Last month, digital distributor GOG announced that to have the privilege of selling games from “fantastic bigger studios”, it would adopt a regional pricing model for those titles. The move was not well-received and now, just weeks later, GOG has kicked the policy to the kerb.
In a post from GOG managing director Guillaume Rambourg and CD Projekt founder Marcin Iwiński, the company explained that it was not willing to “sacrifice one of our core values [DRM-free games] in an attempt to advance another [fair pricing]”.
As a result of dropping regional pricing, the post states it will take GOG “longer to get some games” (or never, depending on the publisher), but that it is a small price to pay to stick to its principles.
The change does come with a small caveat — where it is otherwise impossible for the company not to have regional pricing on a title, it will “make up the difference” itself, in the form of $US5.99 and $US9.99 game codes. This will eventually transition to a store credit system, once “such functionality is implemented”.
Comments
11 responses to “GOG Drops Regional Pricing After Massive User Backlash”
Good to see they can recognise and correct a flawed idea when it occurs, takes some courage to do that when it may well mean less business.
I’m glad this has brought regional pricing to people’s attention again. Sooner or later companies have to stop gouging, and recognise we are in a global market.
As soon as it stops being lucrative for them, they will.
People keep paying.
http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_md264hTVxj1rq64kfo1_500.jpg
Pretty much this…
May I add that in theory capitalist countries shouldn’t even have to resort to this practice since the advent of “Free Trade”. Since the other part of the equation – tarriffs and taxes have been drastically reduced if not removed because of so called “Free Trade”.
Pretty sure it’s been a big issue for.. probably 5-10 years at LEAST lol.
All prices are (and always have been) based on what people would be willing to pay. It’s great to see that people are no longer willing to put up with “foreigner tax” when it’s completely unjustified (like with digital downloads) and at least a few places are recognising this and responding. I’ve bought from GOG before, but now consider yourself bookmarked.
I haven’t bought anything from GoG in a while, but now I kinda have to. Money is the only thing that matters. A change to the balance sheets.
“not willing to “sacrifice one of our core values [DRM-free games] in an attempt to advance another [fair pricing]” is not the same as sacrificing it, getting a huge backlash and mocked for weeks, realizing the error of one’s ways, and then deciding to “unsacrifice it”. Pretty much the same as the Xbone DRM thing.
Devils advocate serious question – is regional pricing okay when it correlates reasonably with average wage and cost of living?
It sucks when they add an “Aussie Tax” which is out of line with what we expect to pay, but what about countries where games would be priced more cheaply because they have a much lower average wage? Should those countries have to pay the standard western price?
How do you get around the fact that not all people have the same buying power, and in some countries a $50 game might cost a months wages?
Hey, check out these “Minimum wages by country” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minimum_wages_by_country
Australia tops the list. We also have a pretty high cost of living, but in terms of a standardised international pricing for digital products we’re not at a terrible disadvantage.
And if products are priced more cheaply for countries that can’t afford to pay western prices, what’s stopping people just buying those versions instead?
Nothing.
Gracias por TitanFall, Origin mexicano!/DevilsAdvocate
Woo! Glad they dropped that nonsense. Regional Pricing seriously stuffed up the good thing Greenmangaming had going.
On the Average wages table, we’re either 15th (ILO stats) or 4th (OECD stats) – based on the 2012 exchange rate, about 20% higher than the current rate. In both cases the USA is ranked above us. The OECD numbers are especially interesting as they adjust by PPP (pricing parity) which pulls the Australian average down quite a bit – in other words while we do earn more, on average we pay more for everything, and the difference more than makes up for the higher wages.
It’s tempting to say that’s the Australia Tax, but it’s probably relative housing prices.
I don’t think many people object to paying more for our games than, for example, India or China. The primary objection is relative pricing in Western Europe and especially the United States and Canada.
This is especially so as the prices quoted by the site are given in US dollars and are paid in US dollars. That seems a bit too much like rubbing salt into the wound.