Plenty of examples speak against even this take.

Right. More clearly phrased would put that at "attempts to treat", as that is the intention but the not the actuality.

Is it really? I'd say pretence that serves achieving maximum possible profit per country/market without having to spell it out.

Well, I try not to be overly cynical and like to hope that there is some good faith in such endeavours. But modern businesses do have a way of straining my trust.

You're better than me - still hoping when everything speaks against it is something I can't do anymore.

It's purely for my own sanity that I do so. If I didn't believe that there are at least some people out there trying to do what's right, I'd turn into some kind of supervillain who tries to destroy the world from the comfort of his dirigible.

Probably better than actually doing it, with or without explicit intent, from the comfort of one's office. Or workplace or home or car or whatever else, in case of all the rest who simply accept it as it is and enforce it precisely by doing so.

It's something of a curse that we are capable of apprehending things at a scale beyond the self, of perceiving things from a holistic overview, yet still driven to withdraw into ourselves and consider our own needs above all others when the personal corpus is threatened. I don't know that we'll ever attain the altruistic natures needed to truly rise above that, and suspect that if we do we would no longer be recognisably human. (Which is not necessarily a condemnation.)

I agree 100% with what you wrote. I know full well how it feels to have to overpay for stuff: throughout the brief period of relative prosperity, physical imported goods (like electronics from China and cars from the UK) used to cost twice whan they did in the US. (Now cars cost less and electronics the same, but the median income is 1/3 of what it used to be, so, not much relief except for people in the market for Lamborghinis.)

I just think this particular change was for the better. Maybe it could've been handled better (as in: announced), but even that is debatable, as nothing has changed for people negatively affected by regional pricing, and the regulars on the Russian forum haven't noticed it yet.

I do agree that this was a necessary change from a business perspective. I don't imagine many publishers wanting to do business with a company that offers a semi-sanctioned back door to getting games on the cheap. Leaving this unaddressed would risked GOG becoming the "Canadian pharmacy" of gaming. (For those outside the US, it's common here to bypass our predatory pharmaceutical pricing by ordering medicines from Canada, but that comes with its own risks and doesn't help to resolve the root problem here.)

Personally I do think GOG should be upfront about these changes when they are implemented. Many of us lambaste them for not being transparent, and yet they do this every time. They are just like politicians in that regard - they think they'll get away with it if they keep quiet, it gets exposed anyway, and they look worse for hiding it. But I guess one could argue they are only exposed here in the forums to the minority, and that for the vast majority of their customers it remains invisible, and thus is a "win" in GOG's books.

The first line of my e-mail signature is still:

"We're all human." Let's try to be more.

But besides that, often changing things would be in one's own advantage too, so serves said own needs as well.

As for GOG getting away with it, they'll get away with most things just like any other business, because the vast majority don't care, and they're catering to the general public openly for the past few years, no longer that vocal principled bunch that got them in the position to do so.

Possibly related, there was a recent article on The Guardian about where businesses steer things in IT.
"Nothing is certain, but everything is at stake."

<span class="bold">2K Games</span> is now here.

T'is indeed noteworthy, will get it added. Ta!

I miss the entry for the 2-way-safety-log-in in the list. ;)

Can you find the news thread for that? I'd be glad to add it.