Good Old Games

[Malcador]

Thing is, the regional pricing of The Witcher 2 was defeatable by simply changing the country field in your user profile. If I have to VPN in to buy from GOG, I'm not going to be pleased and seek alternatives. I mean even bloody Amazon doesn't do geolocation.

 

Think it might still be that easy. 

[Zoraptor]

They switched to geolocation for TW2 after about ten days, iirc- but it did take a court order to make them.

 

Annoying that they have been doing this whole holier than thou thing in the game-retail world, and now they try to put a spin on it how they are doing it for the cause.

That is why they're getting such a lot of stick for it. If you're going to go on about having principles and operating on trust you're going to cop it when you operate against those principles with all the people who think you've breached their trust. I'm not that disappointed despite being one of the people most likely to be asterisked over because I've always recognised most of those principles as sales pitch, much like all the stuff Brad Wardell spouted about Impulse.

 

Ultimately if it came down to a choice between DRM free and regional pricing going (hypothetically, it wouldn't be practically) then they chose the right one. Regional pricing is price gouging on digital goods, pure and simple, but at least it's avoidable with minimal effort or with a bit of discipline to only buy at the level you feel it's actually worth. Or not at all. Only real problem I have with it is the thin end of wedge one, the thought that they may start offering 'optional' steam keys for multiplayer and the like and end up as just another steam reseller.

Edited February 22, 2014 by Zoraptor

[Humanoid]

Yeah, I'd like to see them have some structural separation to ensure the slippery slope is not a problem that they slide down. If they have all these titles in one basket, new and old, restricted and fair price, then it's far too easy to hide one change amongst thousands. Create a new site, GoodNewGames or whatever, with its own address and front end for this kind of thing.

 

At the very least a commitment to put an obvious notice "Note that the price of this title has been set according to our regional pricing agreements" on affected titles should be the least they could do. Needing a third party site to track the differences would be another regrettable Steamism (steamprices.com) - bowing to contractual obligations is one thing, purposeful obfuscation with the intent to ensure the ongoing ignorance of the customer base is quite another.

[Nonek]

Slightly disappointing, however I understand that the gentlemen wish to attract more publishers and must accept a certain amount of compromise. I certainly hope that it is not the beginning of a slippery slope however, if so they lose their unique selling point and PR pitch, that of the "good guys."

[Humanoid]

I wouldn't have thought they'd have resisted all that much in the first place, after all, a 30% cut to them means the higher prices also represent more money in their own pockets.

 

 

But yeah, I'd love it if the EU stamped out this effective price fixing occurring under the guise of agency agreements. Someday. If I was being super optimistic and naive.

Edited February 22, 2014 by Humanoid

[Zoraptor]

Not necessarily more money in their pocket- though I agree it will likely be so. For TW2 they were offering games (or store credit?) in compensation for the difference in pricing, and at least one other store (GMG) was offering an australasia specific discount code to offset the regional pricing.

 

There was a freedom of trade suit being brought against Bethesda in the EU about their restrictions around FONV, iirc. Not sure it was specifically about pricing though, I think it was because you could not buy some dlc in Poland and other eastern countries.

[Humanoid]

GMG's "Australia tax" code brought the price down to the US RRP, but the thing is, GMG essentially always have a minimum 20% off code already, which can't be stacked. So the actual net price still wasn't terribly competitive. But yeah, I'm of the position that retailers should always be able to set their own price regardless of whether stuff is sold under the wholesale model or the agency model, which includes crap like how Miele appliances are priced in department stores.

[Lorfean]

Summoner was released today and is $4.79 (20% off) until next Tuesday. I have vague memories of playing and enjoying it back in 2000... Might be fun checking it out again.

 

They also released a indie platformer called Fractured Soul -- which I know nothing about -- and that one is $ 8.99 (10% off) for its first week.

[LadyCrimson]

Oh man, I loved Summoner for a while. I mean, it wasn't the best game in the world or anything, but for some reason I had a lot of fun with it. I may have to buy that one, not sure if my CD disc would run on Win7. Darn you, GoG, making me pull out my wallet.

[Labadal]

Summoner is basically the PS2 era Dragon Age on consoles.

 

Edit: Fractured Souls was released on the Nintendop 3DS some time ago. I remember trying the demo.

Edited February 25, 2014 by Labadal

[LadyCrimson]

Summoner is basically the PS2 era Dragon Age on consoles.

Oh? Why do you think that (as I haven't played DA)? Because of the story/options? I don't even remember the story. I just liked summoning things and having companions to fight with plus running around. That main town felt huge at the time.And the random encounters while walking on the map were kinda fun initially. The boss fights were pretty weak tho, IIRC.

[Mamoulian War]

Age of Wonders III Deluxe, sold for 44.99USD for americans or 61.99USD for europeans... sigh

 

How much for our southern hemisphere colleagues?

[Humanoid]

$44.99USD. Looks like no specific arrangement for Australia so just the usual US price.

 

 

EDIT: If you read the letter from the MD, the other two titles to get regional pricing will be Divinity: Original Sin and The Witcher 3. You'd think that with the latter they'd learned enough from the previous debacle not to sign up with a partner that demands regional pricing, so that's disappointing: it's one thing for a game you licence to have conditions attached, but for your in-house titles? That's just dumb.

Edited February 25, 2014 by Humanoid

[Mamoulian War]

Reading around forums I found that the price of AoW3 for Russians is around 20USD, can anyone confirm?

[Zoraptor]

There's a jpg of the pre order page on the codex and it is under $20 for Russia.

 

I do wonder if they'll end up losing money on this. Apart from the people who are peeved about the whole policy change (rather a lot, judging by the forums, and the worst thing you want is people who buy on principle telling you they're asterisking off as they probably mean it, unlike the boycott CoD crowd) there will be a subset rubbing their hands and temporarily taking a metaphorical trip to Yekaterinburg every time a game is released.

 

TWitcher thing doesn't surprise me though, and won't effect me. I'd have to buy retail, probably via a UK remailer, as the download would be far too large.

[Labadal]

 

Summoner is basically the PS2 era Dragon Age on consoles.

Oh? Why do you think that (as I haven't played DA)? Because of the story/options? I don't even remember the story. I just liked summoning things and having companions to fight with plus running around. That main town felt huge at the time.And the random encounters while walking on the map were kinda fun initially. The boss fights were pretty weak tho, IIRC.

 

 

Summoner basically is a party based crpg that reminds me of Dragon Age: Origins. This is neither good or bad. That's the feeling I got when playing Summoner, although I prefer the setting in Summoner more than the one in DA:O. You also get companions that you can choose your skills for, but they do have roles, ie, mage, tank, etc.

 

Summoner 2 was more action oriented, just like Dragon Age II was more action oriented. Again, the setting in Summoner 2 was better than the one in DA2. I prefer S2 to DA2.

[Hassat Hunter]

Age of Wonders III Deluxe, sold for 44.99USD for americans or 61.99USD for europeans... sigh

 

How much for our southern hemisphere colleagues?

 

That's crazy... seeing Thriump Studio's is here in the Netherlands.

Shouldn't we pay less than the US then???

[Zoraptor]

All of the known regionally priced games are European based. Larian, for DivOS*, and they're in Belgium. And TWitcher 2/3 made by CDPR and distributed through Namco-Bandai Europe (ex Atari Europe, who distributed TW1). Clearly there's a limit to European fraternity when it comes to pricing video games.

 

May be interesting when US based titles like WL2 or PoE goes on GOG to see if regional pricing is applied. WL2EA has marginal regional pricing on Steam, but PoE still has flat pricing via the portal.

 

*I've got a kickstarter with them, which didn't have regional pricing so no effect there.

[Majek]

That's crazy... seeing Thriump Studio's is here in the Netherlands.

Shouldn't we pay less than the US then???

 

That never happens, for anything.

 

And "Third, we will switch to fair local pricing for classic games, as I mentioned above." from the MD letter is just turning my stomach.

[melkathi]

 

 

And "Third, we will switch to fair local pricing for classic games, as I mentioned above." from the MD letter is just turning my stomach.

 

 

Yeah. That sentence left me speechless.

[babaganoosh13]

I wonder if that means they'll be able to get Doom 2, along with its "fair local prices"^TM.

 

$ 4.99 > £ 5.99 > € 9.99

[Serrano]

I wonder how many people still buy Doom 2, I mean it's so old now.  

Edited February 27, 2014 by Serrano

[TheChris92]

Now if they'd only release Grim Fandango already..

[milczyciel]

I wonder how many people still buy Doom 2, I mean it's so old now.  

I did and even played it for a while, but then got my 3 letters handled over on a silver platter by a cacodemon and crawled back to my rpg corner to weep.

And then reinforced with a recent fun I had with HL, I got that wonderful idea about trying out MoHAA last week. On hard difficulty.

 

Yeah... well, at least I beat it after turning it medium and abusing quick save/load. And didn't even wept that much this time since I was busy cursing* aloud** because at that moment it seemed like a great idea to tell them invisible snipers where they can stick their rifles and how my superb companions could help them with achieving that noble goal. That in turn making my spouse telling me that I need to turn the bloody game off***.

 

All things considered, I have to say it was a great fun. How the hell that works I can't even begin to explain. :D

 

 

*which I do not do often, being someone prone to get depressed rather than angry about his shortcomings and failures

**which is exceptionally rare

***which she never did before, since we met 8 or 9 years ago... Crap, I have to figure it out or she'll get another reason to shout at me, when the next anniversary comes.

[Malcador]

http://www.gog.com/news/getting_back_to_our_roots

 

 

Hey, GOGgers,

We're not perfect, we're exploring new frontiers, and we make mistakes. We thought DRM-Free was so important that you'd prefer we bring you more DRM-Free games and Fair Price was less critical and that it could be sacrificed in some cases. The last two week's worth of comments in our forums (nearly 10k!), show that's not the case. We didn’t listen and we let you down. We shouldn't sacrifice one of our core values in an attempt to advance another. We feel bad about that, and we're sorry. Us being sorry is not of much use to you, so let’s talk about how we will fix it.

One: DRM-free forever. Abandoning fixed regional pricing means it will probably take longer to get some games, but you've made it clear that sacrificing fair pricing for more DRM-free games isn't acceptable.

Two: We will adamantly continue to fight for games with flat worldwide pricing. If that fails and we are required to have regional prices, we will make up the difference for you out of our own pockets. For now it will be with $5.99 and $9.99 game codes. In a couple of months, once we have such functionality implemented, we will give you store credit instead, which then you will be able to use towards any purchase and cover the price of it in full or partially. Effectively gamers from all around the world will be able to benefit from the US prices.

This will apply to every single game where we do not have flat pricing, such as Age of Wonders 3 (full details here), Divinity: Original Sin, and The Witcher 3. If you remember the Fair Price Package for The Witcher 2, this will be exactly the same.

Three: We still intend to introduce the pricing in local currencies. Let us explain why we want to do it and how we want to make it fair for everyone. From the very beginning our intention was to make things easier for users whose credit cards/payment systems are not natively in USD. The advantages are simple because the price is more understandable and easier to relate to. There would be no exchange rates involved, no transaction fees, and no other hidden charges. However after reading your comments, we realized we have taken an important element away: the choice. In order to fix this, we'll offer the option of paying in the local currency or the equivalent in USD. This way, how you pay is always your choice.

Four: You are what matters, and we will be sure to involve you all more in what we're doing and why we're doing it. Let's start by meeting you at GDC - we’d like to invite you to meet us face-to-face Monday the 17th at GDC. Obviously, not all of you can come to San Francisco, so we want to invite all of you to an online event with us early in April to ask us whatever you would like. More details soon.

The bottom line is simple: there may be companies that won't work with us (although we will work hard to convince the most stubborn ones . Yes, it means we might miss out on some games, but at the same time GOG.com will remain true to its values and will keep on offering you the best of DRM-free gaming with Fair Prices.

Once again thank you for caring so much about GOG.com. We will work hard not to disappoint you again.

--Marcin "iWi" Iwinski & Guillaume "TheFrenchMonk" Rambourg

Edited March 11, 2014 by Malcador