Posted April 12, 2015
high rated
Makes perfect sense in this context.
HypersomniacLive
The Reluctant Voter
Registered: Sep 2011
From Vatican City
RadonGOG
Buy Sacrifice!!!
Registered: Jun 2012
From Germany
Posted April 12, 2015
Hmmm...
It´s like these folks telling us it would be helping getting more games DRM-free if we buy games from the list of "DRM-free Games on Steam"---no, it wouldn´t!
Why? Because it doesn´t pop up in the statistics! Course they don´t show off the reasons for buying/ not buying something. And boycotting regional pricing is just the same! It´ll only be registered as "that game sells bad at GOG" and the result might be "we won´t bring the successor/ predecessor/ whatever of that game to GOG ". NOTHING ELSE WILL HAPPEN, as nothing else will pop up in the statistic!
It´s like these folks telling us it would be helping getting more games DRM-free if we buy games from the list of "DRM-free Games on Steam"---no, it wouldn´t!
Why? Because it doesn´t pop up in the statistics! Course they don´t show off the reasons for buying/ not buying something. And boycotting regional pricing is just the same! It´ll only be registered as "that game sells bad at GOG" and the result might be "we won´t bring the successor/ predecessor/ whatever of that game to GOG ". NOTHING ELSE WILL HAPPEN, as nothing else will pop up in the statistic!
Klumpen0815
+91
Registered: Dec 2012
From Germany
Posted April 12, 2015
Personally I think the time when I could buy anything here and didn't have to look if it was regionally priced or if there are some DLC existing or may still be coming was great, just as it is great to know whatever I buy it's DRM free (this SecuRom fiasco in GoG's version of F.E.A.R. is the exception to this rule).
I wish all games here would always be uncensored too.
This shop was once the perfect place for mindless buying and oh how I did that. :D
Post edited April 12, 2015 by Klumpen0815
PaterAlf
Cookie Monster
Registered: Apr 2012
From Christmas Island
Posted April 12, 2015
HypersomniacLive
The Reluctant Voter
Registered: Sep 2011
From Vatican City
Posted April 12, 2015
high rated
It´s like these folks telling us it would be helping getting more games DRM-free if we buy games from the list of "DRM-free Games on Steam"---no, it wouldn´t!
Why? Because it doesn´t pop up in the statistics! Course they don´t show off the reasons for buying/ not buying something. And boycotting regional pricing is just the same! It´ll only be registered as "that game sells bad at GOG" and the result might be "we won´t bring the successor/ predecessor/ whatever of that game to GOG ". NOTHING ELSE WILL HAPPEN, as nothing else will pop up in the statistic!
I'm starting to think you're deliberately reading and replying selectively, to fit your argument(s). Ah yes, you were one of those that told us not that long ago, and in a not particularly polite manner, to stop voicing our objections.
But even putting that aside for a moment, keep giving them money will most certainly lead to no change.
On a side note - you don't have to shout, it's considered poor manners, and does not lend more credibility to your arguments. If your intention is to emphasise something, there are more suited ways to do it, like using the bold or underline tags.
RadonGOG
Buy Sacrifice!!!
Registered: Jun 2012
From Germany
Posted April 12, 2015
Otherwise you don´t show of your rational part, your potential! Remember how many years it took to get that "they wanna get back to bloody DVDs with crappy DVD-check" reaction out of folks mind when telling them that one is a DRM-Opponent!
RadonGOG
Buy Sacrifice!!!
Registered: Jun 2012
From Germany
Posted April 13, 2015
It´s like these folks telling us it would be helping getting more games DRM-free if we buy games from the list of "DRM-free Games on Steam"---no, it wouldn´t!
Why? Because it doesn´t pop up in the statistics! Course they don´t show off the reasons for buying/ not buying something. And boycotting regional pricing is just the same! It´ll only be registered as "that game sells bad at GOG" and the result might be "we won´t bring the successor/ predecessor/ whatever of that game to GOG ". NOTHING ELSE WILL HAPPEN, as nothing else will pop up in the statistic!
I'm starting to think you're deliberately reading and replying selectively, to fit your argument(s). Ah yes, you were one of those that told us not that long ago, and in a not particularly polite manner, to stop voicing our objections.
But even putting that aside for a moment, keep giving them money will most certainly lead to no change.
On a side note - you don't have to shout, it's considered poor manners, and does not lend more credibility to your arguments. If your intention is to emphasise something, there are more suited ways to do it, like using the bold or underline tags.
And yes, I am the one who brought up that idea. Course I didn´t understand you, I thought you were some "mindless", ultra-conservative guys who did never question what was behind the principles and so on but always only looked on the explicit lines and were never reading between the lines. Course this was how you were presenting yourself!
As you might have noticed I was in search of finding new ways to solve that problem and PaterAlf was kind enough to build up the basis of a good discussion, which I´m very glad of!
Concerning your side note: I was in that mood. I was tired of all those stuff and so on; and yes, I fell a little bit ashamed being remembered of that!
B2T: In general, we have to decide which is more important: DRM-free gaming or "fair" regional pricing. (aka regional discounts)
If you stop buying games that are regional priced in the current way you are definitely weakening DRM-free gaming, as this results in less sales on GOG and therefor less publishers interested in continuing rereleasing/ releasing their games on GOG. Or, if you don´t get many to boycott it, it won´t cause anything, due to the low numbers!
I agree on that it´s supportable (heck, should have told me few days ago and I wouldn´t believed I´d say this today) to bring back the topic on the mind of forum users as well as publishers. But I don´t believe that there is any way to show them your (complex) opinion with simple buys/ no buys of certain games! And you shouldn´t try to find one, course that´s wasted energy! Investing that energy in a flesh-out thesis-paper (compact, easy to get and general acceptable) would be ways better...
PaterAlf
Cookie Monster
Registered: Apr 2012
From Christmas Island
Posted April 13, 2015
Otherwise you don´t show of your rational part, your potential!
I'm optimistic that most publishers in fact know what the problem is and that the message that I won't buy it because of that reason is enough for a release thread. Might not be the case for indie developers without a publisher though. Some of them admitted that they never thought about the problems with regional pricing and that they just price their games the same way everybody else does or the way the digital distributors tell them.
Post edited April 13, 2015 by PaterAlf
RadonGOG
Buy Sacrifice!!!
Registered: Jun 2012
From Germany
Posted April 13, 2015
Otherwise you don´t show of your rational part, your potential!
I'm optimistic that most publishers in fact know what the problem is and that the message that I won't buy it enough because of that reason is enough for a release thread. Might not be the case for indie developers without a publisher though. Some of them admitted that they never thought about the problems with regional pricing and that they just price their games the same way everybody else does or the way the digital distributors tell them.
Hell, many publishers don´t even know what exactly and why (some, like most folks around here) customers dislike about DRM ... ;(
My recommendation: Create a "Manifest of Game Pricing Enhancement Group"-Thread and link that one in every of these posts: So you could keep this posts short, but nothing is lost at all!
Of course for this you NEED a Manifest first of all...
(well, I´m glad that my main concern is DRM-free gaming; seems rather simple to phrase opinions and unite the different attitudes in one core basis in comparison to the diversity going on here...)
Cavalary
RIP GoodOldGOG:DRMfree,one price,goodies,community
Registered: May 2011
From Romania
Posted April 13, 2015
Just butting in here as pointlessly as always, only to repeat some things, which is pretty much what the others in this conversation are doing anyway.
1. With the actual resource cost of a particular digital copy being negligible (not quite zero - there's a bit of bandwidth and a really really tiny bit of wear on some equipment - but so low that setting up a system to correctly charge for just that amount would cost more and therefore not be worth the hassle), my stance remains that they should be made freely available to everyone and some other method be worked out to ensure the living of those who make them. And of everyone else for that matter, but here we get to another discussion (which I've had on here before).
2. While that doesn't yet happen and we're stuck with this idea of paying for each, the only way to make price variations fair would be to adapt the price to the, er, "economic realities" of each particular potential customer. Otherwise it's just varying the sort of wrong, and possibly deciding who gets screwed over worse, though it tends to work out the same in nearly all cases in practice.
3. As #2 is impossible, the only pricing model that makes sense is the flat one. Same product, same store, same price.
4. And about what GOG did, they said they had certain values and are different from the others on the digital games market because of them. They said they'll change the industry and asked people who disliked how things were done to come here and help them do them differently. And quite a number of us did so. And then they decided they'd rather go for those who like how things are done, no longer try to change, and largely said "tough luck" to their core audience. They may still make a few concessions here and there, while we're still vocal and sufficient in number, but they no longer care about values or promises. So if you want to still have any sort of impact around here, hit them in what they do care about, which is to say, same as for any other rotten business, their bottom line first and their public image second.
5. Making it seem that certain games don't sell well or are otherwise undesirable on GOG, perhaps resulting in them or their sequels or others from those companies only being available with DRM elsewhere and therefore harming the "I only care about no DRM" crowd is also effective, and actually pretty darn fair. If that crowd only cares about one thing and tell the rest of us "tough luck if you care about more and now lost on some of it; just go away and let us still get what we care about", hit them where it hurts too and maybe they'll join the efforts out of need eventually if they can't see we're in this together on their own.
1. With the actual resource cost of a particular digital copy being negligible (not quite zero - there's a bit of bandwidth and a really really tiny bit of wear on some equipment - but so low that setting up a system to correctly charge for just that amount would cost more and therefore not be worth the hassle), my stance remains that they should be made freely available to everyone and some other method be worked out to ensure the living of those who make them. And of everyone else for that matter, but here we get to another discussion (which I've had on here before).
2. While that doesn't yet happen and we're stuck with this idea of paying for each, the only way to make price variations fair would be to adapt the price to the, er, "economic realities" of each particular potential customer. Otherwise it's just varying the sort of wrong, and possibly deciding who gets screwed over worse, though it tends to work out the same in nearly all cases in practice.
3. As #2 is impossible, the only pricing model that makes sense is the flat one. Same product, same store, same price.
4. And about what GOG did, they said they had certain values and are different from the others on the digital games market because of them. They said they'll change the industry and asked people who disliked how things were done to come here and help them do them differently. And quite a number of us did so. And then they decided they'd rather go for those who like how things are done, no longer try to change, and largely said "tough luck" to their core audience. They may still make a few concessions here and there, while we're still vocal and sufficient in number, but they no longer care about values or promises. So if you want to still have any sort of impact around here, hit them in what they do care about, which is to say, same as for any other rotten business, their bottom line first and their public image second.
5. Making it seem that certain games don't sell well or are otherwise undesirable on GOG, perhaps resulting in them or their sequels or others from those companies only being available with DRM elsewhere and therefore harming the "I only care about no DRM" crowd is also effective, and actually pretty darn fair. If that crowd only cares about one thing and tell the rest of us "tough luck if you care about more and now lost on some of it; just go away and let us still get what we care about", hit them where it hurts too and maybe they'll join the efforts out of need eventually if they can't see we're in this together on their own.
PaterAlf
Cookie Monster
Registered: Apr 2012
From Christmas Island
Posted April 13, 2015
I would say that it's a good idea, but unfortunately I don't think that I'm the right one to write it. My English might be be solid, but it's certainly not good enough to create something as complex as such a manifest.
RadonGOG
Buy Sacrifice!!!
Registered: Jun 2012
From Germany
Posted April 14, 2015
1. With the actual resource cost of a particular digital copy being negligible (not quite zero - there's a bit of bandwidth and a really really tiny bit of wear on some equipment - but so low that setting up a system to correctly charge for just that amount would cost more and therefore not be worth the hassle), my stance remains that they should be made freely available to everyone and some other method be worked out to ensure the living of those who make them. And of everyone else for that matter, but here we get to another discussion (which I've had on here before).
2. While that doesn't yet happen and we're stuck with this idea of paying for each, the only way to make price variations fair would be to adapt the price to the, er, "economic realities" of each particular potential customer. Otherwise it's just varying the sort of wrong, and possibly deciding who gets screwed over worse, though it tends to work out the same in nearly all cases in practice.
3. As #2 is impossible, the only pricing model that makes sense is the flat one. Same product, same store, same price.
4. And about what GOG did, they said they had certain values and are different from the others on the digital games market because of them. They said they'll change the industry and asked people who disliked how things were done to come here and help them do them differently. And quite a number of us did so. And then they decided they'd rather go for those who like how things are done, no longer try to change, and largely said "tough luck" to their core audience. They may still make a few concessions here and there, while we're still vocal and sufficient in number, but they no longer care about values or promises. So if you want to still have any sort of impact around here, hit them in what they do care about, which is to say, same as for any other rotten business, their bottom line first and their public image second.
5. Making it seem that certain games don't sell well or are otherwise undesirable on GOG, perhaps resulting in them or their sequels or others from those companies only being available with DRM elsewhere and therefore harming the "I only care about no DRM" crowd is also effective, and actually pretty darn fair. If that crowd only cares about one thing and tell the rest of us "tough luck if you care about more and now lost on some of it; just go away and let us still get what we care about", hit them where it hurts too and maybe they'll join the efforts out of need eventually if they can't see we're in this together on their own.
#2& #3: WARNING: VERY IDEALISTIC VIEW, only shows off the basic idea you can also use to judge regional pricing vs. flat pricing: You could try to do regional pricing in such a way that the average difference between "personal economic reality" and "county-wide standard" turns out minimal. In any case, this would be AT LEAST as good as flat pricing, course if you assume flat pricing would be better, the regional pricing would adapt flat pricing-> flat=reg -> flat pricing better than regional is an impossible case in this scheme!
#4: It is still questionable whether their was a value at any time... (course, in my eyes, they fooled us to make us believe flat pricing would be any good at all!)
#5: A little harsh and missing one point: Differentiation and prioritization! I cannot even think about anybody seeing each of the four original columns of GOG at the same strength and importance! I mean, WTF?! These very few free Games as an entire column?! :D
My impression always had been that DRM-free is the central column. A game not being DRM-free on GOG is a PR-disaster and gets fixed. No other way! Followed up by that OneWorldPricingStuff, then followed up by bonus goodies and SOMEHOW these free games do find there way in. By the way, bonus goodies and free games have been replaced by MoneyBackGuarantee now and I haven´t seen a big tumult following up that change! Looks like others as well saw these columns not being equal at all!
mrkgnao
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00HCZVCTO
Registered: Apr 2009
From United States
Posted April 14, 2015
Dug up a nice piece of history. GOG's "About Us" page from 26 February 2012:
http://web.archive.org/web/20120226214710/http://www.gog.com/en/about
Here is what they had to say merely three years ago about pricing:
"Same game, same price, no matter where you're from!
We believe that all gamers around the world should be treated equally. Therefore GOG.com is available to everyone, everywhere, and we offer the same prices to gamers from all countries. Getting the worldwide rights to the games takes some extra effort on our part, but we think it's worth the reward of opening up our site to the world."
You can hear TET's voice, I believe.
http://web.archive.org/web/20120226214710/http://www.gog.com/en/about
Here is what they had to say merely three years ago about pricing:
"Same game, same price, no matter where you're from!
We believe that all gamers around the world should be treated equally. Therefore GOG.com is available to everyone, everywhere, and we offer the same prices to gamers from all countries. Getting the worldwide rights to the games takes some extra effort on our part, but we think it's worth the reward of opening up our site to the world."
You can hear TET's voice, I believe.
Matruchus
Don't ignore Tux
Registered: Jun 2011
From Slovenia
Posted April 14, 2015
http://web.archive.org/web/20120226214710/http://www.gog.com/en/about
Here is what they had to say merely three years ago about pricing:
"Same game, same price, no matter where you're from!
We believe that all gamers around the world should be treated equally. Therefore GOG.com is available to everyone, everywhere, and we offer the same prices to gamers from all countries. Getting the worldwide rights to the games takes some extra effort on our part, but we think it's worth the reward of opening up our site to the world."
You can hear TET's voice, I believe.
d2t
New User
Registered: Sep 2010
From Poland
Posted April 14, 2015
http://web.archive.org/web/20120226214710/http://www.gog.com/en/about
Here is what they had to say merely three years ago about pricing:
"Same game, same price, no matter where you're from!
We believe that all gamers around the world should be treated equally. Therefore GOG.com is available to everyone, everywhere, and we offer the same prices to gamers from all countries. Getting the worldwide rights to the games takes some extra effort on our part, but we think it's worth the reward of opening up our site to the world."
You can hear TET's voice, I believe.
You know, according to sources you yourself have linked to, this page was online way before he was working at GOG - see mirror from September 2010 and check his (first) forum posts.
http://web.archive.org/web/20100924111557/http://www.gog.com/en/about
Actually don't - seems this page was there since very beginnings of GOG - Dec 2008
http://www.gog.com/news/gog_com_games_are_the_same_price_no_matter_where_you_live
So sorry it doesn't fit your agenda, but I'm sure you can hear his voice whenever you see fit ;)
Post edited April 14, 2015 by d2t