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General discussionAnnouncement: Big Preorders & Launch Day Releases Coming!(70 posts)(70 posts)
(70 posts)
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Posted February 21, 2014
The DRM-Free Revolution Continues with Big Pre-Orders and Launch Day Releases!

Good news! GOG.com is going to bring you more fantastic launch day releases, preorders, and other exciting new content from some of our favorite developers. We've lined up 3 big titles that we will be bringing to GOG.com in the next couple of months for sale or preorder that we think will be hits with all of our gamers; and we have more equally exciting games coming up soon.

If you've been a member of the site for a long time, you may recall that when we launched sales of The Witcher 2 on GOG.com, we had to add in regional pricing. The game cost different amounts in in the US, the UK, the European Union, and Australia. We're doing something like that once again in order to bring you new titles from fantastic bigger studios. Since we don't accept currencies other than USD on GOG.com right now, we'll be charging the equivalent of the local price in USD for these titles. We wish that we could offer these games at flat prices everywhere in the world, but the decision on pricing is always in our partners' hands, and regional pricing is becoming the standard around the globe. We're doing this because we believe that there's no better way to accomplish our overall goals for DRM-Free gaming and GOG.com. We need more games, devs, and publishers on board to make DRM-Free gaming something that's standard for all of the gaming world!

That brings with it more good news, though! As mentioned, we have three games we're launching soon with regional pricing--two RPGs and a strategy game--and while we can't tell you what they are yet because breaking an NDA has more severe penalties than just getting a noogie, we're confident that you'll be as excited about these games as we are. For a limited time, we will be offering anyone who pre-orders or buys one of them a free game from a selection as a gift from GOG.com, just like we did for The Witcher 2.

If you have any questions, hit us up in the comments below and we'll be happy to answer (to the best of our ability).

EDIT: Since we've answered a lot of the common questions already here (and lest you think that we've ignored you), it may be handy for you to check out the forum thread about this and search for staff answers by clicking this link here. (hat tip to user Eli who reminded us that the feature even exists. :)
Posted February 21, 2014
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Impaler26: It's sad to see regional pricing coming to GOG! :(

I hope the games from those "big publishers" are worth it (somewhat at least)...
Divinity: Original Sin is an example of the kind of game we're talking about; it's already launched on Steam for early access with regional pricing, and it wouldn't be very fair of Larian to give our EU and UK users a better value for the game if they buy it from GOG.com later as opposed to Steam now.
Post edited February 21, 2014 by TheEnigmaticT
Posted February 21, 2014
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TheEnigmaticT: Divinity: Original Sin is an example of the kind of game we're talking about; it's already launched on Steam for early access with regional pricing, and it wouldn't be very fair of Larian to give our EU and UK users a better value for the game if they buy it from GOG.com later as opposed to Steam now.
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Piranjade: But I'll still get my two GOG codes as a kickstarter pledger, right? Although I pledged the same amount as people from other "regions"?
Yep. That's an already agreed-upon transaction. I'm just talking about people who are buying games like that in the future.
Posted February 21, 2014
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SCPM: Questions:
Can we still gift these games to gamers from different regions, and will each region still be getting the same versions of these games?
For releases of launch day stuff, I have no idea. We don't have any plans to change what we're offering in the classic game catalog, however.
Posted February 21, 2014
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Gonchi: So will you be giving GOG credits to those that will have to pay more due to this?
Well, for these initial games we're talking about we have a plan to offer free games from a selected list. Beyond that, it's going to be on a case-by-case basis for a while I imagine. We certainly intend to try and offer something for every game that we sell we regional pricing. We know that 1 euro isn't 1 dollar, and we want to try to offset that.
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TheEnigmaticT: Divinity: Original Sin is an example of the kind of game we're talking about
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ne_zavarj: What other games are you going to release ?
I can't say. NDAs carry with them some fearsome penalties. :)
Post edited February 21, 2014 by TheEnigmaticT
Posted February 21, 2014
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jamyskis: So what's next? Adding DRM because "the decision on DRM is in our partners' hands"?
No. DRM is not negotiable. We had to decide which was more important to us: making more games DRM-Free, or keeping flat pricing? Many games that we could add to GOG.com (DRM-free, even!) are not available to us because of the legal messes that are involved with regional pricing.

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jamyskis: Also, quoting The Witcher 2 is a little disingenuous, because that was not a strategic choice, but rather a court-enforced choice between either pulling it from GOG or applying regional pricing due to a botched agreement with Namco Bandai.
Yeah, that's a case where regional pricing ended up being required for the game, and seeing lawsuits like that has a certain chilling effect on other souls who may be adventurous enough to try DRM-free. This is what had to happen to get more games that are legally tied up with regional pricing available DRM-free.

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jamyskis: I get the feeling that the classic releases are also going to be bumped up in price in the months to come, especially where EA, Activision and Ubisoft are concerned.
We honestly don't know what's going to happen with our classic games (who knows what happens when lawyers get involved?) but we can say that it is in no way our intent to bump up these prices for different regions.
Posted February 21, 2014
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Dzsono: I understand the dilemma. I expect there will be some kind of incentive (free games to the value overpaid?) to keep in line with GOG's ethos?
Yep. As noted in the post above, we will be offering free games in regions that pay more for these first three games. Beyond that, we will do our best to offer something to users who have regional pricing, but since there's no agreements in place for games we have yet to sign, it's harder to promise things.
Posted February 21, 2014
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Orolo: could you at least show us whether there's regional pricing on a game (next to the price or whatever, not somewhere where you have to search for it) and what the prices in other regions are?
You'll see the price that you're paying on the game page with the USD equivalent under it. It should be pretty evident.
Posted February 21, 2014
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jamyskis: And more worryingly, it gives publishers a bargaining chip to introduce DRM. They've seen now that GOG is willing to abandon core principles, and it will likely embolden them to push the issue of DRM even further.
It really doesn't. The reverse is true, actually. There's many games that we've been told, "We'd love to sell it on GOG, but the regional pricing is an issue..." Now the ball's in their court, and I expect we'll see lots of good things coming from it.

If we ever add DRM to GOG.com, I'll eat my freaking hat. And video it for you all to see. ;)
Posted February 21, 2014
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TheEnigmaticT: We honestly don't know what's going to happen with our classic games (who knows what happens when lawyers get involved?)
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IAmSinistar: Apology for the very select quoting, and I hope I'm not reading too much into this out of context. But does this mean that lawyers are involved right now? Is GOG's whole business model under scrutiny and you are being pressured to implement these broad changes in an extended version of what happened during The Witcher 2?

I can understand if you can't comment on this. Speech is to lawyers what sunlight is to vampires.
In the business world, lawyers are always involved. :)
Posted February 21, 2014
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TheEnigmaticT: You'll see the price that you're paying on the game page with the USD equivalent under it. It should be pretty evident.
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HypersomniacLive: I'm confused - since you only accept USD dollars, can you give us an example to clarify what exactly you mean?
Sure, game is 35 euro. Since we aren't set up to process euro, we charge ~$45 in USD (the USD equivalent) for it and explain why.
Posted February 21, 2014
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HGiles: Wait, limited DRM? This is the first time I've heard of that.
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gibbeynator: GOG did a survey around a year ago, asking people about putting limited DRM in games in an attempt to bring in some newer releases. We said no, and they said "we super duper pinkie promise to only sell DRM-filled games if they have some kind of offline mode". Not sure what happened afterwards, but it was surveyed alongside Early Access, and that's supposed to be coming sometime this year.
We decided it was a terrible idea, but we wanted to gauge the community interest about it in general. The community actually didn't seem to mind it, which is interesting, but we decided in the end it's not right for us.
Posted February 21, 2014
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Gandos: However, before I decide how to proceed in light of this, I would like to ask two questions and I hope someone from the GOG team will be willing to answer me:

- Does the introduction of regional pricing also mean the introduction of regional lockout? Meaning, are we going to start seeing things like games not being available for purchase in certain regions or only being available in censored form?

- Much like how GOG has been trying to offer complete games whenever possible in spite of the introduction of DLC, will GOG also try to negotiate for flat pricing whenever possible?
For the first one, I dunno. We don't currently have any agreements in place where this is going to happen. If it ever comes up in the future where someone can't find the rights for, I dunno, Mauritania or Turkey, yeah. I can see us doing that.

For the second question, we will most definitely press for flat pricing whenever we can. We're from Europe after all (well, everyone in the company but me. w0rma, and TurnipSlayer), and we know how regional can be handled poorly sometimes.
Posted February 21, 2014
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stoicsentry: Why can't we keep it "one fair price" all around the world and then just charge the Europeans and Australians the taxes they're supposed to pay? I think that would still be cheaper for them.
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HypersomniacLive: Honest question - wouldn't that also apply to US users regarding Sales Taxes?
Sales taxes aren't levied on online transactions across state (or international) borders.

At least, for the moment. That may change in 2015 or 2016.
Posted February 21, 2014
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Elenarie: I love it how you say that you had to pick between EITHER "DRM-Free" or regional pricing. This is a brilliant gem, because we all know that DRM is tied to having non-regional pricing, right, right?
The phrasing may have been a little bit inelegant. It was that we could either sign these games and bring them DRM-free (I don't see any other digital distributor who's our size trying to sign AAA content DRM-free, do you?), or else stay with flat regional pricing and then not have the games.

GOG.com will remain DRM-Free, certainly. The games that we're bringing you guys? If they're not DRM-free here, I don't see them being DRM-Free anywhere.
Posted February 21, 2014
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IAmSinistar: As someone in the States I'm interested in how regional pricing will affect gifting. Will I have to restructure my giveaways in order to buy the right region version for the winner? And how the heck will gifting keys work, will they be tied to regions as well?
To my knowledge, there's no plans currently underweigh to change how gifting works.
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Community
General discussionAnnouncement: Big Preorders & Launch Day Releases Coming!(70 posts)(70 posts)
(70 posts)