14 DAY TRIAL // Good Old Games has decided to scrap its plans to implement regional pricing for future titles, after an overwhelming amount of feedback from its user base.
Consequently, GOG has reaffirmed its commitment to offer flat worldwide pricing for all its games. The company's two base principles are offering fair pricing for everyone and delivering DRM free games, and it was not planning to sacrifice one in order to promote the other.
That is not the case anymore, and the company stated that abandoning regional pricing meant that it might take longer to get some games up and running, but they planned to listen to their customers and regard fair pricing as one of their core values.
In addition, should their efforts to obtain games with flat worldwide pricing fail, and they will be required to have regional prices, they will provide their users with either $6 / €4.5 or $10 / €7 game codes out of their own pockets.
In the future, once they have the functionality properly implemented, the game codes will transform into store credit, which will allow users to make better use of the offer, using the money towards any purchase in full or partially.
Their aim is to provide gamers from all around the world with US prices, and their plans will apply to every single game where flat pricing is not available, such as Age of Wonders 3, Divinity: Original Sin and The Witcher 3, which were the first three games where the previously announced regional pricing strategy should have applied to.
GOG points users to the former Fair Price Package for The Witcher 2, stating that the new offer will work just as it did in that game's case.
Furthermore, GOG is still planning to introduce pricing in local currencies, attempting to make things easier for users whose credit cards or other payment systems are not natively in USD, the most widely utilized vector.
The advantages of having prices in local currencies are simple, the price being more understandable and easier to relate to, in addition to not having any exchange rates involved, no transaction fees or other hidden charges.
However, the community's feedback was clear in this case too, and the distributor has decided not to take the element of choice away from its customers, allowing them the option to pay in either their local currency or the equivalent in USD, letting everyone select how they choose to pay for the games.