GOG Ends Its Fair Price Package Program

[cageymaru]

Yesterday, we covered the recent layoffs at GOG due to financial troubles at the PC games digital storefront. Today, GOG has announced an end to its Fair Price Package program. GOG says it used the program to make up the price differences between various countries as some games on GOG.com have regional pricing. Those games cost more due to regional pricing and GOG was giving their customers GOG Wallet funds to make up the difference. In some instances, GOG was absorbing up to 37% of added cost. GOG says it was able to cover these costs by turning a small profit, but recent changes to the percentage of revenue split that it gives developers would mean that the digital game storefront would be operating at a loss. The Fair Price Package will end on March 31, 2019. The Epic Games store has shaken up the PC games digital storefront economy with its 88/12% revenue split.

In the past, we were able to cover these extra costs from our cut and still turn a small profit. Unfortunately, this is not the case anymore. With an increasing share paid to developers, our cut gets smaller. However, we look at it, at the end of the day we are a store and need to make sure we sell games without a loss. Removing FPP is not a decision we make lightly, but by making this change, we will be able to offer better conditions to game creators, which -- in turn -- will allow us to offer you more curated classic games and new releases. All DRM-free.

 

[Ranulfo]

A sad inevitablility.

we will be able to offer better conditions to game creators,

And I'm sure the devs/publishers will pass that on to customers. Maybe. Probably. Not.

 

[DrezKill]

The world must be upside-down, cuz the one company that should be the most successful is the one that is hurting. This shit ain't right in the least.

I'm sure the devs/publishers will pass that on to customers. Maybe. Probably. Not.

Of course they will! Just like when the age of digital came, and publishers saved money not having to print boxes and manuals and such. Look how much cheaper digital games are compared to their physical counterparts!
Oh wait...

 

[PantherBlitz]

Of course they will! Just like when the age of digital came, and publishers saved money not having to print boxes and manuals and such. Look how much cheaper digital games are compared to their physical counterparts!
Oh wait...

If people are willing to buy new releases for $50-60 why would any sane publisher ask for less?

 

[sfsuphysics]

The world must be upside-down, cuz the one company that should be the most successful is the one that is hurting. This shit ain't right in the least.

It's not about being successful in this, I'm sure they were getting sales, it's that sales hurt the company because they need to pay the difference (even if it is some "credit" system). It's the country's fault for putting up some VAT or some other roadblock that makes them cost more.

The other side of that though is what about places where games are cheaper? Fuck it Americans can afford to pay more, so why give them a break on anything.

 

[TangledThornz]

Well, shit. I like GoG. They better not go out of business.

 

[horskh]

Why is the price of a game different in different countries? I am assuming with this question that we're normalizing on currency exchange rates and perhaps ignoring daily fluctuations. Is it the developer who is determining the price in each country?

 

[MavericK]

If people are willing to buy new releases for $50-60 why would any sane publisher ask for less?

Given the number of decent discounts even on pre-order titles these days, I'm guessing many people aren't willing to pay that anymore.

 

[That_Sound_Guy]

Why is the price of a game different in different countries? I am assuming with this question that we're normalizing on currency exchange rates and perhaps ignoring daily fluctuations. Is it the developer who is determining the price in each country?

Import tariffs and taxes play a role per country. Even the games rating has price implications depending on how controlling the country is on violence and such.

 

[Smoked Brisket]

So Epic games storefront is an example of unregulated competition hurting the consumer? GoG's success, imo, helped create a resurgence in the crpg genre when it proved that there was a demand for long neglected titles, giving some of them life they never had. Soon after Steam was suddenly offering games like "Fallout 2." They deserve to thrive.

 

[Sycraft]

The world must be upside-down, cuz the one company that should be the most successful is the one that is hurting. This shit ain't right in the least.

Well two big reasons:

1) Game companies are stuck on DRM. It is real hard to get a big name game at release if you don't have DRM. Their no-DRM stance keeps them from getting lots of first-flight titles. I mean you see companies like Bethesda will bring games to GOG, but only older ones. Lack of DRM is the reason.

2) Steam fanboy consumers. Just look on H at the number of people who say "I only use Steam," or "No Steam, no buy" kind of things. Steam was the first real digital games store and by that virtue became the biggest and the defacto standard. Many people just refuse to use something else. Since they won't spend their money elsewhere it means GOG has trouble making money, and also means there is less incentive for devs to bring things to their platform.

 

[M76]

If people are willing to buy new releases for $50-60 why would any sane publisher ask for less?

As a sign of good faith? Plus not everyone is willing. I probably wouldn't have purchased half the games in the past few years, if I couldn't get them at a discount.

 

[Deleted member 83233]

Well two big reasons:

1) Game companies are stuck on DRM. It is real hard to get a big name game at release if you don't have DRM. Their no-DRM stance keeps them from getting lots of first-flight titles. I mean you see companies like Bethesda will bring games to GOG, but only older ones. Lack of DRM is the reason.

2) Steam fanboy consumers. Just look on H at the number of people who say "I only use Steam," or "No Steam, no buy" kind of things. Steam was the first real digital games store and by that virtue became the biggest and the defacto standard. Many people just refuse to use something else. Since they won't spend their money elsewhere it means GOG has trouble making money, and also means there is less incentive for devs to bring things to their platform.

I MAINLY use Steam, but GOG is my secondary (and only other unless you count three games in Origin) option. I love GOG. I have 340ish games in Steam, and 80ish in GOG. I think that's a pretty decent ratio, and reflects the type and release windows of the games that I want to buy and play. I refuse to use Epic, Origin, or uPlay, though I think I will be forced into Bethesda's launcher soon because they have a couple of exclusives that I won't be without. (but it will be like Origin where I just have those couple of games there because I have to) I love Steam, but they earned that from me by being first, giving decent support, making things easy for me, and centralizing my friends' and my PC gaming into a neat little package. So, they kinda deserve it.

 

[Krenum]

I really hope they get their finances taken care of. I love GOG and it would be very disappointing to see them go out of business.

 

[Smoked Brisket]

I havent bought a title day one in years because of the 60 dollar price tag. Online storefronts should bring prices down, not up or keep them static. You have no packaging costs and your game gets continued life because instead of languishing on a shelf if sales are slow, unseen or moved to make room for new titles, they will be offered for sale again and again. You dont even have to hold inventory because its all digital. Yes, they should sell it for less even if they don't have to. How about growing your market?

 

[mvmiller12]

I also have the Humble Bundle Monthly subscription - I got it when they offered Stellaris last year. If there was a way to redeem those games on GOG, I would. I have 390 games on Steam and 287 on GoG, several of which were free due either to promotions, or the GOG Connect service (whereby linking your Steam account to GOG, a limited subset of your Steam games are redeemed on your GOG account - the specific games you can get this way changes from time to time).

I prefer to buy my games on GOG absolutely whenever possible for several reasons, here are a few of the big ones:

1) When I e-mail their support people, I really do get a response within 24 hours like they promise. I've only ever had to do this twice. One of those times involved a game that I bought that went on sale 5 days later for 1/2 price. I had already downloaded the game and started playing it. I sent them an e-mail not expecting much (but it never hurts to ask). They refunded the entire purchase price as store credit. Now, I COULD have kept the game - I had the installer already - but I repurchased it at the new, cheaper price and bought another game I wanted with the left over money. They did not have to do this. Contrast this with any time I have ever had to talk to Steam about account issues (generally, helping an older relative who is shit about remembering his passwords to anything including his e-mail). Response times with Steam support were never shorter than 3 business days and were often more like 5. And God help you if you need tech support, particularly with getting an older title to run on newer computers... Support counts.

2) I like to sometimes play games multiplayer with my wife. It's pretty rare for her to play most of the titles we play together in Single Player - she usually plays these games with me just it's what I want to play and she wants to spend time with me. Before Steam, it used to be that you'd buy a game that featured multiplayer and there was a good chance that you could play a limited number of people on your LAN off the same copy. Westwood was awesome about this with their C&C games - one key would allow two people to be in the same multiplayer game (Emperor: Battle for Dune allowed 4 per key!!). The original release of StarCraft allowed 8 with 1 key/full install and 7 "multiplayer only" installs! It means I did not have to purchase 2 full copies of a game to enjoy the occasional multiplayer matchup with my wife. With Steam, that's all out the door - family share is OK for sharing a title but won't let more than one copy of a game run at a time to accommodate this use case. GOG, on the other hand, makes it easy. Because this function is important to me, I send my limited gaming money to them whenever I can. If I crowd fund a game, I redeem it on GOG every time (Divinity:1 OS 1 & 2, PoE 1 & 2, Torment: ToN, BT4, etc).

3) I've had gigabit Internet for about a year now, after I moved into an area with Verizon FiOS support. It's really nice, but my last house in Norfolk, VA left me with just 5 mbit DSL as a reasonable provider (Cox Cable cost WAY TOO MUCH for that location at the time). That meant downloading the game installers and keeping them on a local server made it reasonable for me to switch up the games I was playing on the computer without having to wait hours on end for a download to complete. It may not be an issue now, but it has been one recently enough to still matter to me. Broadband in this country still by-and-large sucks despite what Ajit Pai and many digital game distributors will try and tell you. (Note that Steam Backups were also super useful when I lived in Norfolk as well)

4) Being able to download the installers gives me peace of mind with my purchase, because if anything were to happen to either GOG or my internet access (shit happens), I'm not SOL. And there have been plenty of services that just folded up and left you hanging with no recourse (sadly, Impulse is largely a dead end).

So, although it is relatively expensive, Age of Wonders: Planetfall is going to be another GOG purchase as will Cyberpunk 2077.

 

[NeghVar]

I hope they remain in business. If they close down, we'll have an increase in traffic on those abandonware sites again.

 

[Scottw]

I do like GoG as well, though I cant justify much time spent gaming these days. When there is something I want to pick up that I can put a bit of time into I check GoG first. The last one I picked up was Last Blade (SNK game).

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

It's a shame that this is hurting GOG. They are probably my favorite store.

I have most of my games in Steam, but I agree with the GOG philosophy more than any other store.

Epic can blow me.

 

[PantherBlitz]

As a sign of good faith? Plus not everyone is willing. I probably wouldn't have purchased half the games in the past few years, if I couldn't get them at a discount.

Myself included. The last time I bought games at release prices was years ago when I was heavy into playing with my clan. Today, I don't even consider anything not heavily discounted. That does not change that fact that there are plenty of people who are happy to pay the initial asking price for games. Many pre-order games. Different strokes, and all that.

 

[Kor]

Well, shit. I like GoG. They better not go out of business.

Well they could always pull the saving throw of removing all of The Witcher titles from other services and locking Cyberpunk to GOG only but I doubt that would be very popular.

 

[Nimisys]

If I am.looking for a new game, GOG is my first stop. If I don't like the price, I'll wait until I do. DRM free and standalone installers/clients is worth the wait and even few dollars more to me

 

[Deleted member 222586]

Why is the price of a game different in different countries? I am assuming with this question that we're normalizing on currency exchange rates and perhaps ignoring daily fluctuations. Is it the developer who is determining the price in each country?

The price is different in each country because they are looking to maximize their revenue. And as different countries have different economies ($60 is not the same in Germany than in Russia) they taylor the prices in order to get the most amount of money per region.

Import tariffs and taxes play a role per country. Even the games rating has price implications depending on how controlling the country is on violence and such.

They don't, not in this case when you have local distributors that you need anyway for translations and such.

 

[Furious_Styles]

If I am.looking for a new game, GOG is my first stop. If I don't like the price, I'll wait until I do. DRM free and standalone installers/clients is worth the wait and even few dollars more to me

100% agreed. I even bought thronebreaker on release (I rarely buy any game on release) to support them as much as possible.

 

[zkostik]

If people are willing to buy new releases for $50-60 why would any sane publisher ask for less?

They used to position that as cost of convenience but now that it's a standard, not much has changed. Thought it's still overall much cheaper to game on PC as games go on sale and come down in price must faster than on console. Heck, some console games are still $60 after being out for years. It used to be that new PC games were $50 and console was $60 due to platform fees. Hasn't been the case for a very long time though. I suppose I'm okay with $60 if I get a good solid product, not some alpha test piece of crap. It sure would have been better if market dictated the prices of games but like you said, people end up buying them for more money with digital only extras so the vicious cycle continues.

 

[Denpepe]

Why is the price of a game different in different countries? I am assuming with this question that we're normalizing on currency exchange rates and perhaps ignoring daily fluctuations. Is it the developer who is determining the price in each country?

Because people don't make the same wages everywhere, even in the European Union there are large discrepancies in what people earn, People is Eastern europe earn a lot less then some of the Western ones, that why there are so many people comming to work in the better countries even if that means they are exploited in some way, there are lot's of shennanigans going on with shell companies etc..

Even parts of the former Eastern Germany are still trying to catch up with the Western side.

You don't sell many 60 € games to people making 4-500€ a month

Check this out. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_European_countries_by_average_wage

 

[bigdogchris]

If developers are able to set the price they want in each region I don't see why this would be necessary.

 

[Skull_Angel]

They used to position that as cost of convenience but now that it's a standard, not much has changed. Thought it's still overall much cheaper to game on PC as games go on sale and come down in price must faster than on console. Heck, some console games are still $60 after being out for years. It used to be that new PC games were $50 and console was $60 due to platform fees. Hasn't been the case for a very long time though. I suppose I'm okay with $60 if I get a good solid product, not some alpha test piece of crap. It sure would have been better if market dictated the prices of games but like you said, people end up buying them for more money with digital only extras so the vicious cycle continues.

I remember when games use to cost ~$35, for the full game. Then there was Dreamcast, where nearly all games went for ~$20 outside of new "AAA" titles; kind of miss that console, tons of games on the cheap and many were pretty good.

 

[M76]

Myself included. The last time I bought games at release prices was years ago when I was heavy into playing with my clan. Today, I don't even consider anything not heavily discounted. That does not change that fact that there are plenty of people who are happy to pay the initial asking price for games. Many pre-order games. Different strokes, and all that.

You misunderstand. I pre-order games, I buy 90% of my games on release. But I don't pay $60 for them. I pay between $40-50 for most games trough 3rd party key sellers GMG and cdkeys. If I couldn't do that I'd skip at least half the games.

 

[Deleted member 83233]

Some of the posts here remind me of this:


Look out the window
Look at all that bullshit going on down there in the street
What's all that shit floating out in the water?
I'm gonna get- we gotta get out of here
We gotta go to some island
Grab your shopping cart, grab your cane
Let's get the heck out of here
We gotta move closer to the equator
When are they gonna start showing those Mr. T re-runs?
I used to love that guy
Remember how you used to watch
Mr. T... wrestling?
Y'know, Coca-Cola doesn't taste the same as it used to
Remember when a bowl of soup was a nickel?
All that bass is gonna break my ears

 

[Disco_Stu_04]

... The Epic Games store has shaken up the PC games digital storefront economy with its 88/12% revenue split. ...

Anyone want to bet that as soon as EPIC believes they have decent footing in the gaming market they'll change it eg 80/20...

I doubt they care who is loyal to who, just look at metro, bribed the publisher in to an exclusive at the last minute.

 

[Zulgrib]

Well two big reasons:

1) Game companies are stuck on DRM. It is real hard to get a big name game at release if you don't have DRM. Their no-DRM stance keeps them from getting lots of first-flight titles. I mean you see companies like Bethesda will bring games to GOG, but only older ones. Lack of DRM is the reason.

2) Steam fanboy consumers. Just look on H at the number of people who say "I only use Steam," or "No Steam, no buy" kind of things. Steam was the first real digital games store and by that virtue became the biggest and the defacto standard. Many people just refuse to use something else. Since they won't spend their money elsewhere it means GOG has trouble making money, and also means there is less incentive for devs to bring things to their platform.

On my side it is more "put intrusive drm, no buy", would be sad to see GoG go, this is the place where i spent most of my money for games since few years.
I'm forced to crack steam games i purchased (boxes) because i do not agree with valve's terms of use for steam.