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General discussionAnnouncement: Big Preorders & Launch Day Releases Coming!(4041 posts)(4041 posts)
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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 22, 2014
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OldFatGuy: 74 pages.

Shit. So even though it says ask a question below in the comments and you'll answer, I'm guessing you'll ignore this one, but I'm going to ask it anyway. And please, only a blue text answer or a link to a blue text answer. Anyone else and it's just speculation. If I wanted speculation I could read 74 pages.

WHEN THESE NEW RELEASES AND BIG TITLES COME TO GOG, WILL THE OR WILL THEY NO REMAIN DRM FREE???

Not now, THEN??
Staying DRM-free is the only promise TET made, and everything else was excused with the "DRM-free revolution", so the answer to your question is yes. Whether you trust that it will always stay yes is up to you, but for now the DRM-free part is undebatable and the reason for compromising on other things in the first place.

Please be patient, while I dig out the link. ;)

EDIT: Here it is.

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Marcomies: Can you promise that GOG will never accept any game with any sort of DRM into its catalog for any reason?
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TheEnigmaticT: Yes. Well, provided that you don't call anything in the cataog already something with DRM, lest I break this promise before I even get started.
Post edited February 22, 2014 by Leroux
Posted February 22, 2014
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Selderij: I always thought that not agreeing to GOG's core values was the publishers' loss
Yeah, right...

Let's assume GOG can generate 10% of Steam sales on average (and I highly doubt they do half of that on average). In video games market, the digital segment combined is still less than retail, so I doubt that GOG contributes more than 2-3% of all worldwide sales for bigger titles. But lets go crazy and assume it's 5% even.

Having that said, when developer signs a deal for retail distribution with a publisher, these always include a clause forbidding them from selling the game in digital cheaper than in retail, at least when it comes to price at launch - one of the reasons being that devs often get a nice money upfront for signing an exclusive deal with that publisher. So essentially, the loss you're talking of is these 5%, while their option b - aka not signing retail deals and thus not being forced to go with local pricing - means loss of 50% of revenue or more.

How's not not agreeing to GOG's core values a developer or publisher loss here?
Post edited February 22, 2014 by d2t
Posted February 22, 2014
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OldFatGuy: 74 pages.

Shit. So even though it says ask a question below in the comments and you'll answer, I'm guessing you'll ignore this one, but I'm going to ask it anyway. And please, only a blue text answer or a link to a blue text answer. Anyone else and it's just speculation. If I wanted speculation I could read 74 pages.

WHEN THESE NEW RELEASES AND BIG TITLES COME TO GOG, WILL THEY OR WILL THEY NO REMAIN DRM FREE???

Not now, THEN??
The Enigmatic T has answered that question many times, so, if you don't want to browse through all these pages to look for his answer, I don't feel like it, either. But, yes, there are loads of "blue" posts clearly stating all upcoming titles, region-priced or not, will stay completely DRM-free. Sorry for the "speculation", I'm just tired of all this nonsense and don't feel like browsing through all the bitching and moaning and people spelling doom without even giving GOG a chance.
Posted February 22, 2014
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JoseWisemang: this... is hilarious. It's like people are going to die if they have to pay $5 more than me for a videogame. "YOU ABANDONED YOUR PRINCIPLES!".... The great rustling of our time.
In many cases, it is not just $5 though. You only have to look at the regional pricing policy of Steam to see some major disparities in pricing:

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

In some cases people in other regions are paying 2x, 3x, 4x, or more the price of the US version (sometimes more than $20+ USD) for each game. Does an individual person's disposable income suddenly increase to match that kind of price increase? No, it does not, which means that people in some regions will inevitably purchase fewer games, support fewer developers/publishers each year, and thereby contribute to the pressures the game industry is already facing.

The intention of regional pricing (originally) was to ensure more fair pricing across different regions where there are large disparities in wages. In practice, however, it has been used to artificially elevate prices in some regions, and results in blatant price gouging in others.

I personally would not have a problem if it just meant adding the cost of VAT (which is 20 percent in the UK) to the price, because that's what we have to deal with anyway. But going by Steam's pricing model, the price we pay is invariably a third higher for most games, and occasionally ridiculous 100, 200 or 400 percent price hikes on certain titles for no discernable reason other than the publishers think they can charge that much and get away with it.

I know there is some unfairness in the existing flat price model for some regions (and I can certainly sympathise with that), but introducing a regional pricing model will simply shift that unfairness to many other regions, and does not solve the problem.

As others have already stated - today regional pricing, tomorrow regional restriction/censoring ... the day after? Anyone's guess, because once you open Pandora's Box, it's pretty difficult to close it again.
Posted February 22, 2014
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Turjake: I don't think they expected this kind of shitstorm to follow the announcement. They did try to portray it as "good news". That didn't go too well.

People wouldn't be complaining so much about this decision if they didn't care about what GOG does.

I'm disappointed that instead of trying to change the way things are done in this apparently rather sick industry, GOG decided to go with the flow and follow the standards set by others. I understand it's easier to do that than try to change the shitty standards, but I'm still disappointed.

After all, they did succeed at making a good business out of games without DRM. Why give up now?
Portraying this as good news is simply daft as it makes it seem like GOG considers its loyal fans that have taken GOG to where it is today merely as fools. Quite a poor PR move.

Precisely. People are complaining because they care about GOG's excellent service taking a nosedive. Bloody ludicrous.

Giving up now is easy. GOG feels it has sucked its loyal fans dry and can probably make more money now by pandering to the masses. Let's see how far being a generic digital retailer gets them.
Posted February 22, 2014
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groze: I'm just tired of all this nonsense and don't feel like browsing through all the bitching and moaning and people spelling doom without even giving GOG a chance.
Bitching and moaning over a core value "One world - One price" the same as the other core value "DRM Free" and I suppose when that one gets violated you'll consider all those complaints to be bitching and moaning too?? Or do you decided which core value is the most important??

Because they were ALL always listed at the bottom of the home page DRM FREE and ONE WORLD - ONE PRICE and FREE GAMES AND MORE and EXTRAS AND GOODIES.

Which of those can GOG do away with and if there is complaining it's "bitching and moaning" and which ones will you join in on the "bitching and moaning?"
Posted February 22, 2014
Been quoted so many times, I feel important now.
Posted February 22, 2014
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Future_Suture: Same with South America, and the UK is an EU country FYI.
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vulchor: Yeah, I know the UK is but they use the pound so I thought they should be included seperately, since theirs is even costlier a problem if you go dollar=euro=pound
It's very, very rare to see $ = € = £ whereas $ = € is quite common with this regional pricing nonsense. Additionally, the UK is most certainly not the only nation in the EU to not use the € and should thus not be dealt with separately or given special treatment. That's how I feel about the matter at least.
Posted February 22, 2014
And so GOG joins the bandwagon. How sad.
Posted February 22, 2014
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hedwards: In China I was making 4500 RMB and unable to spend it all, but that's probably double the pay rate that most Chinese in the same area were being paid. So, if I did an hour of over time, I'd wind up with an extra 100RMB which corresponds to about $18 or nearly 2 games. A typical Chinese worker would be getting maybe half that.

In the US, the minimum wage is such that you're going to be able to buy maybe 1 game for every hour of work. And I know that in some countries, a person would have to work for multiple hours to pay for a game.

The price is just what you pay, how much you have to work to earn that wage depends a great deal on where you are living. $2 would seem like a good deal unless you're earning a couple cents an hour, in which case it would take you weeks of work to buy that game.
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Asturaetus: But what has any of that to do with it? I price a product so that I can offset the cost + a little extra. Why should that vary between different regions?
That's just silly and not typical. It doesn't matter whether or not you can afford to sell for a given price, people are still going to be thinking about how much effort it's going to take to acquire them. What's more, these are digital games, the cost of producing an extra copy is negligible.

If you're only selling things in one part of the world that line of reasoning might be reasonable, but in places where you have to put in an entire night's work to pay for a $10 game, people are going to think longer and harder because they're being asked to pay more.
Posted February 22, 2014
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Impaler26: It's sad to see regional pricing coming to GOG! :(

I hope the games from those "big publishers" are worth it (somewhat at least)...
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TheEnigmaticT: Divinity: Original Sin is an example of the kind of game we're talking about; it's already launched on Steam for early access with regional pricing, and it wouldn't be very fair of Larian to give our EU and UK users a better value for the game if they buy it from GOG.com later as opposed to Steam now.
The game is overpriced on steam already, so /meh ?
Posted February 22, 2014
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groze: I'm just tired of all this nonsense and don't feel like browsing through all the bitching and moaning and people spelling doom without even giving GOG a chance.
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OldFatGuy: Bitching and moaning over a core value "One world - One price" the same as the other core value "DRM Free" and I suppose when that one gets violated you'll consider all those complaints to be bitching and moaning too?? Or do you decided which core value is the most important??

Because they were ALL always listed at the bottom of the home page DRM FREE and ONE WORLD - ONE PRICE and FREE GAMES AND MORE and EXTRAS AND GOODIES.

Which of those can GOG do away with and if there is complaining it's "bitching and moaning" and which ones will you join in on the "bitching and moaning?"
I won't join any bitching and/or moaning. If they ever stop being DRM-free, I stop buying from them, period, as simple as that. No bitching or moaning is required.
Post edited February 22, 2014 by groze
Posted February 22, 2014
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Future_Suture: Same with South America, and the UK is an EU country FYI.
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vulchor: Yeah, I know the UK is but they use the pound so I thought they should be included seperately, since theirs is even costlier a problem if you go dollar=euro=pound
Do you know if as a EU citizen I have the right to buy everywhere from everywhere for exactly the same price (except shipping costs)? I mean with all this talk about one single market one could think so and say everything else would be an unlawful discrimination thing. Or is this wrong?

At least it would be according to the practical experience I had so far. I bought things in UK and in France and I paid exactly the same as a UK or French citizen would have paid, I think (except shipping of course was higher).

I would also mean that no regional restriction can divide the EU or if it does every EU citizen should be able to choose the best conditions. I fear it isn't like this.

In general: I hate regional pricing as much as I had regional settings for DVDs. I really hate them.
Post edited February 22, 2014 by Trilarion
Posted February 22, 2014
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Asturaetus: But what has any of that to do with it? I price a product so that I can offset the cost + a little extra. Why should that vary between different regions?
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hedwards: That's just silly and not typical. It doesn't matter whether or not you can afford to sell for a given price, people are still going to be thinking about how much effort it's going to take to acquire them. What's more, these are digital games, the cost of producing an extra copy is negligible.

If you're only selling things in one part of the world that line of reasoning might be reasonable, but in places where you have to put in an entire night's work to pay for a $10 game, people are going to think longer and harder because they're being asked to pay more.
That's just silly and not typical of the online world. If you sell something on ebay, do you sell it for way less for customers in some countries and way more in other countries? Also, we are talking about digital goods, so it is no more expensive getting them into all markets.
Posted February 22, 2014
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vulchor: Yeah, I know the UK is but they use the pound so I thought they should be included seperately, since theirs is even costlier a problem if you go dollar=euro=pound
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Trilarion: Do you know if as a EU citizen I have the right to buy everywhere from everywhere for exactly the same price (except shipping costs)? I mean with all this talk about one single market one could think so and say everything else would be an unlawful discrimination thing. Or is this wrong?

At least it would be according to the practical experience I had so far. I bought things in UK and in France and I paid exactly the same as a UK or French citizen would have paid, I think.

I would also mean that no regional restriction can divide the EU or if it does every EU citizen should be able to choose the best conditions. I fear it isn't like this.

In general: I hate regional pricing as much as I had regional settings for DVDs.
It's sadly not the case, at least as long as EU members don't all use the €. Whenever there's a product not available in the UK, I tend to get it from Germany and always have to pay extra because the UK still uses the f*cking £.Currency conversion fees and all that. Bloody annoying.
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This is my favourite topic
Community
General discussionAnnouncement: Big Preorders & Launch Day Releases Coming!(4041 posts)(4041 posts)
(4041 posts)