Posted September 29, 2016
You posted the Gwent bit in two different posts.
As for the regional pricing part, it's mainly old users (the few remaining ones, since quite a few gave up on the place since) who are very bothered about it, because GOG initially advertised itself very specifically as standing for two clear, specific things, those being DRM-free and one-world-one-price, even running ads picking on Steam for regional pricing and stressing in their conferences, as late as in the summer of 2013, that they stand firm by both those principles and can and did reject publishers who wanted them to make even the slightest concession from either of them.
So that's how things were between launch and February 2014, when the "good news" moment came and they announced they'll be also adding preorders and AAA titles (initially GOG was named Good Old Games and allowed only games at least 3 years old, priced at no more than $9.99 full price, then came a change when they said they're no longer Good Old Games but simply GOG.com because they removed the 3-year age limit and increased the price limit to $19.99 to allow for new indie games and also for "premium editions" of older AAA titles), removing any pricing limit and also, as a side note at the end, introducing regional pricing, but that they will provide codes for $5.99 and $9.99 games to approximately cover the difference for those who will pay more.
Then there was a huge backlash and after a little while they said they'll "go back to their roots", offer store credit to make up exactly for the amount paid extra for anyone paying over the base price, and judge games asking for regional pricing on a case by case basis and strictly limit it to those new AAA titles that really should be here and can't be obtained in any other way. Only three titles (Age of Wonders 3, Divinity: Original Sin and Witcher 3) were initially intended to fall under this rule. And that sort of mollified some of the critics for a while.
However, in August 2014, along with the redesign, a number of titles that used to be flat priced suddenly became regional priced. And with those floodgates open, more and more titles were added directly regionally priced, soon enough this being the rule for basically any new addition. Also, GOG continued to claim that they fight for flat pricing wherever possible and definitely recommend flat pricing for new entries, only offering the publishers the possibility to choose regional pricing if they feel they must. However, quite a few indie devs who self-published titles here and were bashed for entering them with full regional pricing expressed surprise at this, saying they never knew GOG used to stand for flat pricing and they just accepted the pricing scheme that was offered to them, clearly indicating that GOG's default is full regional pricing and they do nothing to fight for flat... Even if even after a few of those discussions blues again said that's not the case...
Just to do the historical part of it there...
Otherwise, what Maxvorstadt said.
As for the regional pricing part, it's mainly old users (the few remaining ones, since quite a few gave up on the place since) who are very bothered about it, because GOG initially advertised itself very specifically as standing for two clear, specific things, those being DRM-free and one-world-one-price, even running ads picking on Steam for regional pricing and stressing in their conferences, as late as in the summer of 2013, that they stand firm by both those principles and can and did reject publishers who wanted them to make even the slightest concession from either of them.
So that's how things were between launch and February 2014, when the "good news" moment came and they announced they'll be also adding preorders and AAA titles (initially GOG was named Good Old Games and allowed only games at least 3 years old, priced at no more than $9.99 full price, then came a change when they said they're no longer Good Old Games but simply GOG.com because they removed the 3-year age limit and increased the price limit to $19.99 to allow for new indie games and also for "premium editions" of older AAA titles), removing any pricing limit and also, as a side note at the end, introducing regional pricing, but that they will provide codes for $5.99 and $9.99 games to approximately cover the difference for those who will pay more.
Then there was a huge backlash and after a little while they said they'll "go back to their roots", offer store credit to make up exactly for the amount paid extra for anyone paying over the base price, and judge games asking for regional pricing on a case by case basis and strictly limit it to those new AAA titles that really should be here and can't be obtained in any other way. Only three titles (Age of Wonders 3, Divinity: Original Sin and Witcher 3) were initially intended to fall under this rule. And that sort of mollified some of the critics for a while.
However, in August 2014, along with the redesign, a number of titles that used to be flat priced suddenly became regional priced. And with those floodgates open, more and more titles were added directly regionally priced, soon enough this being the rule for basically any new addition. Also, GOG continued to claim that they fight for flat pricing wherever possible and definitely recommend flat pricing for new entries, only offering the publishers the possibility to choose regional pricing if they feel they must. However, quite a few indie devs who self-published titles here and were bashed for entering them with full regional pricing expressed surprise at this, saying they never knew GOG used to stand for flat pricing and they just accepted the pricing scheme that was offered to them, clearly indicating that GOG's default is full regional pricing and they do nothing to fight for flat... Even if even after a few of those discussions blues again said that's not the case...
Just to do the historical part of it there...
Otherwise, what Maxvorstadt said.
