Yes. please :)

Was a really long way for some you for a short stay.. Thanks to all 6 for taking the time and trouble and posting
about it.

Your example-analogy is flawed on a number of levels, but to go along with it, ask yourself this - how do those that attended your party know who else was invited when you planned your birthday party all hush hush, and invited people that you basically didn't know yourself and they also didn't know each other? What reason would those that attended have to ask who else was invited but didn't make it, and why would you tell them?

Perhaps it's a cultural, maybe even a generational, thing, but seing what example-analogy you used, I'm not surprised you take it as a complaint, and miss the point I'm trying to make (no offence meant); it's a matter of (dis)respecting their privacy if they shared even their usernames (as those uniquely identify people on some level) without their consent/permission.



How does your theory explain poor(er) European countries being lumped into the same "region" and "regional zone" with rich(er) ones, and having to pay higher prices? How does it explain that rich(er) countries, like Great Britain and/or Canada, get a discount? How does it explain poor(er) European, Asian and African countries paying the base price and not getting a discount? How does it explain certain titles having discounts for select countries/regions and no price hikes? Just take a look at MaGog Table VIII, and see if your theory fits with the facts.


As immi101 said, the principle of regional pricing is getting away with the most you can charge and still make the projected profit in each market. And since countries are arbitrarily being grouped into "regions", and then "regions" are arbitrarily grouped into larger "regional zones", the countries that are willing to pay the most dictate the price for every other country in the same region and zone, irrespectively of each country's purchasing power, for the simple reason that certain markets don't matter (much?) to be treated separately.

As for alienating a number of potential paying customers - looking at publicly available data, do you think they're a critical enough mass to matter?

"Where's Jimmy? Didn't you invite Jimmy? Jimmy should have been here. It's a nice party. Jimmy would have liked it."

Just as an aside and to add to what I posted about this earlier: I personally assumed this was under NDA anyway (we were specifically barred in the NDA from naming names or discussing figures among other things). I don't believe any of us named who was invited until they identified themselves here first? I also don't recall there being more than a couple specific names mentioned by GOG. Again, GOG also didn't match specific reasons of why people couldn't attend to their specific forum names.

This doesn't detract from your point above though, which I agree with (although, as noted, I think the NDA is enough to mitigate this).

A list of (possible) guests is a private matter of host. It is up to the host to share or not to share this list with another guests because inviting somebody is an intention and an action of a host.

You know that one of these days you'll have to come clean and tell these guys about your matter stream compressor, right? Folding space-time inside your bag is not as cool if you keep it a secret from everyone.

I obviously don't have the data you have and certainly I haven't studied this practice quite as thoroughly as you did. So please forgive me if my conclusions were wrong here (that also goes to immi101 of course). My understanding so far was exactly what I said. People in different countrys were ABLE (not willing) to pay different prices and from the sight of a company the loss in one country/region could be compensated with the additional gain they'd get from other (richer) countrys. So in the end everything depends on each other. Like I said I have never compared any data with what I just said. I only saw that usually Germany and other countrys have to pay more and some other countrys have to pay less - that's all. So if you now are saying that the high prices for Germans (and others) and the low prices in poor countrys have nothing to do with each other I cannot argue much because I actually never studied these in depth. So what you are telling me is that even if there weren't any poor countrys at all - "rich" countrys would still have to pay more than the base price just because they are able to and companys are greedy? And even if there would only be poor countrys they still would get the discount (even without having the additional gain from the rich countrys)?

Since I don't really know the number of those who'd boycott such regional priced goods I cannot agrue much here either. I doubt that those would matter much but they are there and if there would not be any need for RP why risk it at all?

Well, but you wouldn't invite complete strangers to a birthday party and it was also clear that GOG wouldn't do that for their community event.

People on the forum might have never met in person, but we know each other's nicknames, post history and who is extremely helpful and contributes to the community. So of course there were some obvious choices for an invitation and so we asked about some specific people we would have expected there (just as an example, because they already said they were invited: Some of us asked about adaliabooks, because they are an obvious choice when you want to talk about flaws of the forum and the website and want some input how to change that).

GOG didn't give us a list and said "These people were in invited". They only answered when we asked specific names. And like Gr00t already said, they didn't match specific reasons of why people couldn't attend to their specific forum names.

WISHBONE'S TALE: PART EIGHT

Going home
My wait at the Warsaw airport was uneventful. Fortunately, my plane back to Copenhagen departed on time, and I soon found myself back on Danish ground. I took a train from the airport to Copenhagen Central Station, and took another train from there to where I live. About 5 minutes before the train was due at my station, it stopped. It was approximately 23:00 (11 pm) at this point. The train just sat there for about 10 minutes. Then the PA system piped up:

"There is a train with technical difficulties at the platform we are scheduled for, so we are going to be delayed for another 10 minutes."

So another 10 minutes went by, and the PA system kicked in again:

"The other train is unfortunately still at the platform, so it's going to be another 10 minutes before we can get underway."

10 minutes later still:

"Now the signals are having trouble, so we won't be moving for another 15 minutes."

After those 15 minutes were up, we finally started moving... for about 100 meters. Then we stopped again. And then the same thing happened again. And again. I groaned inwardly, because that had to mean that the platform had been blocked for a while before we stopped, which meant that there was now a queue of trains ahead of us. I was getting really annoyed and somewhat nervous, because the last bus from the station to where I live was leaving the station at 00:05, and it was now about 23:50. If I missed the bus I had a 20-minute walk, suitcase and all, to look forward to, and I was bone tired and just wanted to get home as soon as possible.

Fortunately, we finally arrived at 00:02. I sprinted to the bus stop, and luckily I just managed to catch the last bus of the day. 10 minutes later, I entered my front door, and my trip to GOG.com HQ was officially over.

The end...?
Thus ends my chronological narrative of events. I still have a few things I want to say though, so expect at least one more of these posts in the near future.

Watch this space for the next exciting installment: Wishbone's Tale: Epilogue.

If you are curious about the price updates.

NOLF? A smiley face would be enough. Or a PM. I'd just like to know it's still being worked on :D


edit: I realize you can't say anything. I just felt the urge to ask anyway :D

A most enjoyable tale, good sir. It almost feels like I was there...

.

...which I would have been, had I had enough free days left off work this year *grumblegrumble*.

(My post did not belong here)

yes, that would be my understanding.
but like you, I'm only making speculations from my observations, without knowing for sure. Unless some company comes forward and explains their motives all we can do is speculate.


The whole mess started when Valve introduced Euro as local currency in Steam, (in 2008). Most (all?) prices where converted 1:1 from dollar into euro at that time. Despite the very weak dollar rate (compared to the euro).
(and afaik regional pricing for Russia only came a few years later)

And that model of dollar price == euro price never went away. Because evidently it DOES work and customers in Europe are willing (=stupid enough) to pay the surcharge.

nostalgia: reaction from GOG when Steam introduced their euro pricing
thanks for taking the time to write that.
really enjoyable read