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GOG.com introduces DRM-Free movies, local currency, new design!

Denton

Member
http://www.gog.com/news/welcome_to_the_fresher_better_gogcom
http://www.gog.com/news/introducing_gogcom_drmfree_movies

Megaton!

On pricing:

All this also means that users for whom the local currency pricing has been enabled will have an option to select one of two different prices for each game in our catalog. Of course, we stand by the simple truth that $1 does not equal 1€, so a game with a $5.99 price tag will cost 4.49 Euro, 3.69 British Pounds, 6.49 Australian Dollars, and 219 Roubles respectively. $9.99 translates to 7.49 Euro, 5.99 Pounds Sterling, 10.89 Australian Dollars, and 359 Roubles. In a perfect world we would apply the same method of pricing to all of the games we offer. However, things are a little bit more complicated, and there are some games in our catalog that follow a different region-based pricing scheme. However, we wouldn't be GOG.com if we didn't find a way to make right by the users who end up paying relatively more for such titles. Here's where the Fair Price Package comes in!
The Fair Price Package applies to all of the titles which we couldn't include in our standard pricing scheme. If you end up paying more for a game than its standard US Dollar price, we'll refund you the difference out of our own pocket. The refunded value will be added to your account in Store Credit in the currency of your purchase. That's right, no more gift codes, you'll be getting Store Credit that you can use to purchase anything on GOG.com or partially pay for an item that's more expensive. More choice, ease of use, and less limitations!

But just visit them.
Best online shop, can't wait for GOG Galaxy.
 
This is one of incredibly few places to get DRM free movies, right? Pretty cool of them.

If you end up paying more for a game than its standard US Dollar price, we'll refund you the difference out of our own pocket.

Wow, even though it's just in-store credit, that's awesome of them to do.
 
DRM free movies? Wait are these good movies? If so how much did they bribe the MPAA? Oh I see. Meh nothing worth watching. If they ever get any interesting movies though I'll certainly think about buying from them.
 
Oh, so the pricing thing is for the whole store now? They did it with The Witcher 3 pre-order. Pretty cool way to go about it.
 
The fair price policy is amazing.

I looked at the Witcher 3 preorder page, and it says:
Since the price in your region is almost €8.79 higher than in the US, we’re giving you €8.79 back in store credit for any future purchase on GOG.com.

The price of the game when you preorder is €49.79, so that's about 18% back in store credit.
 
DRM is the thing stopping me from buying digital movies. I hate that I can't watch my shit on whatever device I want depending on what service I bought it. Now GOG just needs to sell uncompressed stuff (Google Movies look blurry as Youtube videos) and I'm on their bandwagon.
 
The fair price policy is amazing.

I looked at the Witcher 3 preorder page, and it says:


The price of the game when you preorder is €49.79, so that's about 18% back in store credit.

Since this policy is on every purchase, this would mean GOG has better deals than Steam's regular offerings!
 
DRM free movies? Wait are these good movies? If so how much did they bribe the MPAA?

They all appear to be gaming-related indie productions. Considering the mission statement mentions "cinema classics", I think CDP realises that attempting to secure even remotely recent studio films is a fool's errand in the current climate.
 
Personally, I would prefer if, given their relatively limited bandwidth in terms of staff-hours, they focused on older games rather than their emphasis over the last few years on expanding their purview.

For example, Activision has a good deal of their games up, but not, for example, Mixed-Up Mother Goose. Why not? There's also a lot of earlier freeware that I'd love to see on GOG; for example, Sky Roads is available as freeware. But who knows how long the dev's website will last? There's also whole IP catalogues that are lost--all of the Broderbund edutainment stuff is lost. Finally, no one has really worked on getting the post-DOS but pre-modern DirectX stuff online, so there's a bit of donut hole in W3.1 or early W95 games.

I mean, there's no harm in offering movies as a side thing or whatever, but I really feel like GOG's got to the point where they've picked the low-hanging fruits and rather than really going after the tough stuff, they've moved on to other "accessible" projects. Which is too bad, IMHO.
 
I would freaking love it if the DRM-free movies initiative takes off, although I'm really not interested in any of the titles they have there right now.
 
They're also doing a "Last Chance" sale for things they're dropping. Interestingly, Penumbra is on Steam but they haven't made mention they're dropping that off Steam with the drop off GoG...
 
Seems like with the overhaul and new pricing policy they're delisting the Nordic Games catalog from the site. I guess they're not on board with the pricing policies. Such a shame. There's some good stuff in there.

"Unfortunately, we need to drop some titles from our classic catalog, as we currently have no way to keep their pricing in line with our standards. In such cases, we always do our best to give you an advance warning and a last chance to purchase such games - preferably with a considerable discount.".

It's all on sale before it's gone and will still be downloadable once it's delisted if you purchase it, so get it while it's hot!

http://www.gog.com/promo/last_chance_special_promo_270814
 
DRM is one of the major things keeping me from buying digital movies, but there's no way GOG is getting any Hollywood movies through this. Indie films and maybe some classics are probably the most we can hope for.
 
Seems like with the overhaul and new pricing policy they're delisting the Nordic Games catalog from the site. I guess they're not on board with the pricing policies. Such a shame. There's some good stuff in there.

"Unfortunately, we need to drop some titles from our classic catalog, as we currently have no way to keep their pricing in line with our standards. In such cases, we always do our best to give you an advance warning and a last chance to purchase such games - preferably with a considerable discount.".

Yup.

Hey, the people said 'no regional pricing, no matter what,' and GOG (admirably) chose to honor their customers' wishes.

Now those same people are going to realize that their decision will have consequences.
 
Seems like with the overhaul and new pricing policy they're delisting the Nordic Games catalog from the site. I guess they're not on board with the pricing policies. Such a shame. There's some good stuff in there.

"Unfortunately, we need to drop some titles from our classic catalog, as we currently have no way to keep their pricing in line with our standards. In such cases, we always do our best to give you an advance warning and a last chance to purchase such games - preferably with a considerable discount.".

It's all on sale before it's gone and will still be downloadable once it's delisted if you purchase it, so get it while it's hot!

http://www.gog.com/promo/last_chance_special_promo_270814

Amnesia and Penumbra are also going away for some reason. 80% off if you don't already have them.

A Machine For Pigs is not getting delisted though. This is weird.
 
I've bought plenty of DRM-free films without any issues from several websites (off the top of my head, Humble Bundle, This American Life live episodes, some stand-up). So it's not a niche devoid of any options. I wonder what made GOG think they should get into that realm.

I honestly don't care at all about gaming documentaries. But if there's more movies, smaller budget indie flicks (like Coherence or Snowpiercer) I'd totally buy them from GOG.
 
Personally, I would prefer if, given their relatively limited bandwidth in terms of staff-hours, they focused on older games rather than their emphasis over the last few years on expanding their purview.

For example, Activision has a good deal of their games up, but not, for example, Mixed-Up Mother Goose. Why not? There's also a lot of earlier freeware that I'd love to see on GOG; for example, Sky Roads is available as freeware. But who knows how long the dev's website will last? There's also whole IP catalogues that are lost--all of the Broderbund edutainment stuff is lost. Finally, no one has really worked on getting the post-DOS but pre-modern DirectX stuff online, so there's a bit of donut hole in W3.1 or early W95 games.

I mean, there's no harm in offering movies as a side thing or whatever, but I really feel like GOG's got to the point where they've picked the low-hanging fruits and rather than really going after the tough stuff, they've moved on to other "accessible" projects. Which is too bad, IMHO.
Agreed. I've never liked the service as an alternative to Steam, which is generally where I get my new PC releases. I liked it because it brought abandonware up to modern specs, at least relatively, and let me play games I loved when I was younger or may have missed. Despite all of their new initiatives I've never once used the site to purchase anything modern; I certainly still wish GOG meant what it originally stood for. That said, I think the site is great and if this new stuff is successful for them then I'm all for it as long as it isn't at the complete expense of what I love(d) about them. Certainly seems like it is, at least of late, but who knows.
 
Can't help but feel a little pessimistic about GOG's chances of making any splash in DRM-free movies. I recall they opened an office in Los Angeles recently (or will do so soon), so I'm guessing that's partly due to proximity to movie studios as well as game publishers. How about a one-two punch with Disney movies AND LucasArts games? :D

I hope it works out for them, but all I can think is, "Let me get this straight, major movie studios have long opposed DRM-free distribution and opted for Netflix and Amazon, both of which have been quite successful, and your plan is to convince these studios to release their movies DRM-free on a website which has hitherto specialized in digital games and some may consider to be a niche alternative to Steam (the digital games equivalent of Netflix in terms of popularity)?"

good_luck_morgan_freeman.gif
 
So weird. Why on earth would a Swedish developer and an Austrian/Swedish publisher of all groups demand regional pricing?

Not impressed by the currently available movies, but I am interested in seeing how the selection will expand
 
Can't help but feel a little pessimistic about GOG's chances of making any splash in DRM-free movies. I recall they opened an office in Los Angeles recently (or will do so soon), so I'm guessing that's partly due to proximity to movie studios as well as game publishers. How about a one-two punch with Disney movies AND LucasArts games? :D

I hope it works out for them, but all I can think is, "Let me get this straight, major movie studios have long opposed DRM-free distribution and opted for Netflix and Amazon, both of which have been quite successful, and your plan is to convince these studios to release their movies DRM-free on a website which has hitherto specialized in digital games and some may consider to be a niche alternative to Steam (the digital games equivalent of Netflix in terms of popularity)?"

good_luck_morgan_freeman.gif

While I agree it won't be easy, I sure hope as hell they suceed and I do have faith in them, they haven't let me down yet.

That gif is fantastic though.
 
I'm glad they re-introduced the fair pricing.

Oh wait, they didn't:

In a perfect world we would apply the same method of pricing to all of the games we offer. However, things are a little bit more complicated, and there are some games in our catalog that follow a different region-based pricing scheme.

Too bad.
 
Can't help but feel a little pessimistic about GOG's chances of making any splash in DRM-free movies. I recall they opened an office in Los Angeles recently (or will do so soon), so I'm guessing that's partly due to proximity to movie studios as well as game publishers. How about a one-two punch with Disney movies AND LucasArts games? :D

I hope it works out for them, but all I can think is, "Let me get this straight, major movie studios have long opposed DRM-free distribution and opted for Netflix and Amazon, both of which have been quite successful, and your plan is to convince these studios to release their movies DRM-free on a website which has hitherto specialized in digital games and some may consider to be a niche alternative to Steam (the digital games equivalent of Netflix in terms of popularity)?"

good_luck_morgan_freeman.gif

Yeah, I find it hard to really understand where GOG is coming from. Throwing your fingers into a new market isn't really going to help.

Back when GOG started out, nobody was releasing games DRM free, and nobody was packaging up old games properly. Now they get dumped onto Steam by the bucketful, most of them without needing Steam to run, and Humble Bundle gives you a DRM free download AND a Steam key.

The only reasons to buy games from GOG are for the rare occurences where they have an exclusive or a better deal. Whatever happened to games like Assassin's Creed: Director's Cut? I want more packages like that (with better games, please). A better library interface (not goddamn Galaxy, the web interface). More Criterion of Games, attacking a much needed niche in our throwaway-games industry. Less messy and incoherent market expansion.

I'm glad they re-introduced the fair pricing.

Oh wait, they didn't:



Too bad.

You should have kept reading.
 
The current selection is very weak. Got should reach out to independent movie makers that make traditional movies and get their content of their menu.
 
Neat and I hope they can get some good indie movies up. I doubt we'll ever see a major production up there though, as the industry is pushing forward with streaming options like Ultra Violet.

Also the bottom price for movies should really have started at $5.00. But it'll be cool to see where it's at in a year's time and it'll definitely be on my radar during a sale.
 
I hope they do not forgot about good old games sometimes.

Same, but we still see about an old game a week on average... I agree it would be nicer if it were more frequent and they pursued some of the things stump mentioned for example.

I guess the problem is does it really benefit GOG much to go after them if they end up on Steam soon after as part of the deal and just about everyone waits and gets it from Steam anyway?

The only reasons to buy games from GOG are for the rare occurences where they have an exclusive or a better deal.

Still happens from time to time... just last week they released Wacky Wheels! But who knows if it stays exclusive (vs just Steam) long... I agree Steam has started to outdo GOG at their own game in many ways.
 
Still happens from time to time... just last week they released Wacky Wheels! But who knows if it stays exclusive (vs just Steam) long... I agree Steam has started to outdo GOG at their own game in many ways.

Absolutely. GOG is still the best place for games like Chronicles of Riddick: Dark Athena. Games that just needed a better release for whatever reason, or can no longer be bought in working order.

GOG's value lies within those sorts of releases. The more games they release that have the BEST possible packaging/support/extras, the more often I'm predisposed to buying a game on GOG when it's a coin toss between GOG and Steam.
 
Disappointed to see regional pricing appear. I guess the Fair Price Package goes some way to solving it but if everything is an unfair price you end up in a nightmare cycle of never being able to reach 0 store credit and keep being left with too little credit to do anything.

So sticking with the old part of it. Are there any old documentaries that could be easy to license?

I saw Indie Game: The Movie and it was great.
But it is not the same without achievements, trading cards and being able to get a Phil Fish profile background that Steam offers.
It also isn't the same without a 4GB patch because you goofed up on the credits
 
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