GOG cancels regional pricing plans

GOG has axed plans for localised pricing after users expressed resistance to the idea, and will make up any contractually obligated price discrepancies out of its own funds.

In February, GOG announced it would introduce support for local currencies, because publishers often insist on regional RRPs rather than GOG's usual worldwide flat USD price.

As this would likely mean higher RRPs in some regions (Europe, Australia and the UK typically pay higher prices for games than the US after currency conversion), fans reacted badly. CD Projekt has therefore decided not to implement regional pricing, saying in a blog post that it will be sticking to its policies of DRM-Free and Fair Price regardless of consequences.

"We thought DRM-Free was so important that you'd prefer we bring you more DRM-Free games and Fair Price was less critical and that it could be sacrificed in some cases. The last two week's worth of comments in our forums (nearly 10k!), show that's not the case," the company said.

"We didn’t listen and we let you down. We shouldn't sacrifice one of our core values in an attempt to advance another. We feel bad about that, and we're sorry."

Because some publishers simply won't agree to both DRM-Free and Fair Price, CD Projekt will have to accept that some games just can't be published on GOG.

For those games it has already agreed to release through GOG which publishers and distributors insist on regional pricing for, CD Projekt RED will charge regional pricing but return the price difference to users in $6 and $10 game codes. Later, it will be able to provide exact store credit. This refund will come out of the company's own funds.

To date, three games are affected by this policy - Age of Wonders 3, Divinity: Original Sin, and The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.

Local currency support is still on the cards, the company said, but users will always have the choice of which currency to use.

Thanks, Joystiq.