding factor and why I was wondering if anyone had any idea which was better for GOG as the only suitable deciding factor. As I mentioned, the difference is likely to be very small and may be complicated anyway due to reasons like different banks, cards etc, plus a good point Trilarion made that I didn't mention, there's a fair chance GOG can't really say much due to NDAs etc. (The better the rates they negotiate, the less likely they are to be able to disclose much. To be clear, they obviously don't have to disclose the rates, just which one is better, e.g. calling one a preferred payment method but there may still potentially be contractual issues preventing that.)

BTW, I don't think anyone doubted GOG would get there money. But I also think most vendors would prefer to get the most money they can from the transaction, although most also accept the added lost is generally worth it from having multiple options if it gets more people to buy from them and for various reasons it's not necessarily worth it encouraging people to use a certain payment option or possibly even trying to work out which is better.

In fact one more thing which wasn't really mentioned before, while I was concentrating on fees there are other issues which would likely affect which payment system is better for GOG. E.g. fraud rate (I suspect PayPal is lower), successful dispute rates, how easy (including cost) it is to get their money/how long it's held (and whether in an interest bearing account or not) etc etc. So yeah it's complicated. (To be clear, I was never thinking it was a big deal, was just wondering if anyone had ever heard GOG say anything since as I mentioned it's really the only reason to choose one over the other for me.)