So, I'm from South Africa, and comparing the prices on Steam to GoG, I really find myself asking why I'd purchase anything on this platform. Steam is... tremendously cheaper. Recently, I've been into CRPGs, and I put a couple of them on my wishlist, waiting for them to go on sale. Tyranny now is on sale (cheapest edition on GOG full price is $29.99, converted to ~R570. Normal price on steam is R175. Lol?), but the sale price is barely cheaper than steam's full price, and if I wait for a sale on steam, I'll get the game waaay cheaper. This is the case for pillars of eternity 1&2, the baldur's gate games, pathfinder, pretty much every CRPG.

Of course, the answer is 'you only rent games on steam, you don't own them'. Except, there's a pretty easy way to get around that, isn't there? If I want to contribute to the devs, why not just by the game on steam, and then, well... get a steam version from somewhere else that doesn't require steam to run?

I think GoG is making a mistake with their pricing. Plenty of people from 3rd world countries would NEVER purchase anything from GoG, simply because they're multiple times more expensive. The 'well, we don't have DRM' thing does not surmount price. To most consumers, price is the number one factor to consider. If they want to penetrate the market, they have to beat steam in every aspect, not just one.

As someone who runs a small business, I understand the mindset of 'we're already struggling to bring in the cash, we can't drop price to compete with the big guys otherwise we literally make no money', but it's not a choice you get to make. You HAVE to make it work somehow. Otherwise the store's only future is to lose whatever little marketshare they have as they slowly go out of business.

Repeating myself, but for 90% of customers, price is their number one consideration.

1. GOG don't care, and never will
2. There are certain GOG users that despise the fact that GOG let go of their one price policy. They long at their good old days here and furious at the slightest mention of regional discount.
3. The great disparity of regional discount of Steam is ticking. They introduce a brand new pricing scheme that reduce them. That means no real incentive for GOG to change their price.

Regional pricing is a ripoff which should not exist, and GOG itself even made a video that admits that fact, as can be seen right here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRdfYwvGTos

GOG should abolish that ripoff on GOG, instead of continuing to embrace it. GOG never should have embraced it in the first place.

What GOG ought not to do, however, is to double-down on the regional price ripoff, which is what the OP is advocating for.

Perhaps. Some segmentation decisions are also at the very least rather questionable. For example the rather modest eastern European regional pricing group I fall under sits "happily" on the same level with established western economies such as Denmark... can't help but wonder why that was ever the case.

I don't understand. How is giving customers a better price and being competitive a ripoff? I'm paying double the price on GoG vs Steam on some games. This is me not being ripped off?

wauw! that is a lot! I can buy the standard edition from Tyranny for less than 8 whole euro's!!!

the game is one of the nicest looking obsidian rpg's too and for me most certainly a recommendation

GoG is also quite elitarian..... i mean, only disgruntled ol gamers and privacy pervs would see any reason to make use of their offers

Because it is not all customers, but some customers. That is what regional pricing means, different pricing for different regions for the (usually) same goods.

Why should e.g. Europeans pay more for their games than Indonesians and South Africans? It makes Europeans feel they are paying more for the games to subsidize the lower prices on some other regions.

The argument for regional pricing is that people make less money on certain regions so they couldn't or wouldn't buy games on higher prices, but:

1. There are poor people in Europe etc. as well, yet they have to pay the same price as rich people? Similarly, there are ultra-rich people in "poor" countries as well, who get to pay very low prices.

2. At least when talking about new AAA PC games which demand quite capable and expensive PCs to play, it seems a bit odd someone, who can afford a gaming PC, could not afford the little higher game prices.

Hence, I personally am against regional pricing, but I am not feverishly against it. I still buy games even if they are regionally priced, as long as I feel I am somehow getting my money's worth.

I am just generally against the idea that I have to pay higher prices so that someone else can have lower prices. Considering there are so deep -90% sales and you can get good (but older) games for a nickel and a dime, I feel there are lots of games to purchase even for poor people, even without regional pricing.

But as said, I pay higher regional prices if I have to, but in a way I wouldn't feel bad about using VPN to cheat a system to get lower prices, even though I am not doing that, just to avoid any problems.

Because for you to get a better price, someone else will pay more (even more than the US base price). And it's not always the wealthiest countries (e.g. some rather poor countries from eastern Europe).

Also there are always also poor people in "rich countries" and rich people in "poor countries". Pricing can never be fair. Regional priicing is mostly there to maximize profits and counter piracy. It's no coincidence that countries with the highest piracy rates get the best deals most of the time (and like I said before, these are not the poorest countries).

I don't get where this weird line of thinking is coming from. Prices aren't a zero sum game. It's not like one region has to pay more to "balance" it out for another region paying less. Regions are priced independently of each other.

Just to make it clear: Regional pricing was NEVER about fairness, it is all about profit and the reason simply is because using such methods there is, according to some maths, a bigger profit possible... which, in the case of Steam is clearly proven, as it seem to work well for them.

Fairness... or simply a certain ethics, in the current economy, will only make sense as long as the profit is not being sacrificed because this is a profit-based system, nothing less... just even more.

The final reason why something exist is because "it works"... nothing less, just even more.

OK, to be fair... i do not generally think that "humans are bad or even greedy", this is not the basic nature of humans but... there are some clear boundaries on "how social" humans tends to be, as soon as it comes to some requirements which... in our current "belief-system" simply can not be avoided. Surely no publisher will consider releasing a game somewhere if it will barely cover the expenses involved and they will create a profile in which they will investigate what sort of customers a certain platform mainly got. Dependable on the customer-base... different decisions can be made and regional pricing on GoG is only a true matter for US and above prices but just in rare cases "below US prices". On the other hand, on other platforms with far bigger percentage of mainstream and "economically weak countrys"-percentage... the focus on the lowest regional pricing might be worth it. However... i am not sure if it will forever stay a ultimate solution, because there are indeed many drawbacks.

https://steamdb.info/app/362960/

too much price difference between regions

edit: https://steamdb.info/blog/steam-turkey-argentina-usd/

Yeah... guess my country is the highest price world wide... i already had in mind "i am out of luck".

Someone once told me "Everyone should be treated the same", but my answer was "Yet, not everyone is the same". You can not treat everyone the same as long as everyone is different... ultimately, we should focus on the "potential". The only issue is: If it comes to economy-terms... "potential" is equal to profit... all the other aspects will barely matter... and if so... always in relevance to this single "spec".

Will it outlast everything forever without sufficient heart? Definitely no but this system is prone to "break apart" at some point and no one really cares because as soon as it fails... it will simply become rebuild in a shape not yet known. We live in the "here and now" and the things we currently are able to "make it work"... not really much into the future.

Regional pricing is really a crazy subject to discuss. People who pay more money for games will never feel fair comparing to those who pay less for the same games.

And people who get more money for doing their jobs will never understand the frustration of those who get less money doing the same job or working even harder.

Honestly, I buy games here because the prices are affordable for me. I guess I would never consider GOG if there was no regional prices here. Yes, most of the times prices here are still a bit higher than on Steam, and for many games there are no regional prices at all. But Steam is too demanding and has too much DRM lately, so I prefer GOG before Steam now.

As for pricing on GOG, I believe that pricing is mostly a publisher's decision. You can notice different prices on different platforms because some developers have different publishers on different platforms, or a publisher sometimes can decide to attract more players to Steam since they know they will get much more profit there.

This discussion is so out there for me...... prices are prices, used to be 100 gildens for a game, then we went to 50 euro's. this day and age it is 70 for some tripple A titles. I have yet to pay 70 euro's for a game though, i like to believe i'm smarter then this ;-p

You can not compare "the ancient times" with "the modern times" because so much has been changed on so many terms... i am not even trying to explain, i lack the time for this essay.

Fact is... the game industry is increasing for decades already and nowadays the cash flow is bigger than the one from the movie-industry... which was not the case in the ancient times. Automatically... the entire rule "on how stuff works" will change a lot because gaming got WAY MORE mainstream and during this huge shapeshift, involving many factors... indeed the price asked was... at least if you judge it on its surface, decreased. However... there are WAY MORE addons, DLCs... bonus items... and the development of many games still take place even YEARS after the launch. Most games barely are finished at release and the "true price" for the full game can still become double or even triple of the "launch price". But this is just a good example and it will not cover many more factors playing a role on the pricing... ultimately, it simply can NOT be compared with the ancient times... we have completely different conditions and rules now.

Almost same with cars: A ancient car on the paper might be WAY MORE expensive than the average car today (taking inflation into account). However... if we investigate on "how the reduced pricing was done" the new car might not look that cheap anymore. Because in theory we could build a car that will last 1 million miles with todays possibilities... yet this is never done, not even for the most endurable car. Because we have a "planed obsolescence", which is around 15 years or 150k miles... and many cars may even explode half of this years or miles...and may not even get a warranty anymore. So... we got a way higher efficiency on building "affordable parts"... and we just try to make the bare minimum which will "last the time intended"... so indeed, with this "way of manufacturing" in mind, the pricing will drop but it comes at a sacrifice... which we are willing to accept. However... the repair cost of new cars was NEVER ever that expensive... and some cars are economically a total loss at the age of just 6 years or about 150k miles... and we do not even wonder anymore. So, never compare ancient times with new times... or never judge a book just by its cover; times and conditions are different.

Or in other words: It is easy to BUY a game but expensive to maintain a updated game at good performance. Same for cars: Easy to BUY a new car but it was never that hard maintaining it and cover the repair expenses. In the end, we are curious "how it happens we may have to stop gaming or stop driving"... but it was not that difficult getting it in the first place.