The Madman said:
My main worry is that now that they've allowed this for one publisher, what's to stop those that had previously signed up with GOG from threatening to pull their catalogue if they aren't also allowed the same regional pricing option?
If a game's already been agreed to be put up there DRM free and without region pricing, I doubt that the rights-holder has had to have their arm twisted to do so.
This is a damned if you do/if you don't situation. This insistence on worldwide pricing could well be the barrier that prevented GOG from signing a deal with 2K/Zenimax/any other big publisher that holds the most wished-for games on GOG.
How many people would be just as disappointed (this is a hypothetical, here) if GOG came out and announced, "Our insistence on maintaining worldwide pricing is a core value, therefore we must announce that we will never be signing a deal with Disney (for Lucasarts), Zenimax (Elder Scrolls), 2K (Civilization, Borderlands etc)". Now, personally, I could live with that, but GOG has already admitted that their inaugural years were spent chasing the 'low hanging fruit of our industry'. A glut of classic releases followed by a drought, because everything else is locked up in labyrinthine publisher bollocks.
Again, I could live with GOG being niche (though I buy more indies on GOG than oldies); but how long could GOG last, when the old games dry up and the indies only come up to a year late, after they've been on Steam, Humble Bundled, and everyone's picked it up in deep discount sales?
There aren't many people that would happily revert to one release a week. This is probably why GOG decided to pursue newer and indie titles, and abandoned their fixed $5.99 and $9.99 price points. There was just as big a controversy when that happened.
But are people complaining that STALKER was released DRM free on GOG? Are people complaining that GOG will be selling Wasteland 2, Pillars of Eternity and Torment: Tides of Numenara?
I'm not really pleased about this, but I'm not about to buy into the slippery slope argument yet. It remains to be seen what the games that forced this change are, and whether or not it does affect the back catalogue. There was a huge controversy when GOG decided to start selling DLC and season passes for episodic games. But there are maybe 10-15 of those in the 700-strong catalogue. It's easy to see the regionally price-jacked game and not support it. If you can't but it at worldwide pricing on GOG, you can't buy it at worldwide pricing anywhere else, without importing.
Obviously GOG now believes that DRM-free is the most important point of all, and yes it's disappointing that other values have fallen to the wayside (although not necessarily, this *could* just be for these new releases); but when DRM free becomes the industry standard, then maybe we can take up that new cause. It's a teething problem for a new world without borders, not just in the game industry.
Unfortunately, as long as Steam allows it, any publisher has GOG's balls in a vice when it comes to negotiations. Why release their game on GOG, with all these caveats that their shareholders don't like - and have to deal with the fallout from that - when they can release on the market leading PC distribution platform with none of those barriers? There's nothing that GOG can really offer other than a slight boost in sales and customer goodwill towards that publisher. That's the position they're in. The publishers, as always, forcing the distributor's hand.
Not that that means GOG is abandoning DRM-free anytime soon. Once they do, then I take this all back, but I don't believe that'll happen. People were saying the same things when they announced DLC and episodic games. Hell people were probably saying the same thing when it became GOG as opposed to Good Old Games.
