Posted March 23, 2017
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HunchBluntley
language geek
Registered: Jul 2014
From United States
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mystikmind2000
New User
Registered: Sep 2012
From Australia
Posted March 23, 2017
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Because if the game license holder has their game cheaper on GOG, then Steam will say to the license holder "hang on, whats going on here, you put your game cheaper on GOG? That will never do, fix it".
...
![avatar](http://images.gog.com/acd5d3494f9b76e52349599e0f9049af8e6ec31132ea90dbbbb0f4934f94b957_avm.jpg)
But the Steam authorized seller storefronts and bundle sites often undercut Steam's own discounts and sometimes their base prices too, so the best deals for Steam actually come from non-Steam stores. When one looks at the bundle pricing and other deep discounts and promos that happen out there, those tend to be quite a bit cheaper than Steam, however they are usually limited mostly to a certain class of games mostly dominated by indie titles, but occasionally with some big name AAA gems also. But none of that deep discount bargain bin pricing tends to have any effect on GOG's pricing, and I think the reason why is that GOG doesn't want to have that be a part of their business model, and rather sees the way they're doing things as a different value proposition with their own USP (unique selling point), in particular the DRM-free angle, but a lot of the other benefits we get from shopping here.
So it is true that in special promo circumstances, sometimes GOG is undercut, but GOG sells a huge number of games that never make it into those ultra-cheap bundles or promos either so no strong generalizations can be made on that front I don't think.
I speculate that it is DRM-free, direct GOG support, backup downloads and goodies that give GOG their biggest edge on the business model and I don't think they're too influenced by Steam+reseller pricing or we'd see them adjust their prices regularly when something goes on crazy mad sale elsewhere.
Non-bundle/deep-discount games tend to be very similar prices between GOG and Steam+elsewhere though in practice.
One more thing I didn't think of or speculate about when I started the thread but which just came to mind now too, is how the price on these specific games changed over time on Steam. I speculate it is similar in most if not all respects give or take a few cents or so. :)
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1
--------- = 0.769 rounded up to 0.77
1.30
Meaning, if $1.00 USD = $1.30 CAD, then $1.00 CAD == 0.77USD, not 0.70USD as you've mentioned.
More clearly, if you discount something by 20%, say $100 discounted by 20% is $80, as a fraction that is 4/5 of the original price. $100 is not 20% higher than $80 though, it is 25% higher, which is 5/4, the reciprocal of 4/5.
$80 * (1.00 + 0.25) == $100
$100 * (1.00 - 0.20) == $80
Hmmm, how can you say Steam does not influence GOG's pricing and yet also say;
"GOG's prices are on average equal to Steam's across the catalogue as a whole"
How can equal pricing occur without there being very strong influence going on?