Posted April 07, 2015
high rated
In reply to those saying we did not sufficiently announce it: the reason for the price changes were explained in the news post, in which we announced launching the site in Russian, and was discussed by users in the news post's thread.
To save you clicking time, here's the fragment:
With an all-new website language, localised customer support, and a dedicated Russian forum, we're hoping to become the right place for all of our Russian-speaking gamers. We’re also adjusting our prices in those regions. For over a year we’ve been offering games at lower prices in Russia and other independent countries that emerged from the USSR, places where game prices have historically been lower than in western markets. Starting today, more games will be priced appropriately for these territories. We've decided to adjust our pricing to the realities of the market, to avoid a sense that you have to pay more to get your games DRM-free or that GOG.com games are more expensive than other stores that operate in those regions.
Just in case you wondering, introducing these price changes won't affect the way gifting works today on GOG.com.
Basically: extending our website to include localised language versions means we'll reach more gamers and game developers (as developers from countries that use languages we've got so far will be more inclined to have their games featured).
However, adding localisations has consequences - for instance, as someone pointed out, having a large German customer base (especially with a German "storefront") meant we had to regionally lock 2 titles that are completely off limits sales-wise there. Reaching more Russian customers meant we had to price our games so that those Russian customers would at all want to buy (so that we can get more games from Russian-language developers and un-DRM some more than just the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and Mount & Blade series).
We're not moving in the direction of DRM. We're not going to stop making games available on the site that will be available on Galaxy. We're being 100% open about the price changes and not covering anything up, like some conspiracy theorists may believe, so please, do your best not to panic and simply ask ;)
To save you clicking time, here's the fragment:
With an all-new website language, localised customer support, and a dedicated Russian forum, we're hoping to become the right place for all of our Russian-speaking gamers. We’re also adjusting our prices in those regions. For over a year we’ve been offering games at lower prices in Russia and other independent countries that emerged from the USSR, places where game prices have historically been lower than in western markets. Starting today, more games will be priced appropriately for these territories. We've decided to adjust our pricing to the realities of the market, to avoid a sense that you have to pay more to get your games DRM-free or that GOG.com games are more expensive than other stores that operate in those regions.
Just in case you wondering, introducing these price changes won't affect the way gifting works today on GOG.com.
Basically: extending our website to include localised language versions means we'll reach more gamers and game developers (as developers from countries that use languages we've got so far will be more inclined to have their games featured).
However, adding localisations has consequences - for instance, as someone pointed out, having a large German customer base (especially with a German "storefront") meant we had to regionally lock 2 titles that are completely off limits sales-wise there. Reaching more Russian customers meant we had to price our games so that those Russian customers would at all want to buy (so that we can get more games from Russian-language developers and un-DRM some more than just the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and Mount & Blade series).
We're not moving in the direction of DRM. We're not going to stop making games available on the site that will be available on Galaxy. We're being 100% open about the price changes and not covering anything up, like some conspiracy theorists may believe, so please, do your best not to panic and simply ask ;)