And what is the big deal with that? Sure it's an artificial distinction that doesnt make sense in digital goods, but in the end, the price they want me to pay has to be aproved and seen as fair by me, if it isnt i wont buy it untill it drops or is on sale.
Now the concerns of region locking games are to be frown upon since i wouldnt like to be denied the chance of buying a game for being from x country/region.

Can someone please explain why this happens, in a way that is more meaningful than "they're greedy"? (I mean, if this was JUST about greed, why wouldn't they also charge those insane prices for U.S. people as well?) So why exactly does this happen? Is it just the VAT taxes or something else?

When you let one get away with that, more and more companies start to do the same until everyone do it, then you don't have a choice anymore.
Everything will be overpriced and you can't turn to another competitor that is fairly priced because they won't exist anymore.
That's always what happens.

See also: Cable and internet monopolies and duopolies in the USA as a 'fine' example of this issue.

Hell no. Everyone's forgetting that this ALREADY HAPPENED WITH WITCHER 2. And life went on. Just have to bold that for clarity.

Good point considering Americans are notorious for over spending and no that's not a joke. If they want to make a buck they could over charge the States because we're stupid enough to pay for it regardless. This ties into the cable thing mentioned; yes there is a cable monopoly over here and there is price gouging over here, and you know why, because WE'LL PAY FOR IT! :D A lot of other places they'd probably tell the company to eat shit but over here its, "$200 for Showtime? OKAY!"

Vat existed in the 16bit era, yet the prices were similar in USA and Europe.
They just see they can charge 3 to 4 times more to European for the same product so they do.
Another problem will be that later on they will add region lock to enforce the region pricing.

Plus forget the cheap prices for older games. I'm sure those games will suddenly increase in price too.

this is not the fault of GOG, it is out of their control.

Would you rather they just refused to add these titles. TW2 did nothing to harm this place.

Its a case of move with the industry or get swept aside as far as i can see.

There are a lot of factors that determine the price of a product. If market X is saturated with cheap products then it will likely have lower prices than market Y where the products are more expensive. The fact is that market X might also be a larger market than market Y and would therefore make optimum profits at a lower price. One market might also have greater restrictions or higher taxes and import fees that make it more expensive to sell in that market. Another factor is what people are willing to pay. So long as the market exists for the product, a manufacturer can sell the product at the highest profitable price.

well, what it means is that very soon there will be russian/asian sellers selling gog-gift keys on every possible cd-key site. Kinguin and what not. Big companies will ofcourse not like that one bit and then the shit will escalate and no one will be happy.

This is mistake, unless they are certain they wont care that gifting will increase thousandfold. From cheaper countries to more expensive ones that is.

I doubt region-locking and drm-free will go well hand in hand either.

If they do it, gog will lose all their positives point in their customers eyes.
Then they'll have no differentiations compared to steam which is a much bigger company.
They start to move that way, and it will become more difficult for them to compete.
You are forgetting, companies goes where there are customers, not the other way around.

If what you said was true, then the next thing will be to start including DRM too. Since that's where the industry is going.
Look at Diablo 3 and sim city for example.

Well ofcourse its in their control. They could add those games much later, when the total drm/region lock-free has some worth for those games.

Certainly its not the end of the world, if this would be just case for couple titles - but you give devil the little finger and WHOOSH, youll notice its suddenly the "usual standard".

Would you rather have the chicken or the pork for your in-flight meal? :P

Ok.. can we trick detection somehow? : )=

We only serve water in this flight.