I'm still waiting an official response from the GOG team .

If i have to pay 27% VAT from January :

$5.99 will be $7.6
$9.99 will be $12.68

So basically the EU wants more money?

Normally, GOG prices are VAT inclusive so you won't see prices differences (for games which aren't regionally priced at least).

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Anyway, a general advice for my fellow Europeans : if you're interested in buying some e-books (or whatever "e-stuff") on some personal websites which only provide a typical "paypal" payment gateway, it might be wise to buy their stuff before 1st January because you don't know how they will handle it (increasing prices to cover administrative costs or region-restricted with European IP's left out)

Not good news for a number of people and think will make it a headache for companies not help them.

This sounds like its going to be almost impossible for people to implement when selling through digital platforms where identification of which country people are in is impossible.

There are digital platforms that don't even record the users location which will make it impossible for people in the EU to properly collect VAT on their sales through such sites.

Pro-Tip:
the Envato markets (Audiojungle, etc.) don't charge the VAT until 2015 so EU customers (unless you're a registered business and so can deduct the VAT) still have 2 days to buy assets for their projetcs at a general "discount" if I can say so... I know one Eastern-European music composer who's gonna be 150$ richer for new year's eve :o)

I am afraid we will be hit by this even though we are not in the EU :(

Entirely depends on whether GOG decides to take a little hit from profits - or at least really flex the fair price package (I can imagine this VAT stuff will be dealt with largely in that way) - or institute a general price hike, which I think is unlikely.

I doubt there's going to be much of a split in what large distributors/businesses do in regards to this.

http://www.gog.com/wishlist/site/statement_on_eu_vat_changes_in_2015

Made a wishlist option for a statment on how GOG will handle this.

No need for a statement, we'll know how it ends up in less than 48 hours ;) (potential shitstorm incoming? ^o^)

Considering that increasingly more European countries are getting nationalistic with rather strong anti-EU rhetoric, this new VAT policy looks like an attempt to please these nationalist critics, a bribe almost; 'you don't like us ? here's some money for you, see...we do care about nationalistic goals'. Wasn't the main point of the EU project to make international business smoother ?

Questions I ask myself:
Will this actually encourage local game development and create more jobs ?
Will it strengthen the power of Steam as indie developers might feel discouraged from selling games directly to us ?
Will piracy increase as price disparity rises further, and will it consequently lead to harsher controls ?
When it comes to console games, will it lead to more people buying used games and less new ones ?

I'm trying to understand who will actually benefit from this, apart from the political parties.
From what I can tell the consumers are the big losers.

Will this actually encourage local game development and create more jobs ?

It's a complex question as it depends pretty much on the business plan. When you mean more jobs, I guess it's a stable job with a "salaryman" contract. To give some numbers, I digged in the annual reports of a VG company near my town (Fishing Cactus): they have 24 full-time workers, their annual gross revenue is near 900.000€ but the amount of paid salary equals around 800.000€ so you see how quickly a company can fail with this business model (but hey at least they employ local people).

The freelance partnerships is more used in indie game dev as it's more flexible (you don't have to pay a salary once the assigned job is finished) and the main consequence of the VAT change would be that some EU contractors don't have a VAT number (because they're below the threshold like in UK) so a VAT registered freelance would have more trouble if he accepts their job as they would be considered as customers (and thus doing all the MOSS-compliant stuff).

Will it strengthen the power of Steam as indie developers might feel discouraged from selling games directly to us ?

Not necessarly because most of the devs who sell on their website use mainly BMT Micro and Fast Spring (they handle mostly everything for a 10% fee compared to the 30% from steam/gog) so it won't change anything for them. The big question is the humble store widget because they aren't very clear about handling VAT in their current contract, they just talk about taxes in general:
https://www.humblebundle.com/misc/files/af98d1acc5/misc/humble_store_agreements/latest.pdf

I would add that devs who've build a small fanbase and sell directly make nearly as much sales in revenue comparing to their steam revenue (Positech, WinterWolves, Moacube)

Will piracy increase as price disparity rises further, and will it consequently lead to harsher controls ?

Only God will tell ;)

When it comes to console games, will it lead to more people buying used games and less new ones ?

It's irrelevant because you speak about physical goods and as such there is no changes in their VAT policy.

[i]I'm trying to understand who will actually benefit from this, apart from the political parties.
From what I can tell the consumers are the big losers.[/i]

I would say that the small business are the biggest losers (not only in the VG world) as they can't reasonably handle all the administrative stuff. Biggest winners are the third-party platforms like Amazon, etc. because they have the "scalability" to handle and automate the administrative stuff while smaller platforms just dropped the ball :(

It started .

O&O Software GmbH ( Germany ) online store ( via cleverbridge AG )

VAT in december 2014 : 19% ( german )
VAT in january 2015 : 27% ( hungarian )

When it comes to job creation and local development, my concerns were exactly that. Most indie developers seem to consist of a small group of people. So I thought this new VAT system would be an impediment to them. It seems that in some countries indie developers might be forced to merge with other studios, not only to survive but also be profitable, as they could then pool resources.

An adviser from KPMG in this article (http://www.theguardian.com/small-business-network/2014/nov/25/new-eu-vat-regulations-threaten-micro-businesses) even says that smaller businesses need to do cost-benefit analysis before selling in certain countries. In other words circumcise your customer range, which sounds monstrous to me if you are a small studio or indie developer, who already face intense competition in the marketplace. Your only option would be to expand your sales in certain existing countries. In practicality, will it not mean that some unfortunate countries will be systematically excluded ?

Also, the very idea of limiting your market is ridiculous since we are talking about digital products, not physical goods.

The response from places like HMRC is that smaller businesses should go to a third party instead.
These new VAT rules therefore support existing third parties as well as encourages the creation of new ones.
It seems that the EU wants all digital traffic to only pass through a dozen or so channels.

If some markets are excluded from the sale of certain games then piracy is impossible to avoid.

When it comes to console games I was thinking of the downloadable games, which have become more popular. My thinking was that if these prices got even higher, or some games even become unavailable, it might discourage people from buying downloadable games and instead encourage them to buy more used games instead, especially from abroad where the prices are generally lower. In other words that the physical goods will be preferable to the digital ones.

Everything as expected - no changes on GOG and I think the prices will stay on the current level.