A game costs"X" to make. To recoup costs and make a profit, they need to sell "Y" copies at "Z" price. The cost to make the game is absolute in the country in which it is made. Meaning the value of each copy has to be absolute to fit into this natural formula. By changing prices in other regions to lower than US prices, they are admitting that the US sales (and other countries like UK, France, Spain et al) will cover losses. So basically they assign abstract value to their product. Why is it worth less in Russia than in the UK? The product's value isn't based in Russia, but in the US (for example if the game was developed in the US) so why would the price be adjusted to a different value based on where it sells as opposed to matching the cost and value of creation? It makes no sense whatsoever. I personally don't care how much of a person's monthly income it takes to buy a game because games are a luxury. If you can't afford it, then you don't get it.

A guy who doesn't understand how economy works like you won't understand regional pricing.

I actually understand pretty well how economy works, and regional pricing is still beyond me because most of the values are arbitrary. Countries with similar median income and climates have vastly different prices, or countries with low median incomes have exorbitant price points. The actual values are arbitrary making most regional pricing scams completely nonsensical. I realize they are trying to drive sales ("some of the money is better than none") in poorer countries. I understand it fine. I don't get it from a value standpoint. You can claim I don't understand economy at all, that's fine. The cost to produce something does not change based on where it is sold.

Let's say that the exchange rate is 8 Rand to 1 US Dollar. At that rate something cheap in the US would be consider somewhat expensive in South Africa.Let's ignore that and pretend that there's parity at R8=$1, and so someone in SA paying $60 for a game is equivalent to someone in USA paying $60 for the same game.

Now the exchange rate suddenly deteriorates, dropping to R11 to $1 - pretty much the worst it's ever been. If prices are fixed to the exchange rate then a $60 effectively now costs $82.50 before even taking into consideration that your disposable income is less than it was before (because fuel and food prices go up, but salary remains the same) while in the USA income is unaffected and the game still costs $60.

Then (hypothetically, of course) the finance minister gets fired after refusing to accept a terrible deal that would have made one of the president's close friends much richer at the expense of the rest of the country, just before the big credit ratings companies (who liked the minister) are about to evaluate the country, so foreign investors wisely take their money elsewhere and the exchange rate abruptly drops to R16 to $1. South Africans now have further-reduced income and are effectively paying $120 for a $60.

Demand is not inversely proportional to price. If you take a $60 game and decide to raise its price to $120 you can't reasonably expect to sell at least half as many copies as you would at $60 and make the same revenue in total. Instead, you'd lose nearly all of your customers. When things went bad a few months ago Steam quickly introduced regional pricing at $1=R11 to avoid their sales in the country dropping to nearly nothing. It's not a good rate, but it's much much better than the alternative.

Given the current situation, adding a regional price for South Africa would most like be in the best interest of customers, publishers&developers and GOG alike.

Nice avatar:)

To get back to the OP's question, South Africa is more than likely a low priority for GOG. The only country that currently benefits from full regional pricing here is Russia. Other countries that get benefits on Steam (like Brazil, Mexico, India, China, countries from Southeast Asia, etc) either get limited benefits here or don't get a benefit at all. I suspect that we won't see any benefit to South Africa, before GOG applies full regional pricing to the aforementioned territories.

3 South Africans in the same thread? Woohoo!

Under the cirumstances I suppose we should feel fortunate. Just imagine if david van rooyen stayed minister of finance :P

Thanks for the replies guys. Just wish someone who works at GOG would join the discussion.

One thing you're saying is true - the $60 selling price in the US is arbitrary. Consumers have shown that they'll willing to pay that much (even high in fact, hence all the special editions), and so the level is set there for new AAA releases.

The prices of physical games can only drop so much in poorer countries, as there are very real costs associated with putting that product on shelves. Digital sales are entirely different though. There is zero marginal cost in selling one more digital product - therefore all publishers would benefit from pricing their products appropriately in poorer regions.

The post below yours outlined the idea behind price parity, so I won't elaborate beyond that.

Thanks! It was included with one of the few GOG games I own - Divinity: Original Sin. Epic game if you haven't played it.

I accept that keeping tabs on all the struggling economies around the world is a bit too much to ask, but GOG could greatly simplify matters by just grouping poorer countries together and giving them all the same price discount percentage.

EA Origin and Steam give us appropriate prices. Would be great if Uplay, Blizzard (Hearthstone has good prices on Android though) and GOG could get on board too.

That's quite likely the case. In fact, even Steam didn't feel we were worth regional pricing until this year.

Don't hold your breath. They won't openly discuss those matters.
I don't know about Origin, but Steam started giving beneficiary prices last year after it introduced support for the South African Rand and I don't expect GOG will do any different. Implementing currency support might entail time and various legal hurdles and since each of the poor territories has a different currency, they can't just lump them together.

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But at the end of the day, it's sales that matter. You can't recoup production cost without proper sales. Some of sale tactics include, but not limited to, regional pricing.

I'm South African. Just recently decided to get into GOG to purchase DRM-free titles. And I realise that there is just no comparison in pricing - I can buy a package containing Gothic I, II, and II, on Steam for less than the price of only Gothic I on GOG.Due to economic and financial constraints, I already have limited myself to purchasing games from Steam only when they fall under R100, with majority of my purchases falling under R50 (I wait for specials religiously). GOG titles, even when on sale, mostly fall above R50. I would prefer buying from GOG because of the DRM-free purchasing, but Steam's prices outclass those on GOG. It is disheartening. I too would like to see GOG do with its prices what Steam does so that it becomes a viable alternative to Steam.

About 20% of the U.S. population counts as the average now?

Yeah. Seriously. Wee need this in SA.