The old "it's just business" argument that doesn't change anything about why a business practice is considered wrong. Indeed, regional prices are done exactly because publishers and distributors feel they can get away with it. They know perfectly well that it's wrong toward their customers, that's why they're not upfront about it and try to put a spin like "good news" on it if it has to be mentioned. Valve and its publishers would never host a site like steamprices.com (much less mention the price differences on the game pages) because they're ashamed of the truth.

That he is actually me and you seem to have not understood my post; I was not asking about how to actually redeem my code on GOG (but thanks anyway), I put that "existential" question at the end of my post in direct relation to the fact that I'm going to be counted among the people that got Divinity: Original Sin - a game that seems more than likely to be among the first ones to be sold here under the regional pricing model, a model I oppose in its current form and way of implementation.

I hope it's clearer now.

I marked the relevant sentences in your post in bold, because they raise an important question when it comes to this subject. That being...what reason do we have to believe that introducing DRM will promote GOG's business?

They key word here is "if"...if that is going to promote their business. The problem is, I have yet to see anyone present how doing so would actually have such an effect. On the other hand, I can think of several reasons why it wouldn't promote their business and would, in fact, irrecoverably harm it; the most important of these would be that DRM-free is what sets GOG apart from Steam. If GOG loses that, customers practically have no reason to use GOG in particular over Steam or any other DD service. Sure, you could argue that DRM would allow for more games on the service...but again, Steam does DRMed games better, so publishers and customers would still be much more attracted to it than GOG.

We don't even need to talk hypothetically here...we've seen first-hand how DD services that tried to compete on Steam's terms ended up getting marginalised and relegated to being Steam key sellers. So quite simply, as long as Steam exists, introducing DRM would be financial suicide for GOG. Heck, even if Steam ceased to exist, it would still be a bad business decision; there is plenty of other DD services with DRM and introducing it would place GOG in direct competition with them.

Now, granted, just because doing something would be incredibly stupid doesn't mean that a company isn't going to do it. After all, companies are run by people and those people can end up making stupid decisions for whatever reason. But speaking strictly from a logical standpoint, there is no reason to believe that introducing DRM would help GOG grow its business.

Honestly, this actually isn't the first time GOG weighted the value of DRM-free and the value of something else and ultimately decided that DRM-free was more important. When they started to introduce new games, they did so under the belief that having more DRM-free games, whether new or old, was more important than focusing solely on classic releases. The decision was extremely controversial among the userbase and people discuss even today whether it was a wise move and whether GOG became successful because of offering DRM-free games or because of offering classic games....but no matter which side of the debate you are on, the end result was that the decision hasn't hurt GOG's growth in the slightest.

GOG is now making the same sort of gamble, only this time, the other value is something more important: the value of flat pricing. Personally, I am disappointed with the decision and, even looking at it more objectively, there are certainly drawbacks to it and it could backfire on them. However, unlike with introducing DRM, introducing regional pricing might indeed improve their business. Not just because it would allow GOG to include games from publishers for whom flat pricing was more of a stumbling block than DRM-free, but also because it would allow certain games to come earlier to the service. While the latter is not important for certain users (myself included), it is kind of important to GOG; I can't count the amount of times a GOG would have a release and a lot of the replies to it would consist of something along the lines of "nice, but I already have it on Steam" or "darn it, I just bought this game on Steam last week since I didn't think it would come here". Assuming that isn't just anecdotal evidence and that it does represent a frequent occurrence, that is indeed money that GOG is losing out on and it would be in their interest if games could come to the service as soon as reasonably possible (although if it's DRM-free that is delaying their arrival, then obviously, GOG can't and shouldn't do anything about that for reasons I already mentioned).

Also, while I've always found this argument kind of flimsy, you could also argue that regional pricing would make the service more attractive to users from countries such as Russia and Brazil. Whether or not it is worth doing so at the expense of users from Australia and certain European countries is a whole different can of worms that I'd rather not get into.

Is the gamble going to pay off? I don't know; we'll just have to wait and see.

Just another one guy venting about this, so, sorry for the rant and this will all be "IMHO" and "JM2C":

Sorry GOG, but these aren't good news, at all!

If, IF, you had to pull this one for having all of the big dogs on board, like Disney/LucasArts, Microsoft, SEGA and similar, then it could be someting more easy to assimilate, or at leats, something that just would left a bad taste in your mouth, that you could wash off with water....

But, to destroy and let go of one of your previous 4 core values, just because of these 3 big titles, that just is something that I can't accept easily.

I loved your store because it was different from the others stores:
1)- great games
2)- DRM-free, easy to install, no fuss about it, no other software to install (I don't even use the GOGDownloader)
3)- great Goodies (not just the installer for the game)
4)- 1 price for all, no 1$=1€ crap, like other stores
5)- great support/customer interactions

So far, 3) has been seriously lacking, specially for most of the newer games, which has, sometimes, made me ponder and wait, instead of just grab some games I wanted, just because I knew there were better releases in other stores (I'm not even mentioning best deals). But, I had hope GOG editions would be "revamped", with the passing of time, so, I waited... GOG sales come, but the games were still incomplete, so, despite the great deals, I postponed their purchase (I had other games to play, so, I could wait.)...

Then, this past week came, and I can now grab the following games I was looking to buy from GOG, with their fuller editions, more complete than I now suspect will ever be on GOG, and for a fraction of the price I could have hoped to buy, from GOG, in the past sales....

The Swapper (with soundtrack)
Giana Sisters (with soundtrack)
The Book of Unwritten Tales: Digital Deluxe Edition
The Critter Chronicles Collectors Edition
The Raven: Legacy of a Master Thief - Digital Deluxe Edition

The only catch, Steam... no DRM-free version for the last 3 games... I haven't used Steam yet (so far, GOG completely fullfiled my gaming needs and free gaming time, so, I felt no need to look for alternatives), but, getting a fuller game release, and, on top of that, pay even less? Heck, with this price, I can easily think of this as "rental"...

I really can't get one thing... WHY, why, aren't these items available on GOG? Why haven't they been available before, where I could have given my money to GOG?

And now, another nail in the coffin, regional pricing? The economy is a piece of crap, as it is (I won't even get into a rant about 5$ for a US citizen might not have the same value as 5$ for a citizen from Portugal, for instance), and now we will have to deal with more assimilarities? Thanks a lot!

Even if a guy waits for a sale, the fact will always be the same, different people will be paying different prices, and that just plain sucks... some of us will be first class clients, other will be second class...

Very aprehensive about the future GOG will bring...

IT IS IT I FOUND IT!!!!! PLEASE WATCH!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRyotVTwmy0

No they'd never host a site like that because the publishers would get ansy about it and demand they not do it.
I'm not saying the business practice IS right, sure with a choice between having it or not everyone would prefer not; but THIS is the deal on table. GOG didn't put regional pricing on the table the publisher did and guess what at the end of the day regardless of which way GOG.com chooses to go the choice is STILL yours. buy or not (because it'll still be available elsewhere).
The only difference here is, is that people who will try not to allow the deal to go through aim at NOT allowing others the same freedom YOU HAVE in that choice, because the people who DO NOT retain the same choice that you will continue to have are here for DRM-Free games.

What is more reprehensible having a rip off deal, or retracting others right to choose in a free market.
I don't have to deal with rip off deals, i can ignore them.
People like you I have to constantly do battle with to protect my consumer rights to choose.

A few thoughts...

Let's say some peoples' fears came to be and GOG decided to accept some sort of DRM.

It would have to be some kind of online activation based system, most likely account-based. At the bare minimum this would mean online activation would be required every time you install a game afflicted with this DRM. This would immediately be less convenient than Steam, so why bother with it over Steam? There's a reason why so many people take a "Steam or no sale" stance and it's not because of Steam's DRM.

This naturally leads into the thought of them making some kind of DRM client. But then they'd just be another Steam clone with fewer titles at the same pricing as everywhere else, yet another login to remember, yet another client to run and so they would still struggle to find acceptance. There's a reason why EA, Ubisoft etc. are having to force people to use their respective attempts at copying Steam by tying all their games into them. And just look at the resentment that has caused.

I just don't see DRM on GOG *ever* happening. GOG would be abandoning their identity and it would mean suicide for them.

I can see many more games receiving regional pricing (including new releases of older games), but I'm confident that GOG will do their best to encourage worldwide pricing (or at least fairer regional pricing), or at least try to convince rights holders to switch to worldwide pricing some time after release. Possibly even incentivise worldwide pricing in some way - either through increased promotion, adding a "worldwide fair price" badge or so to the gamecards of those games, offering a better cut of the sale price or something I haven't thought of. I think games already released here are unlikely to be affected; simply pointing out that they won't sell any better if they suddenly decide to change the pricing for the worse is a pretty strong argument against that.

Now region locking and censorship on the other hand are a very real and legitimate concern, moreso than the pricing issue IMO, with censorship already having precedence with TW2. We'll just have to wait and see about those :/

Yes, what a great idea! Then DRM-free will be deemed a failure and we'll continue to be stuck with the vast majority of new games having both DRM and regional pricing and instead of possibly changing at least one bad thing about the industry, we'll have changed nothing - and will infact have defeated an attempt at improvement! What a big win for us that would be!

I’m going to be a bit cynical here and add that GOG suspected the outcome of this and chose to make the announcement on a Friday evening so that the potential backlash would ware off over the weekend when things are generally slow on the forum. Not sure how the online media works in this regard, but given the misleading title I suppose it wouldn’t make any headlines anywhere unless someone actually went ahead to read through the thread.


@Gandos
I just saw that you replied to me. I will read your post carefully and reply a bit later - I'm still trying to catch up.

As someone pointed out, the EU and Australian demographic is quite a good chunk of GOGs business. Does it outweigh the potential lost of this vs being picked up by other demographics?. I don't know. Hope their finance guys have projected all possible potential outcomes (good and bad) before they make the final plunge :/.
DRM free never in question. Most ads you see from GOG leave the drm free impression more in mind much more than flat pricing - the latter never entered my mind since i started buying from GOG back in 2009.
Anyone tell me the positives for end users out of regional pricing? (aside from certain countries getting comparatively cheaper prices)

It had a regional price when it was released. If you bought later on, I believe they removed that limitation. As I recall that's because CDPR had deals with distributors that made it impossible for them to sell the game here for the same price globally. Or at least not without charging the highest price in any of the regions.

Gog made up for that by including free games to make up the difference. Something that's not guaranteed to happen in the future.

Please dont compare prices for games in an Indie bundle to store prices. Not the same thing mate
AND its already been pointed out a few times - soundtracks are outsourced in a lot of instances for indie games - devs have no control over their inclusion to sale product on GOG

There are always first and second class clients.
Do you go with a client that keeps your business aflot or the one that could expand your business ten fold and re-establish keeping afloat.
Ultimately it's a decision that businesses make and they have every right to make themselves.
Not all clients are the same, and even if they have simile` do they represent the same value to the company.
For a physical good it could simply be the hassle of even trying to figure out how to get a product to international customers who would gladly pay the extra to do it.
For a Mom & Pop business this could be a big thing.
Maybe they don't want to expand.
How much they care about you as a customer is up to them, not you and your sense of entitlement.

I agree with most of what you said, but unfortunately there's no arguing with these people, they are hellbent on making this seem like an ethical quest for principles and values, and apparently they don't care about DRM-free anymore, as if all that GOG meant to them, all this time, was worldwide flat pricing. DRM-free?! Nah, never heard of it, that's not even the main reason for more than 70% (conservatively) of GOG customers buying their games here.

I'm going to say that it will. If the launch day titles are well regarded and GOG keeps the regional prices relatively reasonable, especially using incentives and/or credits with those, then DRM-free games can do very well here in several genres, I think. I think that's a reasonable prediction.

I'm not sure if it's even a gamble right now. I suppose it's a a little risky, but I don't know how much. It would be different if regional prices weren't the norm everywhere else, but they are.

Sorry about that, I got you mixed up and misunderstood your question.

About your "existential question":

When we backed the game, there was no regional pricing, so I don't think we can be counted as supporters(or the initiators) of the regional pricing system that GOG.com wants to implement.

But most of the Kickstarter do want to use GOG.com to distribute the DRM-free version of their games, so I think it is important to hold GOG.com's feet to the fire and tell them to stick with their 3 core values.

This way, hopefully, it will be like:

- We promised our backers to bring our game to GOG.com.

- GOG.com has a DRM-free + fair price policy.

- So we make the game DRM-free and sell it at a fair price.