Runner-up as in #2 behind Steam, or runner-up as in amongst the pack of top digital distributors?

And just how many out of the games out today (ie modern games) are actually good? Or do you want GOG to become like steam and has all those crappy games released today as Call of Clone clones and side scrolling clones and mine craft clones and zombie clones and you get the picture.

I hope for this to happen as well. If GOG is able to convince AAA studios to release new games DRM-free and prove that it's a viable option, then when the day comes that those studios no longer have to mandate regional pricing through retail partnerships, I want GOG to warm them up to the idea of trying flat worldwide prices, if not a fairer regional pricing system.

If it's so hard financially to try and stick to one's principles, then maybe they should just give up and turn into another generic Steam key seller. Something like 99% of digital stores are already part of the Steam monopoly, so why fight against it? Most people wouldn't mind it, I'm sure. It's only the minority of customers that bother posting something in these threads, and you don't have to care about minorities. GOG could get all the latest AAA titles from the big publishers, and everybody would benefit from it. Right?

It was fun while it lasted, but corporate capitalism wins in the end.

this, you made a horrible move GoG this time, so many times you told us that you are all about your core values and you want us to change the industry with you, and now we have this topic... SO MUCH DISSAPOINTMENT!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6P3yOTR2Vc&t=1194

Yeah that's one of the bigger problems i hope gets sorted out this year. Because if GOG is going to start offering newer triple AAA games. I expect a big update overhaul at the very least because some games get patched like crazy.

The major point, why I'm angry about us: You are lying to us. Directly into the face.
You knew, that a lot of people wouldn't be happy about you, abandoning one of your core principles. Calling it "Good News", making a big Happy Time, is just wrong.
And you should have known it. The rumors as the Humble Bundle was adding Steam-DRM and their recent adding of local prices. But, yeah, I'm really happy about paying more now. Good news.

Second thing is: Nobody ever explained to me, why there have to be local prices.
I understand, that there is a difference between Germany and India, but between Germany and the US? Sure, people may be getting more money in the US and it can be only fair, if they have to pay less. Actually, I as a student, am also getting less money. Where is my "income pricing"?
Okay, okay, local pricing may be about taxes. So, you are charging me about 1-5 Dollar more, because publishers really need this money ot pay the taxes. To sell their game on the "GOOD NEWS 90% OFF SALE!!!!!1111eleven" six months later. I see, publishers really need thouse dollars more from europeans.

I hope you will make it transparent.
One reason I came to GOG was, that HumbleBundle changed to Euro-prices, set by publishers, without telling me, what other countries are paying. There is nearly no chance to find it out. There are some games that don't add regional pricing, and some, that look like they hate Germans, because they are adding over 25%.
Since I can't see, who's an a**hole publisher, my only conclusion is: Not to buy any game there.


What I want to say: Do it. Maybe you are right and if this is completely transparent, maybe the world will get a better place.

But don't lie to us. Don't bring "Good news" if there aren't any. BEFORE starting such a thing, ask your community in the forums about it. Tell them the risks of local pricing, your concerns and how you want to avoid it. Be honest and not just one of the companies, politicans or whatever who are distorting the truth on every of our days.

For those doubting if old games will run out or not, just check the wishlist forum and realize there are thousands of good old games that are not in GOG. Only they're abandonware (so they cannot charge you for them), or they can't grab the licenses. Blizzard, Lucasfilm/Lucasarts, Activision FPSs, and many many things of the mid 2000s, just to name a few. That's why they've changed their name to "GOG", and are keen to sell new games, but they hardly can be DRM-free, except mostly indie titles. And since many people just don't like indie titles, or prefer to wait for a cheap bundle, they've decided to sell their principles to get deals and licenses from bigger publishers. IMHO.

When they put the "Regional Rip-Off"-video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRdfYwvGTos on private(only for a short time, it is restored now), I couldn't really believe it.

That kind of tactic is not something I expected from GOG.com.

They've got a screwed up system in that regard, yes. I think that they need to start providing perpetual changelogs too. There's several ways they could introduce it, but it needs to be done.

The reason for regional pricing is largely down to physical retail and it'll be extremely difficult to change until physical retail is largely dead.

Let's say you were one of the major publishers and you were making arrangements with distributors for your latest AAA game.

- You make a deal with a distributor for the US where you agree on a recommended retail price of $50. You let them have each copy of the game for $35, giving them up to $15 profit on each copy sold.

- You then make a deal with a distributor for the UK where you agree on a retail price of £35 (pre-tax: £29.17). You sell them each copy of the game for £20.42, giving them up to £8.75 profit on each copy sold.

- You then make a deal with a distributor for the mainland EU where you agree on a retail price of €40 (pre-tax: €33.33). You sell them each copy of the game for €23.33, giving them up to €10 profit on each copy sold.

So with all prices in $US that would be:

US price = $50
UK price = ~$58
EU price = ~$55

You have to agree in the contracts with each of these distributors to sell the game in their region at the set RRP (the retailers, of course, don't *have* to sell at the full RRP themselves - the final sale price and how much profit they make, or even if they sell at a loss, is entirely up to them, as they are selling a physical product). If you don't agree to this then they will refuse to carry your games and you will have no retail sales there. Sales which you cannot afford to lose as they still account for a major proportion of your total revenue.

This presents an issue when it comes to digital sales, with the only solutions being either a single price worldwide - but the most expensive anywhere in the world - or regional pricing. Almost nobody would buy digitally if they had to pay the most expesive prices in the world, so we get regional pricing.

Worldwide pricing is easy for older games and indie developers that self-publish digitally, but when it comes to brand new big name releases it's currently next to impossible.


I'd strongly advise against it. If you're not going to buy a game here due to regional pricing then you shouldn't buy it elsewhere either, as doing so would be very hypocritical and do nothing to help improve the industry:

- If you buy it from another digital store, you accept regional pricing anyway, plus DRM.
- If you buy it at retail then you don't just accept regional pricing but also strengthen the main cause for regional pricing and make it even harder to change. And again accept DRM.

As I understand it GOG has done this out of necessity to make much greater advances with their main goal - that being DRM-free releases. It sucks that they have to accept regional pricing, but regional pricing will be impossible to overcome until physical retail is sufficiently dead so as to have no influence over publishers. GOG can do nothing about that situation, but the DRM situation is something that GOG can improve *now*.

I still have faith that GOG will do their best to try to ensure worldwide/fair pricing wherever possible and will push harder for it when the time is right. It just won't be possible in *all* cases, not yet at least...

Well, if I can buy it cheaper elsewhere without DRM, directly from the developer, I don't see why I should buy it on GOG where I have to pay fees for the euro->dollar AND pay the same or higher price. I mean if I have to choose between regional pricing or regional pricing, I take the cheapest + no DRM.

As mentioned in that post, this fresh "good news" is just "adding insult to injury" in -my- case.
But I wasn't thinking about regular retail there (since most of that these days is overpriced, shoddy packaging anyway, not to mention when it's just keys inside). I'm talking about the various crowd-funded venues that offer DRM-free physical copies (usually of "collectors" quality), and some publishers that similarly offer DRM-free physical copies directly from them, sometimes for a limited quantity/time though (like WadjetEye or Screen7).

Well they did release this http://gogcom.tumblr.com/post/76964083614/recently-updated-001 but something like that really needs to be on the front page.

That's assuming you can get it cheaper elsewhere without DRM. It's certainly possible for indie games, but I doubt indie games are going to be as affected by this policy change... if any game uses regional pricing then it will be because the publisher/developer decided to do so and most indie developers appear to be quite happy to sell their games with a single worldwide price.