It seems that you're using an outdated browser. Some things may not work as they should (or don't work at all).
We suggest you upgrade newer and better browser like: Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer or Opera

×
Community
General discussionAnnouncement: Big Preorders & Launch Day Releases Coming!(4041 posts)(4041 posts)
(4041 posts)
Pages:
1
50
100
144
145
146
147
148
200
250
270
This is my favourite topic
Posted February 21, 2014
The DRM-Free Revolution Continues with Big Pre-Orders and Launch Day Releases!

Good news! GOG.com is going to bring you more fantastic launch day releases, preorders, and other exciting new content from some of our favorite developers. We've lined up 3 big titles that we will be bringing to GOG.com in the next couple of months for sale or preorder that we think will be hits with all of our gamers; and we have more equally exciting games coming up soon.

If you've been a member of the site for a long time, you may recall that when we launched sales of The Witcher 2 on GOG.com, we had to add in regional pricing. The game cost different amounts in in the US, the UK, the European Union, and Australia. We're doing something like that once again in order to bring you new titles from fantastic bigger studios. Since we don't accept currencies other than USD on GOG.com right now, we'll be charging the equivalent of the local price in USD for these titles. We wish that we could offer these games at flat prices everywhere in the world, but the decision on pricing is always in our partners' hands, and regional pricing is becoming the standard around the globe. We're doing this because we believe that there's no better way to accomplish our overall goals for DRM-Free gaming and GOG.com. We need more games, devs, and publishers on board to make DRM-Free gaming something that's standard for all of the gaming world!

That brings with it more good news, though! As mentioned, we have three games we're launching soon with regional pricing--two RPGs and a strategy game--and while we can't tell you what they are yet because breaking an NDA has more severe penalties than just getting a noogie, we're confident that you'll be as excited about these games as we are. For a limited time, we will be offering anyone who pre-orders or buys one of them a free game from a selection as a gift from GOG.com, just like we did for The Witcher 2.

If you have any questions, hit us up in the comments below and we'll be happy to answer (to the best of our ability).

EDIT: Since we've answered a lot of the common questions already here (and lest you think that we've ignored you), it may be handy for you to check out the forum thread about this and search for staff answers by clicking this link here. (hat tip to user Eli who reminded us that the feature even exists. :)
Posted February 23, 2014
About true boycott, how many people complaining about regional pricing and though approving this buying games on platforms which using it?
Posted February 23, 2014
avatar
trusteft: The game was rigged from the start.
avatar
Kyanti4869: True. You win people over time, then you do as you please. Look at EA, no matter how much they screw up, they still control the market. Titanfall is taking over peoples' wallets.
Changing the viewpoint of publishers on things like DRM and regional pricing is a difficult and gradual, long term process and asking the major publishers to drop both DRM and regional pricing is a big deal - too big to do both at once I guess.

So GOG are choosing to drop worldwide pricing - at least for now - in order to focus on DRM-free, but it doesn't mean that they won't still be trying to encourage worldwide pricing and there's nothing to stop them from pushing harder for worldwide/fairer pricing later on. Also there's nothing stopping them from adding incentives to help encourage the use of worldwide pricing... e.g. perhaps by offering a better split of the sale price if worldwide pricing is used?

The best thing to do is wait & see what happens.
Posted February 23, 2014
avatar
JohnnyDollar: They're still using flat pricing except for new launches, though. I'm not going to get into slippery slope predictions. That's what we have right now in the present.

Folks aren't taking take into account the worth of DRM-free with customers either.

Announcing that they were bringing newer games here and officially dropping "Good old Games" was suppose to spell their demise, because that what was a major selling point that separated them from the other digital distributors according to a lot of members here back at the time. It hasn't happened.
avatar
hedwards: That's a gross misinterpretation of our stance on that. And GOG is definitely not what it once was. Yes, there are more people here and more games, but GOG is no longer particularly special and it's really hard to have any brand loyalty.

Dropping GOG was an incredibly stupid thing to do, regardless of outcome. They spent years building up their brand and then chucked it on a risky maneuver to get a larger section of the market after repeatedly claiming otherwise.

I for one have greatly reduced the number of games I buy here as a result. No Linux support even on games that have it, and generally insulting marketing practices don't exactly make me want to buy things here. And with regional pricing, I might as well buy from somebody else.
Mind you the GOG as in old games only was dropped after a community vote.
Are you sugesting they shoud have gone against what the majority of the community whised?
Posted February 23, 2014
avatar
Kyanti4869: Gamers vote EA as the worst company in USA. Two months later, they buy the hell out of their games.... lol
You know... sometimes I feel like I want to call it quits.
avatar
JohnnyDollar: So many state their hatred for EA, yet I see "Battlefield" mentioned everywhere I go, it seems. Whether it be on forums or hardware reviews at an online retailer. Due to its success, evidently there must be plenty of gamers out there that don't hate them enough to not buy their games, and they pay premium release day prices for them too.

Same thing goes for micro DLC. A lot hate the concept, or so it seems, but they must be selling ok because they continue to do it. With some of these games the publishers have released a ridiculous amount of micro DLC.
The ONLY Battlefield title that I like is Bad Company 2, because is DRMFREE since the R11 patch.
Posted February 23, 2014
avatar
Crazy_Borg: So, instead of paying 9,99$ we europeans are about to pay 13,99$.
Man, that really sounds fair for all of us, doesn't it?
avatar
d2t: If you had to add 20-sth % of VAT tax on top of the price of a product when you sell stuff in Europe, would you cover that from your own pocket? Why would a developer or publisher sacrifice part of his income, because your or mine government taxes all products?
If it was just a percentage markup to cover VAT, I don't think as many people would have a problem with that. However, you only need to take a look at Steam's regional pricing model to see that some of the markup is far beyond 20 percent, or whatever taxation your country requires:

http://www.steamprices.com/us/topsavings/100/box

Why are some games marked up 60 percent, 100 percent, 400 percent? There is only one reason for that kind of pricing - because publishers think they can charge what they like and get away with it, ie, price gouging. Australia is one of the worst hit, but Europe (incl. UK) fall foul of these practices as well.

So I think it is fair for people in those regions to be concerned when GOG mentions implementing regional pricing for some titles. As I've stated previously, they may start with just three, but later on other publishers will want to redress the balance and also have regional pricing for their games. That is the nature of business - to gain an advantage over competitors - and they cannot do that by maintaining a flat pricing model when other publishers are allowed to set regional pricing via the same distributor.

In my view, it must be a case of 'all or nothing', or it doesn't make good business sense for those not adopting regional pricing in the future.
Posted February 23, 2014
high rated
avatar
d2t: If you had to add 20-sth % of VAT tax on top of the price of a product when you sell stuff in Europe, would you cover that from your own pocket? Why would a developer or publisher sacrifice part of his income, because your or mine government taxes all products?
This is not about taxes. If it were, they could sell for the same worldwide price plus sales tax/VAT. I don't think many would object to that.
Posted February 23, 2014
avatar
hedwards: That's a gross misinterpretation of our stance on that. And GOG is definitely not what it once was. Yes, there are more people here and more games, but GOG is no longer particularly special and it's really hard to have any brand loyalty.

Dropping GOG was an incredibly stupid thing to do, regardless of outcome. They spent years building up their brand and then chucked it on a risky maneuver to get a larger section of the market after repeatedly claiming otherwise.

I for one have greatly reduced the number of games I buy here as a result. No Linux support even on games that have it, and generally insulting marketing practices don't exactly make me want to buy things here. And with regional pricing, I might as well buy from somebody else.
avatar
Lodium: Mind you the GOG as in old games only was dropped after a community vote.
Are you sugesting they shoud have gone against what the majority of the community whised?
I'm suggesting that they could have done it in a less risky manner. Also, surveys like that are probably the stupidest way of making a decision outside of focus groups.

They should have made a sister site for new games so as to not destroy the brand that they spent years developing. It seems to have worked out OK, but I have no respect left for them after this latest move. Early on I was proud to be a member here, but it's quite clear that they don't respect me or the other customers.
avatar
d2t: If you had to add 20-sth % of VAT tax on top of the price of a product when you sell stuff in Europe, would you cover that from your own pocket? Why would a developer or publisher sacrifice part of his income, because your or mine government taxes all products?
avatar
silentbob1138: This is not about taxes. If it were, they could sell for the same worldwide price plus sales tax/VAT. I don't think many would object to that.
I'm pretty sure that's the case. If that were their intention, they would have just said that's what they were doing. I doubt there would have been the same level of anger at that.
Post edited February 23, 2014 by hedwards
Posted February 23, 2014
avatar
Lodium: Mind you the GOG as in old games only was dropped after a community vote.
Are you sugesting they shoud have gone against what the majority of the community whised?
avatar
hedwards: I'm suggesting that they could have done it in a less risky manner. Also, surveys like that are probably the stupidest way of making a decision outside of focus groups.

They should have made a sister site for new games so as to not destroy the brand that they spent years developing. It seems to have worked out OK, but I have no respect left for them after this latest move. Early on I was proud to be a member here, but it's quite clear that they don't respect me or the other customers.
avatar
silentbob1138: This is not about taxes. If it were, they could sell for the same worldwide price plus sales tax/VAT. I don't think many would object to that.
avatar
hedwards: I'm pretty sure that's the case. If that were their intention, they would have just said that's what they were doing. I doubt there would have been the same level of anger at that.
We are costumers, we do not get respect; our wallets do. They don't care about you if you get a heart attack; they care about your wallet if it gets a heart attack.... empty.
Posted February 23, 2014
avatar
JohnnyDollar: Right, which has the implication, whether deliberate or not, that GOG will suffer from the decision that they've made. Or at least that's how I'm interpreting it, perhaps because I've seen it stated so much. I'm questioning that implication, is all, not your decision, priorities, or circumstances that you're in.
avatar
Professor_Cake: I'm not sure where that implication can arise from when I stated the sentence before 'If (GOG) continues to sell the rest of its catalogue at region free prices then they will still be price competitive and thus will possibly be the best priced option, maintaining custom at its site'. If anything, framing the sentence you quoted with the sentence prior would imply that GOG would not suffer because of their change in stance, and that they would successfully compete on a more open level.
Ok, I'm too tired to re-read anything and will take your word for it. I didn't read your post thoroughly, and if that's what you said, then I'm mistaken and jumped the gun. ;)
Posted February 23, 2014
avatar
Lodium: were woud we going though.
Steam?
Origin? Shudders!!!
U-play?
GMG?
D2D?
Humble Bundle?

Probably dozens more ive forgotten about.
avatar
Kyanti4869: I know Steam is DRM.... but it's the best out of the worst. Still makes it bad, but what can we do?
If you fully boycott gaming as a hobby and end it... it doesn't matter, because 20 more just joined.
Hmm, Monopoly over a market seldom leads to good, at least thats my experience.
I think Steam have way too laarge of the market share already and have gotten lazy as a result.
They dont produce that many games because they dont need to, and they can do almost whatever they want because as you say.
If they loose 3 or 4 , 20 more will join the train.
Post edited February 23, 2014 by Lodium
Posted February 23, 2014
Realistically this was a simple business decision for them.

Do they gain more money from introducing regional prices and the games that come along with them, than they would lose from lost sales or slowed down sales from disgruntled customers.

Given the range of crowdfunded games these days which often already have a DRM-free copy anyway, and are generally highly anticipated, GOG's probably partly making this change to make sure they can pick up as many of those as they can.

Given these games tend to be higher priced, but then DRM-free, and sold on GOG, a platform where a lot of DRM-free people prefer to have their copies, the income from this will probably be quite significant. It will probably surpass any potential losses very quickly.

The biggest risk in them for this is long term. Whether DRM-free alone is enough to differentiate GOG as a store, and to be honest, whether their store and infrastructure can actually handle a score of new games and the accompanying updates in a timely manner.

But, that's a potential long term downside. They have time to deal with that, or set themselves apart in different ways in the future (or join the fray of course).
Post edited February 23, 2014 by Pheace
Posted February 23, 2014
avatar
Kyanti4869: I know Steam is DRM.... but it's the best out of the worst. Still makes it bad, but what can we do?
If you fully boycott gaming as a hobby and end it... it doesn't matter, because 20 more just joined.
avatar
Lodium: Hmm, Monopoly over a market seldom leads to good, at least thats my experience.
I think Steam have way too laarge of the market share already and have gotten lazy as a result.
They dont produce that many games because they dont need to, and they can do almost whatever they want because as you say.
If they loose 3 or 4 , 20 more will join the train.
But Steam is more than a DRM now. It's like Skype, and it has Greenlight Programme, which is a great one. It put itself in a good position to not lose coustmers and users. They're not developing games more anymore, because they're getting more than enough money from sales. Steam is my only main platform. Origin is never never never.

GOG was never seen as a main platform, it was a sanctuary and a temple for all gamers, old and new. It's losing its unique principles over time.
Post edited February 23, 2014 by Kyanti4869
Posted February 23, 2014
avatar
d2t: If you had to add 20-sth % of VAT tax on top of the price of a product when you sell stuff in Europe, would you cover that from your own pocket? Why would a developer or publisher sacrifice part of his income, because your or mine government taxes all products?
avatar
StormHammer: If it was just a percentage markup to cover VAT, I don't think as many people would have a problem with that. However, you only need to take a look at Steam's regional pricing model to see that some of the markup is far beyond 20 percent, or whatever taxation your country requires:

http://www.steamprices.com/us/topsavings/100/box

Why are some games marked up 60 percent, 100 percent, 400 percent? There is only one reason for that kind of pricing - because publishers think they can charge what they like and get away with it, ie, price gouging. Australia is one of the worst hit, but Europe (incl. UK) fall foul of these practices as well.

So I think it is fair for people in those regions to be concerned when GOG mentions implementing regional pricing for some titles. As I've stated previously, they may start with just three, but later on other publishers will want to redress the balance and also have regional pricing for their games. That is the nature of business - to gain an advantage over competitors - and they cannot do that by maintaining a flat pricing model when other publishers are allowed to set regional pricing via the same distributor.

In my view, it must be a case of 'all or nothing', or it doesn't make good business sense for those not adopting regional pricing in the future.
as mentioned "its just the VAT" -.-'
Posted February 23, 2014
Also, @ people asking why they didn't call a vote for this... seriously? We all know what the answer would have been, so does GOG. The answer was obvious, so they simply opted not to do it.
Posted February 23, 2014
avatar
Selderij: Do you know why abandonware is called that? It's because the software has been completely abandoned by its owners, i.e. you couldn't buy it from any source that benefits the IP owners even if you really wanted. Your theft analogy is crap: nobody loses anything when an abandonware title is copied. It's more akin to visiting an Atari game cartridge dump and instead of taking an abandoned game with you, you duplicate one with a scifi device. Oh shit, but it's theft and piracy according to CarrionCrow: police to the rescue!
avatar
CarrionCrow: For me it isn't just a matter of gaining or losing. It's a matter of "Should I have this in my possession right now?" Did I buy it? No. Did I create it? No. Was it a gift? No. Did I find it at a pawn shop/used game store/whatever? No. If I have it in my possession, and there's no good, valid, legal reason to have it? THEN I STOLE IT. "Oh wait, the people who spent the time making this to begin with, they stopped caring, so....field day!" Lie to yourself all day long, steal whatever you're going to steal. But call it what it is. No need for bullshit rationalization, we're all adults here. Do what you're gonna do, but keep the nonsense labels out of it. Right, it's abandonware. No, it's people looking for a reason. The company who makes it doesn't have any responsibility to keep supporting it until the end of time. Doesn't mean that they're okay with people swiping it. If they were? IT'D BE FREEWARE.
No really, your concept of stealing is out of whack (or alternatively you just feel the need to be subversive and edgy) and you need to admit that to yourself. Theft requires the owner of something to lose that something in the process. Piracy requires the owner of something to suffer a damage to their revenue when that something is copied, making the generous and simplifying assumption that a copied product equals a lost sale of an original.

Abandonware is abandoned software that you can't buy from an official source and the copying of which affects its IP owners in no way whatsoever: no lost material, no lost data, no lost revenues, no lost custom, nothing at all. Freeware is software that its lawful owners are actively distributing for free. I hope this helped.
Pages:
1
50
100
144
145
146
147
148
200
250
270
This is my favourite topic
Community
General discussionAnnouncement: Big Preorders & Launch Day Releases Coming!(4041 posts)(4041 posts)
(4041 posts)