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On March 31st we are going to discontinue the Fair Price Package program. Let us explain the reasoning behind this decision.

We came up with Fair Price Package (FPP) as a way to make up the price difference between various countries. Some games on GOG.COM have regional pricing, meaning the price of the same game in one place can be higher compared to its price in North America. In countries where the game is more expensive, we give users the equivalent of the price difference in GOG Wallet funds. In actual numbers, on average, we give users back 12% of the game price from our own pocket. In some cases, this number can reach as high as 37%.

In the past, we were able to cover these extra costs from our cut and still turn a small profit. Unfortunately, this is not the case anymore. With an increasing share paid to developers, our cut gets smaller. However, we look at it, at the end of the day we are a store and need to make sure we sell games without a loss.

Removing FPP is not a decision we make lightly, but by making this change, we will be able to offer better conditions to game creators, which — in turn — will allow us to offer you more curated classic games and new releases. All DRM-free.

We wanted to make sure you have some lead time to still benefit from the Fair Price Package. The program will last until the 31st of March, 2019, so if you would like to take advantage of it, now is the time. The funds you gather from the program will keep the 12 months expiration date from the moment you’ve been granted your last funds.
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First of all, thank you for your support. This was not an easy decision to discontinue the FPP program and we're grateful to you for understanding the reasons behind it. We see that quite a few of you raised concerns about GOG's future. As a part of publicly traded company, we can't comment on any financial results until they are officially reported, but we want to ensure you everything is good with GOG. Being part of a big gaming company, some reports - especially some given by significant media outlets - can often sound much scarier than reality.

You've been also concerned about your access to the games you’ve purchased on GOG. We've covered this topic years ago and it's been in our User Agreement for a long time (please check the section 17.3). This is not only a legal obligation to you but a core part of our ethics as a company.

But don’t worry, all is good, and we have a great plan for the future of GOG. We can’t wait for you to see some of the exciting things we have coming very soon.

EDIT: pinned
Post edited February 26, 2019 by elcook
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elcook: You've been also concerned about your access to the games you’ve purchased on GOG. We've covered this topic years ago and it's been in our User Agreement for a long time (please check the section 17.3). This is not only a legal obligation to you but a core part of our ethics as a company.
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surfersurfer: "17.3 It seems very unlikely, but if we have to stop providing access to GOG services and GOG content permanently (not because of any breach by you), we will try to give you at least sixty (60) days advance notice by posting a note on www.gog.com and sending an email to every registered users – during that time you should be able to download any GOG content you purchased."

Is "... we will try ..." really a legal obligation?
They can't say "we will". They would be in hot water if something went wrong and the servers were impounded, etc.
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loki21: The FPP was always a joke anyway. It was introduced to cover cdpr when they put regional pricing on the witcher 3. "look at us being fair! We're going to charge you literally double the price as elsewhere, but have some store credit, because that's totally like money, right?"

They claimed they 'had to' use regional pricing because their lawyers told them to, a particularly laughable excuse when applied to a country whose government took Apple, Adobe and Microsoft to task for the exact same predatory practices.

I lost all faith in GOG at that time, and have not made a purchase since. There was nothing even remotely 'fair' about any of it.
They don't set the regional pricing. The game developers do. If they give "wallet cash" back to offset a regional pricing difference then it comes out of their pocket.
Post edited February 27, 2019 by Graymatter
“We will adamantly continue to fight for games with flat worldwide pricing.”

:-/
DRM-free next?
Thanks GOG for the feedback. Still my go to store for games. The only DRM free store.
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Graymatter: Thanks GOG for the feedback. Still my go to store for games. The only DRM free store.
Not the only one but the biggest one with only drm free.
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drevo2: “We will adamantly continue to fight for games with flat worldwide pricing.”

:-/
DRM-free next?
Yay... No more Stupid FPP which it really wasn't it was a HORRIBLE experiment that backfired.
Understandable, but makes me buy even less games on GOG!
I would suggest to work on the problems that your store has and make it more attractive.

- Faster updates
Most times they have 1-7 day delay compared to Steam. A few ganes haven't got updates at all.

- Galaxy Client for Linux
I don't understand why this hasn't happened yet. It can not be that complicated to port this "simple" client.

- Better Linux Support
Lots of linux games still not on GOG even if they have a linux version in other stores.
Mostly because of the missing Galaxy Client

- change Web Layout
I still don't like it. Esp. the news at the end of the page. I don't read them very often now.
How about an extra page for them e.g. www.gog.com/news ?

IMHO GOG was awesame as GOG stood for "Good old games". But since you decided to release newer games your store has become less attractive every year. We had some DRM-Crap (AoW3) on the way. Some "DRM-Free" special releases like Armello and a few other games.
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PhilsComputerLab: So I'm from Australia, and often we have higher prices. But I have never heard of this Fair Price Program, and never received a wallet fund.

Which countries have been part of this Fair Price Program?
Most of the games that are regionally priced in Australia are cheaper than the US base price. So of course you don't get the fair price package for these games:

www.an-ovel.com/cgi-bin/magog.cgi?ver=977&scp=gdspurioc&dsp=ipgfsorlcmbaxyzXhDFGHIJKATSWP0512348&o rd=&flt=pra~ au~&opt=n&myf=WedFeb270900072019_empty_x7wBJ7AjEpzdi

Edit: There are some exceptions though. Look at Anno 1602 or Anno 1404 for example. For these you should see the fair price package when you visit the store page.
Post edited February 27, 2019 by PaterAlf
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I can understand the move and continue to appreciate GOG in spite of it.
What is more difficult to digest is all the users from NA making fun of those who complain. Guys, you are sitting there smug, paying the lowest price for games. If it were YOUR price being raised, you would be bitching all over the place, I've already seen similar things happen.
So, be glad you won't be affected, but maybe, at least, don't criticize those that have to pay significantly more than you and are not happy about it, thanks.
Whilst I suppose it's reassuring to have someone in blue from GOG tell us everything is okay, don't worry...I've worked with a few companies that went under and have seen a few others from the outside. And in every single case, the company in question, just before going under, told everyone "don't worry, everything is fine, we have a plan". Sometimes literally the day before!

Don't worry. I'm sure it's all fine. It's just a shop anyway. Shops close all the time, whilst it's still open keep buying what you want. When it closes, it's not the end of the world.
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drevo2: “We will adamantly continue to fight for games with flat worldwide pricing.”

:-/
DRM-free next?
I will just download all my 248 games and delete my account then :P
This is pretty annoying. Still, it's nice to know you're only committed to something you passed off a moral stance until it's inconvenient to you.


But then I found that when you refused to give me a refund for a game that didn't work by blaming my machine, despite it meeting the minimum specs for 25 year old game.
I think the decision is a good thing for GOG and CDPR for two reasons.

First, a discount of 40% is still a 40% discount only now it affects the value of the regional currency. For example, note the following exchanges rates.

$1 USD = €0.88 Euro
$1 USD = $1.39 Australian Dollar
$1 USD = £0.75 Pound Sterling
$1 USD = zł3.80 Polish złoty

So a 40% discount on those currencies:

$1 with a 40% discount = $0.60
€0.88 with a 40% discount = €0.36
£0.75 with a 40% discount = £0.30
zł3.80 with a 40% discount = zł1.52

Instead of everyone paying a normalized price in USD, the discount will reflect the percentage on the customer's currency without GOG having to dip into their funds to subsidized the difference.

Second, since CDPR will not need to subsidize the difference, this affords them the ability to increase the dev's cut and make GOG more attractive to sell on.

Epic Store is a total joke, but they have one thing right by giving more money to the publisher. At the moment, Steam isn't creating a competitive edge in this area. GOG is more nimble and can react faster.
Post edited February 27, 2019 by Toshi.703
I'm still mad you allowed DLCs.
Little by little you allow what's wrong with the industy to sneak in. DLCs, regional pricing, mandatory third party software (galaxy may not be mandatory per say, but some games require it for multiplayer, so... it kind of is; devs of multiplayer should be forced to include direct IP and LAN (both work basically the same way)).

Now as far as fair price package is concerned, I'm not particularly against its removal, it was never really an advantage to begin with since the extra money spent on GOG stayed on GOG (so saying you take the cost upon yourselves is misplaced). But there are alternatives. Such as not waging war against those who trick the local laws by using VPNs (it's not your job and you can't be held accountable) or simply having a fair price policy.

Or just let the publishers do whatever they want and HOPEFULLY people will be smart enough to boycott them (but they won't, cue in DLC).

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elcook: We can’t wait for you to see some of the exciting things we have coming very soon.
Colour me very worried. Whenever a store announces "something exciting" it has to do with removal of property rights and or addition of mandatory online connectivity for the end user.

Maybe CDP should open a real store on GOG. I mean a PHYSICAL store.
Sell the games on GOG in a box, giving back DRM-free its true meaning. Now THIS would set you apart from the concurrence since steam KILLED the physical market (it didn't disappear naturally).
It would allow you to sell collector editions as well (that's the new fad to keep people hooked up on consoles).
It worked well for the Witcher after all, didn't it?
Post edited February 27, 2019 by SPTX
I kinda knew this was going to happen when Epic store and other Stores reduced their cut to let devs get more.
I dont mind it if more money goes to the devs as a result.
Makes no difference to me. My region was always paying in full glory USD pricing all the time even if its not part of NA.