How about GOG exclusive ? lets say Witcher 3 launches 24 hours early on Gog ? ;)

I'm a member of the USA, and I say this is unfair to our worldly comrades!

Regional pricing is one of the reasons I don't really buy games from Steam anymore. Australians gets the rough end of the stick on Steam, often having to cough up $20-$30 more dollars than our American counterparts for new release games (even considering the exchange rate). I mean, $50 (US) for a Civ 5 expansion digital download is an absolute joke..that sort of thing is common on Steam w/h 'big publishers'.

Having said that, if it means being able to play some games that i'm interested in from bigger publishers, that otherwise wouldn't find their way on to gog.com, i'm happy to pay a bit extra. I think that a DRM-free copy of a game is worth more than one that has DRM anyway. So long as 'regional pricing' doesn't become the standard for all releases on GOG, i'm ok with this. If we could get upcoming games like Galactic Civ 3, Stronghold Crusader 2, or even something like Dark Souls DRM free through introducing regional pricing, I think it'd be well worth it.

Yes, I'm actually hoping that GOG.com can get some more clout as to give us some more goodies or things that we wouldn't get otherwise with the game. Wouldn't it be awesome if we could see the amount of extras that come with The Witcher 2 (predominantly MP3+FLAC OSTs) as part of your game purchase of the newest EA/Ubisoft title that has an older game in the catalog? Or more times where when a new game in a long running series comes out the publisher says "Go ahead GOG,com, let them add one of our older games to their purchase as a way for us to say thanks to our fans."

It would be cool to see Ubisoft and the other big publishers open some more of their catalog so we can see more Tom Clancy games on here like Chaos Theory and Rogue Spear (maybe even with their OSTs)?

Well, I can't say that I'm surprised by this news. I knew that something had to give eventually, because at the end of the day GOG.com has to compete with more and more digital game distributors, not just Steam, and the only way to really compete on an even footing is to get more current releases on the site. The alternative is to stagnate and get left behind.

My main reason for buying games from GOG.com is because they are DRM-free. I just can't be bothered with the hassle of DRM most of the time these days, and barely tolerate Steam. So as long as games remain DRM-free in future, you have that base covered.

My second reason for coming to GOG.com has been the pricing model, which over the years has been relatively fair. I've paid slightly more for some games here, because they were DRM-free, but most of the time GOG.com has been very competitive with other sites when it comes to pricing.

If the pricing model has to change for newer titles, it is obviously a big concern. At the moment, Steam tends to slap around a 33 percent markup on prices for the UK - (which incidentally means all those sales with 33 percent off are just a con, because all they are really doing is charging the US price for the games) - so I expect publishers will want to bring the prices on GOG.com in line with that. If prices here start to go even higher than Steam prices, well, then we have a big problem, and I'll have to consider how badly I want certain games.

You've built up a lot of goodwill with me, GOG, but you really need to get this right going forward. As long as you continue to provide DRM-free games, I will continue to buy from GOG.com, as long as the pricing is reasonable and not overly inflated.

I dislike regional pricing policies in general, for all of the reasons other people have already mentioned. It brings a lot of disparity and unfairness into the market, for a lot of people, and it just isn't right. At one time, digital distribution was supposed to level the playing field - and GOG.com sort of managed to do that - but those bloody publishers always throw a spanner in the works, and I wish I could knock a few heads together. :/

Dark Souls PC without GFWL clinging to it like a leech. There's a thought.

"Namco Bandai is also handling the European release this time around"
CDPR, Why? Couldn't you find a more capable distributor which does not love DRM?

If GOG can obtain content excusive to GOG to balance Steam exclusive content, then I would be Satisfied with that.

That CPR is owned by the same parent company of GOG, they could easily release the Witcher 3 here exclusively for 24 hours. Hell, GOG likes to experiment, they aught to do that.

Hopefully when GOG says AAA, they actually mean AAA. Hopefully this "experiment" goes somewhere positive and we see titles that we would never normally dream of on GOG, after the statistics continue to prove how much of a waste of money DRM is to publishers.

And hopefully this really doesn't mean screwing over everyone that's not part of Team America(TM).

You mentioned that one of the three up coming games is a strategy game, can you tell us if it is a "RTS" game? Does it have base building? Thanks for any info you are able to fill in.

bummer... A few days ago Humble, now GOG... :S

well... if you changed this maybe you can also change the no linux games policy... and I'll forgive you ;)

I'd rather have no-DRM + linux with regional prices, than no-DRM or no-linux at all.

Google isn't that hard a thing to do, now, is it? CD Projekt (formerly CD Projekt RED) owns gog.com and cdp.pl., both distributor companies (focusing on video games and movies). I don't know where people got this idea that gog.com and CD Projekt (RED) were both children companies of a parent "CD Projekt". CD Projekt -- yes, the same game developer -- owns GOG and cdp.pl -- distributors. The three companies make CD Projekt Group. Check it here: <span class="bold">CD Projekt Group structure</span> -- official website, not just some unofficial wiki bullshit link. I'll even quote the info, if you don't feel like clicking the link:

«CD Projekt S.A. (formerly CD Projekt RED S.A.) is a holding company listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange. Its business activities focus on development of videogames in The Witcher franchise (the CD Projekt RED studio; formerly CD Projekt RED Sp. z o.o.) Its subsidiary companies deal with distribution of videogames and motion pictures (CDP.pl Sp. z o.o.) and operating an online game distribution platform with global reach (GOG Ltd.)»

Most of the games I used to buy happened to be Ubisoft and EA Games. Some on purpose and some I found out when I got it home and didn't pay attention to the publisher while deciding on the title. What changed everything for me, was I bought all of the Tom Clancy games, and after installing and playing them single player for a while I convinced some friends to buy some of them too, primarily so we could play Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter and Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 multiplayer online. The only problem is that we would all individually get booted out of the games randomly with it telling us we had an invalid CD key. So you think "maybe I typed it in wrong", hunt it down and painstakingly re-install the game and patch it and make sure you get the key correct. You get booted out of the game anyway and told you have an invalid CD key. You pull your hair out and end up eventually doing a web search and finding out that hundreds of gamers are having the same problem with all the Tom Clancy games as well as other games in Ubisoft's catalog and Ubi support just tells you to reinstall the game and more or less makes it your problem.

What they don't tell you though, is that they whimsically ban license keys outright if their software even thinks the key is being used by multiple people and it will then show up as invalid license key, and they don't tell you that the pirates have created key generators that are capable of generating keys for the game which can just randomly end up generating identical fake keys that actually match the key of a game you bought in the store legitimately. So you bought the game, you install it and use the correct key, you are told you have an invalid key because some pirate out there who didn't pay for the game used a keygen to generate a fake key that just randomly was your key and this happens enough that they ban the key before you even buy the game. They'll try to blame it on you that someone must have stolen your key - perhaps a friend or something, even if that is not even possible because you just opened the damn box 10 minutes ago and you're the only person there.

We ended up - all 5 of us, having to install VPN software and a game crack from some pirate site in order to play the legitimate Ubisoft games that we bought for $20-50 each and then play LAN based multiplayer over the VPN (with higher latency and lower reliability) in order to play the games we bought. We had to essentially pirate the game we paid for just to play it.

I have similar stories with other games in the Ubisoft catalogue and bad experiences with EA games in a similar vein as well. I also had other Ubisoft games with SecuROM tell me to put the official DVD in the drive to play the game and then tell me it is not the official DVD but a copy, when it WAS the official DVD. Googling for that lead to a page that told me to disable DMA on my DVD drive to play my games. I am expected - by Ubisoft - to dramatically decrease the performance of my DVD drive on my entire system for ALL software I use - by disabling DMA - just because they have broken intrusive DRM that doesn't work with my DVD drive properly due to timing issues.
Um no. That's 300% unacceptable!

After I experienced all of this That's when I said "fuck this, I'll never buy an Ubisoft game again ever at any price unless it is completely DRM-free", and I went from spending $300+ a year on Ubisoft games to $0. I've bought some games on GOG that are Ubisoft DRM-free and that's the _only_ exception I make. I could make a list of Ubisoft games the length of my arms and legs which have come out since 2006 which I'd have jumped for joy to have went out and bought and been able to play, but I haven't bought any of them and I've encouraged at least my 4 closest multiplayer gaming buddies to completely avoid Ubisoft games ever since as well, and I've put the message out there loudly and in a manner that people really understand why - and I believe I've convinced dozens of others to boycott Ubisoft (and EA as well) ever since.

Ubisoft - if you're listening at all (which I severely doubt), the market is flooded with games from hundreds of developers/publishers out there. We all have a wide range of choices and our choices grow with each passing day where to spend our gaming dollars. Bring your games to GOG.com with zero DRM and provide patches and whatnot on par with how the game is offered on other services to the best feature parity possible - and I will buy your games again. I wont buy your games on Uplay ever, and I wont buy them as long as they have any kind of DRM whatsoever anywhere else. You have ripped me off to the tune of $400 or more over time and given me the worst gaming customer experience I ever had. And only a year before that I used to tell everyone how awesome Ubisoft was, in particular the Tom Clancy stuff.

Now I look at the trailers for your upcoming game "The Division" and my jaw drops. That game has my wallet open with money falling out of it up until oh... what's that? The Ubisoft logo? <sigh> No sale from me. The $50 or whatever I'd have bought that game for in a prior era will probably buy me 10-20 games on GOG, or from Humble Bundle or Bundlestars, or hey... you know what? It will purchase me a DRM-free copy of The Witcher 3 or Cyberpunk 2077 on GOG.com when they come out instead.

Hell, I'd rather donate $50 to an open source game project out of kindness and generousity than give Ubisoft 1 cent for their entire game catalogue loaded with always-on F-you up the arse DRM. Hell I'd rather light a $100 bill on fire as a symbolic gesture of the money of mine you're not getting from me Ubisoft. I spent somewhere in the neighbourhood of $1000 or so on games this year and Ubisoft got almost none of that except any titles that happened to be here on GOG. I can only wonder how many others out there can say similar stories but bet it is non-negligible.

But, it isn't a permanent stance with prejudice that can't be fixed. If and when the day comes that Ubisoft games are on GOG.com DRM-free brand new titles, there is a super high likelihood that I buy them and become an Ubisoft fanboy again and put all of my bad experiences behind me. Ditto with EA Games. And having said that, I want to take a second also after kyboshing you to tell you thank you very much for bringing the games you have brought to GOG already, now go and complete the job and dump the rest of your catalogue here and we can be super mega buddies again.

Huh? One would have expected a different choice after the bitter experience with Witcher 2.