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General discussionAnnouncement: Big Preorders & Launch Day Releases Coming!(4041 posts)(4041 posts)
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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 24, 2014
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blotunga: Pretty much yes: http://www.steamprices.com/eu/topripoffs
Worst offender today: Silent Hunter 3: € 19.49 in europe while: $6.49 » € 4.73 (-75.73%).
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Bloodygoodgames: That's what you can expect to see on GOG in future.

So, if it's a case of buying from GOG or buying a game in a games store in your own country and paying the same price you would pay on GOG, you might as well support a company in your own country.

For me, if it's a choice between buying on GOG at an inflated price, or in a store in Thailand, (or in the UK or Spain if I'm there), I'll choose the latter.

After all, there's no point supporting an online company that a) isn't paying taxes in the countries I live in so not helping the society I live in and b) allowing their customers to be price-gouged.

Honestly, the more I think about this I can see that this is the first nail in GOG's coffin, and the people who own the company don't have enough business sense to see it.

People buy on GOG for several reasons, but the two most important things have always been DRM-Free and No Regional Prices. Now one of those is taken away, that's already a 50 percent reason for not buying games on GOG anymore.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist (or maybe it does if the GOG management team are anything to go by?) to figure out there are other ways to get DRM-Free games at reasonable prices, or even free, if you don't want to support a company that isn't supporting you.
Fair enough, but there are a few things to point out here:

- Your local store may be a better choice for the price but most of today's boxed games require Steam, Origin or UPlay to play.

- Games activated on the above 3 clients or some other DRM are never yours, you have to depend on some external source to play.

- Other Digital Distributors use DRM and Region pricing yet their coffins are still empty and without nails.


Nobody likes to pay more and GOG going against their words and something they believed in so rightfully is like dropping the stone on their feet. But it isn't all bad,overall you're still getting a better product than other competitors.

At least for me personally this is enough of a good reason why not to hate it.
Posted February 24, 2014
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TheEnigmaticT: Guillaume is writing a more in-depth explanations about what exactly we're planning on doing with regional pricing in the future.
Will it include an apology for once again relegating Australia to second class citizen status? For saying that the population of an entire country isn't as important to you as some still mythical publisher?

Will he reveal the publisher so we at least get to see if all this fuss was worth it?

Most importantly, will he explain how we can believe him when he says that the no DRM promise won't ever be compromised? After all, it wasn't that long ago that the exact same words were being said about regional pricing and here we are with broken promises and hidden videos, not a way to build trust.

Please impress upon Guillaume that he has exactly one chance to impress me with an extremely detailed explanation of the reasoning behind the decision (details of the deal aren't as important as thoughts behind it so there's no need to break the NDA) and the measures that are being put in place to ensure this doesn't compromise the existing catalogue when licences are renegotiated and publishers realise there's now a precedent so they can get greedy and demand more.

There is no room for ambiguity here because that's what's caused this whole firestorm in the first place, specificity is the only thing that has the potential to douse the flames. As a 6 year hardcore GOG evangelist, my bags are packed and the taxi called but there's a very small chance the right words might convince me to stay.

Don't mess it up.
Post edited February 24, 2014 by Aliasalpha
Posted February 24, 2014
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adamhm: If they've managed to get something by the bigger publishers that otherwise would have been permanently locked into Steam/Origin/UPlay then this is a really big deal. It could potentially mark a big shift in the industry's attitudes toward DRM and as a result change the industry for the better. If this is the case then I support GOG's decision to allow regional pricing.

On the other hand, if it's something that would've been available DRM-free elsewhere anyway then their decision to sacrifice worldwide pricing won't make any sense and I will be very disappointed.
I'm very much with this Adamhm. It makes no sense for GOG to drop the ball over games that have a choice not to go down that route or where DRM is not a factor.

I'm half expecting and hoping that the 3 titles are games that will be piled high with DRM elsewhere, if they aren't sold here. That would kind of justify the regional-pricing.

If not, the pitchforks and flames will be out here full-blast.
Post edited February 24, 2014 by Nicole28
Posted February 24, 2014
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adamhm: Yes, possibly. It depends on the contracts that they have signed with GOG and the details of those are unavailable to any of us. But if they did it would be their loss really... changing the existing pricing of their games here for the worse will not help improve their sales.
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adamhm: Also if this does happen, it would present a *perfect* opportunity for people to express their views on regional pricing to the publishers, without risking harming progress on changing industry attitudes to DRM, as such games will have previously only been available (and presumably sold well) here with worldwide pricing.

In this case, a sharp drop in sales and a sharp increase in complaints after the introduction of regional pricing would make it abundantly clear to the publishers that the reason for the drop is due to regional pricing and nothing else.

So I say accept it for the new releases here - at least for now - to encourage more DRM-free releases, and should any of them try to push regional pricing on games that have already been here with worldwide pricing... exploit that for all it's worth.
Thats the problem really.
Some people will still buy games even though it has regional pricing because they want to play it.
Loads of people complain at EA but in the end a large majority of those who complained end up buying games from them annyway.
Posted February 24, 2014
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Bloodygoodgames: And you think THIS is going to be any different???? :)
Maybe. No one can see the future. I asked this questionearlier , but everyone ignored it. *if* GOG had to going regional pricing for AAA they bring in (im not talking about possible repricing older games), what is a *reasonable* compromise ?. 15-20% around the rrp?. Or are u one of those who wont see reason at any cost (and no id rather they dumped the new AAA games idea myself if regional pricing was going to be the trade off) ? . The ONLY thing that scares me about this is possible repricing of existing games & the greed factor of publishers to squeeze as much as they can get away with (Activision style)
Posted February 24, 2014
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mobutu: If it were that easy, sadly they'll just block inter-regional-gifting.
Even Steam didn't go that far yet.
And gifting is pretty important part of this community's culture, so I don't thing GOG would just kill it (because blocking inter-regional gifting is killing gifting in general).
Posted February 24, 2014
There is a nice YouTube video about "The Regional Ripoff: Why Can't Gaming Be Fair?" (youtube.com/watch?v=nRdfYwvGTos ) it's from a user called "GOG.com - DRM-Free Games". At first I thought it was from "good old games".com but after this news that can't be posibly
Posted February 24, 2014
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adamhm: If they've managed to get something by the bigger publishers that otherwise would have been permanently locked into Steam/Origin/UPlay then this is a really big deal. It could potentially mark a big shift in the industry's attitudes toward DRM and as a result change the industry for the better. If this is the case then I support GOG's decision to allow regional pricing.

On the other hand, if it's something that would've been available DRM-free elsewhere anyway then their decision to sacrifice worldwide pricing won't make any sense and I will be very disappointed.
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Nicole28: I'm very much with this Adamhm. It makes no sense for GOG to drop the ball over games that have a choice not to go down that route or where DRM is not a factor.

I'm half expecting and hoping that the 3 titles are games that will be piled high with DRM elsewhere, if they aren't sold here. That would kind of justify the regional-pricing.

If not, the pitchforks and flames will be out here full-blast.
Perhaps Uplay games with all drm stripped out? :P
Posted February 24, 2014
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TheEnigmaticT: Here we have said, "This is a big change, and it's one that we know will worry you. We're excited about the games that will be coming to GOG.com, and we're promising that we will do everything that we can to keep our regional pricing fair for everyone." At some point, doesn't the fact that we've been fighting the good fight for 5 years give us any earned trust on the part of our community? We will do what we can to make regional pricing as fair as possible. Trust us, for the moment, and see what happens.

Over the last 5 years, I believe that we have shown ourselves to be a company that is relentlessly focussed on treating our customers better than anyone else in the industry does. We think this change can be something that's good for you, because you'll find great games DRM-free on GOG.com that wouldn't be DRM-free without this. These games are going to be the same price everywhere in the world, except GOG.com will be giving something for you guys out of our pockets to help make up the difference between regional prices.
I'll tell you what is fair regional pricing. According to this list: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28nominal%29_per_capita

the GDP per capita for the USA is 51,704 US$. The GDP per capita for my country, Greece, is 22,072US$. What would be fair regional pricing is for a game that costs 60US$ at the US to cost 60*22,072/51,704 = 25.6 US$. Now I don't know how taxes work exactly for online purchases but for argument's sake let's add Vats (23% for my country):
25.6*1.23 = 31,5 US$. Making the conversion using Google, that translates to 22.89 euros, let's round up to 23 euros. So a fair regional price for a 60 US$ game in Greece should be 23 euros.

Now I'm willing to pay more than that. I'm willing to pay 60 US$ for the game, that's 43.6 euros. That means that I'm willing to pay almost double the percentage of my salary than an American would. Asking me to pay more than that, though, is at least offensive.

As for offering free games from GOG's back catalog to offset the cost, that's not good enough for me. I have over 180 games on GOG, that means I have almost all the games from the GOG catalog that I'm interested it. Now if you could offer the difference as credit for future purchases, that I could get behind.
Posted February 24, 2014
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mobutu: If it were that easy, sadly they'll just block inter-regional-gifting.
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Novotnus: Even Steam didn't go that far yet.
And gifting is pretty important part of this community's culture, so I don't thing GOG would just kill it (because blocking inter-regional gifting is killing gifting in general).
Isnt Steam starting to lock down on it? ie stuff bought in russia store can only be activated on russian ips...or something like that?. they will soon do it to the ukraine and brazilian stores at some point....i maybe wrong.....
Posted February 24, 2014
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Niggles: Isnt Steam starting to lock down on it? ie stuff bought in russia store can only be activated on russian ips...or something like that?. they will soon do it to the ukraine and brazilian stores at some point....i maybe wrong.....
Yes, there are such plans...
Still, it's Steam. Big almost-monopoly.
Copying this policy would be too risky (not to say: suicidal) for GOG.
Posted February 24, 2014
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crazy_dave: The link posted by DarkAXI0M explains it. I should've just linked to that - an exchange rate for goods based on purchasing power parity would be the most fair for digital goods, though I understand why people don't as it different goods will have different rates and so forth. Regional pricing can be thought of a stab at that, but is too course-grained and often gets manipulated for reasons beyond purchasing power.

Basically the common thing we think of as the exchange rate is what countries and banks pay for goods and currency traded to each other. But it is not always in (rough) equilibrium with how we spend currency in our home country. That's why you'll sometimes see travel people trying to sell you on visiting certain countries as "cheap" because you'll buy currency at some exchange rate from a bank and then spend money in that country at a lower rate.
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StormHammer: Well, 'purchasing power' is one thing, but 'disposable income' is another, and in many regions of the UK, at least, the majority of families have seen a significant decline in their level of disposable income over the past decade due to a combination of factors.

If Steam pricing is anything to go by, the principle of 'fairness' in pricing is all over the place. They have price parity on some titles, bargain prices on some titles, and absolute price gouging (66-400 percent markups) on other titles. For those publishers who believe they can continue charging what they like, I think they had best prepare themselves for a slump in sales. Games are a luxury good (like other forms of entertainment), and in the current economic climate people are making hard choices about where to spend their money, with more and more people looking for bargains.

We'll have to wait and see how GOG implements regional pricing, but if it is similar to Steam, then I know that I will be one of those people waiting for deep discounts. I just can't afford full price games any more.
? All of those factors are true for US as well (wrt decline of disposable income relative to inflation), this is about price differences between countries not overall price. In terms of that, Brits spend pounds similarly to how Americans spend dollars. So a regional price with a similar cost in pounds to dollars is not the ripoff it might appear to be based on exchange rate.

For other countries with other DPP, it is of course a different story and region pricing can be very unfair
Post edited February 24, 2014 by crazy_dave
Posted February 24, 2014
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Bloodygoodgames: 2) Started to sue people who were downloading bootleg copies of Witcher 2 - ANOTHER PR Nightmare for CD Projekt Red and GOG (same folks).
Rather: Started to hire dubious German law firms who exploit loopholes in an outdated German code of law, so that they'd threaten to sue people (in Germany) whose IP was found connected with downloading bootleg copies, unless they'd pay a huge sum as compensation. It's not even clear which results sueing those people would actually have brought, because many people are afraid of going to court and losing an unknown amount of time, money and nerves over it, so it's a kind of legal blackmailing based solely on IP, which is a lot more complicated than just "punishing pirates".
Post edited February 24, 2014 by Leroux
Posted February 24, 2014
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Novotnus: Even Steam didn't go that far yet.
And gifting is pretty important part of this community's culture, so I don't thing GOG would just kill it (because blocking inter-regional gifting is killing gifting in general).
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Niggles: Isnt Steam starting to lock down on it? ie stuff bought in russia store can only be activated on russian ips...or something like that?. they will soon do it to the ukraine and brazilian stores at some point....i maybe wrong.....
No, you're right. There are lockouts in both directions.
Posted February 24, 2014
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Bloodygoodgames: People buy on GOG for several reasons, but the two most important things have always been DRM-Free and No Regional Prices. Now one of those is taken away, that's already a 50 percent reason for not buying games on GOG anymore.
And this 2 core principles together were why I went on GOG (and why I'll never go on steam or a web distributor of this kind) : it totally convinced me, and was exactly what I was looking for, and what I was hoping. And I was happy to see the spirit of GOG, and happy to buy here.

But I'm anxious about the future of GOG. As some said : we saw what is happening on Humblebundle.

I hope GOG will keep their spirit and values. And I think, we should wait a little to see what they want exactly to do (they deserve our trust, we should at least give them a luck). But : as a lot said (and I totally agree) : this is not a good news. You maybe think it is, you think we should think this is a good news (and I understand this point of view) because it'll enable a lot of new things. But in fact, for us, it's not a good news : simply because of what we can see on a lot of other stores, and because of the big and important questions it's rising. And because "Worlwide fair prices" was a simple and really attractive principle : for our wallet of course, but ideologicaly too. And for this last : you made a very bad move here : you've always said, claimed and defended this principle.

I hope this little "crisis" will calm-down soon. I hope you'll show us we can trust you. Because a lot of people (I think) is here, because they trust you and want to trust you. Because you've principles that are awesome. Don't lose them.
Post edited February 24, 2014 by Splatsch
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This is my favourite topic
Community
General discussionAnnouncement: Big Preorders & Launch Day Releases Coming!(4041 posts)(4041 posts)
(4041 posts)