Cav's Place

According to yesterday’s announcement, which they actually made sure I was aware of, GOG.com is taking some steps back from its plans of allowing regional pricing for certain games. In addition, according to clarifications posted by both Marcin Iwinski and Trevor Longino, the latter as part of a more detailed post, they will also make some necessary changes to their plans for introducing local pricing for the entire catalog, turning that part of the mess into an actual improvement by allowing users to choose between the standard price in USD and that in the currency assigned for their country, if different. These local prices will still be fixed, however, so the better choice will depend not only on any conversion fees the user may incur, but also on how the exchange rates will vary over time.
As such, while the new plans do not imply a true return to their previous principles by once again completely rejecting any and all regional pricing and no other improvements can make up for that, so the announcement itself is no reason to celebrate or congratulate them, I feel they have taken sufficient steps for me to tentatively suspend the call for a boycott. Trust is extremely hard to rebuild once lost and I rather doubt they’ll ever regain my confidence and support to the extent they had it before this mess, but at the moment I believe those of us who saw them as more than a business, those of us who supported them thanks to their principles and to the fight they led, can once again make purchases from there. I will definitely stay well away from any games that are or will be regionally priced, however, regardless of any compensation, and strongly urge everyone else to do the same, regardless of how or even if this policy affects them personally.
Despite being tempted to download these games that are or will be regionally priced, if merely to make a point, I will also return to my rule of never “pirating” any game available on GOG, not that I had done so during this brief time. Of course, the fact that I have not and will not make purchases from any other such stores, seeing as I’m not aware of any others that clearly and firmly reject DRM and regional pricing, in fact most enforcing both, has never been affected in any way and my choices of obtaining digital copies of games will remain limited to GOG and “piracy” at least until I’ll become aware of another service that’ll adhere even more strongly to both of these principles. If I’ll ever learn of one that, on top of rejecting any and all forms of DRM, will actually practice fair pricing, as in establishing the base price, which is usually the one for the United States, as maximum but striving to offer lower prices to as many poorer countries as possible, I’ll definitely have a look, but I’m yet to hear of any even attempting such a thing.

This was meant to be a much longer post, analyzing the new plans, speculating about the real reasons behind this new change, trying to determine what should be done next and offering several suggestions which may help them make the most of the current situation while at the same time helping all of us have a greater impact and, if at all possible, score more victories in this battle against the rotten practices the gaming industry sees as the norm. However, I definitely don’t seem to be getting anywhere when it comes to actually writing what I mean to write, so let’s hope tomorrow will be a better day.

Imagine my surprise Wednesday afternoon, when I woke up to a puddle in the middle of my desk. Knowing that I hadn’t spilled anything before going to bed, the first impulse was to look towards the ceiling, wondering if the water was somehow dripping from above. That wasn’t the case, and in fact it’d have been next to impossible in that spot, so I was at a loss until I noticed a small amount of water along my headphones cable as well. Following it, I then noticed more water around my network switch, so I rushed to unplug it and take it away, placing it on the floor while I dried the desk with a rag.
Since there were no other traces of water, it was obvious that the entry point was my Internet cable, so my assumption at that time was that it had somehow found a way through the hole in the wall, which I remember being filled with foam after the cable was pulled inside, and then ran along the short piece of cable before dripping on the desk when it reached the plug. The fact that I could see another drop forming just at the back of the plug seemed to confirm that, but when I ran my fingers along the cable itself I noticed that it was otherwise dry, and so was the wall around the hole. As such, I was left with only one other option, which proved to be the correct one: The water was actually coming from inside the cable.
What obviously happened was that the jacket had ended up torn somewhere along the way and, with the rain we’ve been getting these days, the water was getting underneath it and making its way out at the other end, through the back of the plug since there is some space there and it was therefore easier than to keep going forward through the plug, which is pressed tightly on the wires. This, the fact that these plugs have the contacts at the top, my desk apparently being slightly sloped towards me, and my headphones cable touching the switch and therefore providing a way for the water to go around the other items placed in front of it, which prevented the puddle around the switch from reaching its cooling vents, were the reasons why everything still worked. In other words, I was very lucky not to wake up to far worse problems than a wet desk! The greatest risk was for the switch, but a short there may have affected my computer as well, not to mention the possibility of having the water follow the headphones cable the other way and therefore reaching it directly.

Since I needed to keep the switch off the desk and preferably leaning backwards, so the drops won’t go towards it, at first I placed the new batteries I had bought for the camera underneath it, plus that I unplugged it again when I had to leave that evening. On top of water on my desk yet again, this also led to soaked batteries, since they’re not fully encased in plastic, the back being paper. As such, I needed to take them out at night and place them somewhere else to dry, hoping they’ll be quite fine in spite of this.
Though I unplugged the switch yet again when I went to bed, that still left me needing to figure out some other way to keep the water off the desk, since the piece of wire that goes inside my room is very short and can’t exactly be moved anywhere else. So I looked around, grabbed an old empty casserole from the kitchen and placed it where the switch usually sits, then took a set square from my desk and placed it on the casserole, then put the switch on top of that, ensuring that the water dripping from the back of the plug will end up in the casserole and stay safely away from the switch, my desk or anything else. Since the back of the switch was dangling above the casserole and the wires tended to pull it back and down, I also looked for things to place on top of it to make sure it won’t be going anywhere, ending up with a small notebook wrapped in two plastic bags, two CD cases, three packs of playing cards I apparently received with some magazines over the years, and two tiny books, one on physics and one on algebra, which I remember dad buying for me back when I went to high school. It looked weird, but it was efficient.
Yes, I have a picture of the casserole, taken before I emptied it after waking up the next day, and perhaps a better one taken today, showing roughly the amount that dripped through over the course of one day, minus any that had already evaporated, of course.

The next day dad went to the people from the network I’m in, who repeated what they had told him over the phone, that for them having water dripping from a cable is not unusual and the fix would be to simply slash the jacket a little, right in front of the wall, outside, so all the water will pour out through there and not make it inside the apartment anymore. When he insisted for another solution, they gave him an extension cord, so I was able to place the casserole, with the dripping cable dangling above it, on one side of my monitor, while the switch remained on the other, the two being connected by said cord. That obviously didn’t actually do anything about the problem, but it was a way to reduce the risks even further while I waited, as they said they’re terribly understaffed until next week and as far as they’re concerned this is not an emergency, so they refused to even have a look at the cable themselves at the time.
As such, after I kept saying I’d like to see how the cable looks myself, the actual solution came from dad and the building administrator, who went with him, and without me, on the building’s roof today. What they found was that, likely due to being exposed to the elements for the eight years since it’s been there, the shielding simply started to crumble off the cable in the spot where it goes over the edge of the roof and starts its way down towards the apartment. For a stretch of a few centimeters, the wires themselves could apparently be seen, thankfully still insulated individually but with all other shielding stripped off, so it probably wouldn’t have been too long until at least one would have been exposed, or even before the cable would have snapped completely. Worse, when he touched it in another spot as well, the jacket simply crumbled under his fingers. So the administrator suggested friction tape, and they wrapped the areas in question in it.

Though the casserole seems to have remained dry today, I couldn’t precisely say whether that completely solved the problem, since it hasn’t been raining heavily since then and, either way, there’s bound to still be at least a small amount of water under the jacket, which will still need to slowly make its way out even if no more will get in. Either way, even if it does work for the moment, I have no idea how long that’ll last. It does appear that at least a portion of the cable will need to be replaced soon enough, which makes me once again think about moving it, so it won’t be so exposed anymore, and so we won’t end up needing to do it quickly if and when we’ll be required to do so by the authorities.

Seeing as I have more than one eye on the situation in Ukraine, this will only be a quick update, written now so I’ll get these days out of the way before matters get even worse in the region. Thankfully, few events took place during this period, even fewer of them were in the street and, seeing as I didn’t personally attend any, I wouldn’t have had too many details to give anyway.

I should start by mentioning that the vote on the proposed changes that would have allowed construction on 85% of the surface of retroceded areas that are currently listed as green spaces did take place, in the relevant new committee, on February 25, and the amendment in question was thankfully struck down. What’s more, another one, stating that local authorities will be required to obtain approvals from the relevant Environmental Protection Agencies before cutting down healthy trees was adopted. This doesn’t mean it’ll remain in the new form of the law once it’ll go through the Parliament as well, of course, but it is a start… Though one has to wonder how come such a requirement wasn’t already there in the first place.

On February 26 an announcement was posted on the “official” page of the movement, promoting a crowdfunding campaign meant to allow the artists in question to film the concert that is to take place here in April and also record it as a live album, 10% of any funds received after the goal is reached being donated to the Save Rosia Montana campaign. At the moment it doesn’t exactly look like they’re set on reaching the goal, however, so I’m not sure how relevant it is, especially since I don’t see any mentions of this actually being a concert for Rosia Montana in any way, though the announcement gave that impression.

The monthly “Critical Mass” event organized by cyclists took place on February 28, during the evening, and some messages I saw state that it was quite noisy, which bothered some participants as well, even though overall they seemed very pleased with how it turned out. While in this particular instance it wasn’t truly meant as a protest, it has been used as such in the past and, either way, the event is largely seen as promoting alternative urban transportation, be it by bicycle or by other non-motorized means. Seeing as Bucharest’s mayor seems to believe that the city is largely inhabited by cars, that is definitely an uphill struggle.

Moving on past the end of the calendar winter mentioned in the title, a message I saw only after the fact indicates that an environmental activism workshop took place on March 1. Since that’s all I know about it, however, I’ll skip straight to the next day, when people were asked to gather in front of the Bucharest National Theater from 4 PM and take part in a silent march to commemorate the child who was found dead in Aricestii Rahtivani, after inhaling gas from a conventional oil well owned by OMV Petrom and not protected by as much as a fence despite being very close to houses.
According to a particularly detailed report I read, some 25 people took part, though when I glanced at the webcam overlooking the area I could only count about 15 before they started moving, around 4:45 or 4:50 PM, escorted by a significant number of gendarmes, as well as by police. After reaching Victoriei Square, which was the end of the planned route, they took the metro to Bucharest North, the city’s main train station, spreading fliers and informing people about the dangers of fracking on the way, the event being organized by the group whose main cause this is.
According to the same report, they continued doing so after entering the train station as well, and as a result they had trouble with the guards, who kept telling them it was illegal and wouldn’t allow filming or taking pictures either. Eventually, they moved outside and to the nearby OMV Petrom gas station, a few potential clients turning away at the sight of them before a part of the group went home. The others took the metro back to University Square, spreading some more fliers on the way. And yes, this means they are running out of them rather quickly, and as a result they launched something of a crowdfunding campaign the next day, asking for donations to print 100000 more.

I guess I’ll finish this post by noting the fact that a protest was scheduled to take place today, March 3, starting at 2 PM, in front of the headquarters of the Social Democratic Party (PSD). I don’t know and, seeing as we’re talking about a protest against accepting ethnic parties or individuals supporting such interests into the governing coalition, don’t care what actually happened. The only reason I’m mentioning this at all is that the specific people, who happen to belong to the Hungarian party (UDMR), who are to become the new Ministers of Environment and Culture don’t have a good track record when it comes to certain major issues, including the Rosia Montana problem, so there are valid reasons for concern. The protest itself doesn’t seem to deal with those reasons, however, instead simply stating a nationalist and xenophobic agenda, and when this happens I obviously have to start protesting against the protesters, even if we may be on the same side when it comes to other matters.

While some were once again paying more attention to Ukraine as soon as the mess started, on February 18, and by the next day many were focused on the developing situation, the first solidarity events were only actually announced for February 20, starting with a call asking people to gather around the University Square fountain at noon and then march towards the Ukrainian embassy. However, I haven’t seen or heard anything else about it after the fact, so I’ll hazard a guess that too few, if any, showed up and nothing notable actually happened. I will mention that neither this call nor the one for the evening’s event came from the known activists or groups that are part of this movement, the latter being organized by an NGO.
In part, that may have been because a protest, triggered by the fact that the prefect of Vaslui county, who is a member of the National Liberal Party (PNL), refused to organize a referendum for removing the mayor of Pungesti from office although the submitted request contained about one and a half times the required number of signatures, was scheduled to take place in front of the party’s headquarters that same evening, starting at 6 PM, but what I saw later makes me say that only some 15 people attended that event, which obviously means that no more than a few of them were there either. Not that I found that in any way surprising in itself, seeing as there was very little reason to stage a protest in that location, especially considering the fact that PNL was in the process of breaking away from the governing coalition, but it rules it out as the reason why many weren’t in front of the embassy either.
Some were, however, and in fact I found people already there at 6:45 PM, when I arrived myself, even though the event was supposed to start at 7 PM, at which time around 65 were present. The numbers didn’t actually increase significantly after that, around 75 being present at the peak, but one of the organizers mentioned a total of about 110 people, which seems reasonable when you consider that some left before others arrived. Even those who had attended the protest that took place in front of the headquarters of PNL eventually showed up, though that caused some tension when Paul Iurea brought up the matter of Pungesti while speaking through the loudspeaker. As far as I’m concerned, that was absolutely inexcusable, seeing as we were there strictly to show solidarity with the Ukrainian protesters and commemorate those who had been killed there since February 18, but thankfully the situation didn’t escalate and, either way, the organizers called the event to an end around 7:45 PM. The candles were left burning, however. And yes, I have a few pictures as well.

The next day’s events started around 2 PM, when those interested in appearing in a short video message for the people of Ukraine had been asked to gather in University Square. The video itself was edited and posted later that same day.
The evening threatened to become something of a mess, however, seeing as at least three different and overlapping events were announced, and that’s without including the viewing of Gasland 2, which was set to start at 6:30 PM, as part of the previously-mentioned exhibition dedicated to the fight against fracking, and which I firmly believe should have been rescheduled. In fact, on top of all of that, somebody mentioned a fourth event related to Ukraine to me as well, but I haven’t personally heard anything about it otherwise, so what worried me most was the one that actually was created by the known activists, which called people to gather around the University Square fountain from 6 PM and start a silent march towards the embassy 45 minutes later, preferably with tape covering their mouths.
Since the organizers of the previous evening’s event had asked people to once again gather in front of the embassy at 7 PM, and somebody else was asking for help to create a peace sign out of candles in the same location, starting at 6 PM, this seemed set to simply split us. Worse, there were also suggestions to pass by the Ministry of External Affairs and briefly protest against a perceived lack of a firm official reaction, the initial statements coming from our authorities being simply that Romania will support the decisions made by the European Union and NATO. As such, the risk of many turning the event into a protest against our Government, ignoring the fact that the real purpose was to display solidarity with the Ukrainian protesters, commemorate the dead and demand an end to the violence, was extremely high.
Eventually, while the activists decided to simply ignore the fact that two thirds of those who voted in the poll they had created on the event page said that we should go directly to the embassy, without a march or anything else, they did discuss the matter with the others and an agreement was reached, the 7 PM event going ahead as planned, for those clearly opposed to the march, and the rest joining them later, at which point those who meant to create the peace sign could do so as well. Thanks to this, despite still having serious doubts about the whole plan, I felt that I could go to the fountain and can therefore say that, after some efforts were made to hold the more restless ones back for a while longer, about 150 of us left exactly on schedule, at 6:45 PM, and reached the embassy around 7:40 PM, thankfully without making any stops or detours to protest along the way, with the exception of a short one in front of the Government that still remained within reasonable limits. The tape wasn’t mentioned again either, and not many chose to cover their mouths in such a manner, yet at the same time very few seemed to actually remember that it was supposed to be a silent march and kept chatting away instead.
Though some offered higher estimates, up to 400 or even 500, after actually trying to count several times I’ll say that the highest number of people that were gathered in front of the embassy at any one time was around 250, yet I think that everything turned out quite well. Many were arranging and lighting candles, there were flowers, some had brought messages, the large banners seen the day before were obviously there once again as well, and I was glad to see that nobody else brought up any unrelated issues. In addition, after they had formed a loose cordon and politely asked us to stay away from the narrow strip of sidewalk immediately in front of the embassy fence the day before, any potential tensions with the gendarmes were avoided after a representative apparently came outside and told them to allow us to stand anywhere this time.
Eventually, as people were starting to get ready to leave, Alex did make use of the loudspeaker once again, finishing a short speech with a call to end the evening with a visit to the Russian embassy, to ask Russia to allow Ukraine to be free. As such, around 8:20 PM a few of us left in that direction, some others catching up a few moments later, and while I never actually tried to count, I’ll say that at least 30 of us, possibly slightly more, reached the Russian embassy. As you can see in the second part of another video, or perhaps even in the last one of my pictures, that didn’t exactly do anyone any good, because the gendarmes met us there and didn’t allow us to stand on that part of the sidewalk.
The request was reasonable under the circumstances and many quickly decided to avoid any incidents and cross the road instead, but at that point Alex’s temperament got in the way again and he started arguing, then asked everyone to stand where we had first ended up, in a spot that can be described as across the road from a corner of the embassy, even though some of us actually intended to go all around the intersection and stop across the road from the actual entrance, and launched himself into a furious rant that quickly moved away from the evening’s topic. Thankfully, while some were gathering around him, enough others kept a cool head and eventually managed to make him stop and walk away. As far as I’m aware, that was when the evening’s events ended, though we walked back to Victoriei Square together and, once there, as some of us headed for the metro station, others broke away and seemed to be heading in the direction of the Government.

With the next day being Saturday, I was actually expecting a bigger event, similar to those that took place in many other parts of the world. However, if anything did happen that day, it definitely wasn’t big and I haven’t seen or heard anything about it. As such, this period ended with a whimper on February 23, when a small number of people once again gathered around the fountain, starting at 4 PM. I do have a few pictures, and gendarmes and some reporters were present, but they had little to do seeing as only 40, maybe 45 of us were there at the peak and not even the candles could be lit due to the wind. After 5 PM some were starting to leave, and I did so as well around 5:15 PM, along with others. Should perhaps also mention that another group had announced an intention to turn the event into a protest after 5 PM, but nothing of the sort happened while I was there and I haven’t heard anything about it later either.

March 12 edit: After today’s clarifications, I’m tentatively suspending this call.

March 11 edit: Please check out their recent announcement. My initial reaction after it, with just a couple of minor edits for clarity, was:

At a quick read, tempted to say hi again, and thank you, and hope we’ll all be putting all the mess behind us.

But trust’s hard to rebuild, so let’s see how the details will work out in time. I mean, first point would be to make sure that no other games, at least not except the three mentioned, will carry regional pricing, yet the article says you’ll try to have flat prices but will make up for it if it won’t work out, and I thought the point is to fight the practice, not to make you take losses so the publishers will still be able to carry on as usual.

Awesome if the different currencies for the rest of the catalog will be optional though. (Assuming I understood it right and it won’t be another kind of regional pricing, worried about that “or the equivalent in USD” bit. Does that mean the regular USD price or that’ll remain only for those from there and everyone else will get the direct current conversion of the set EUR/AUD/etc. price to USD? If first, awesome. If second, that’s regional pricing and we’re back to square one.)

The original post follows below:

As you may already be aware, coated in “good news”, GOG.com recently announced giving up on one of their two clear, specific core principles, namely the flat price worldwide. As such, I’m switching from being a very strong supporter, even somewhat of a GOG evangelist you may say, advertising them and trying to persuade others to sign up and make their purchases from there if they’re interested in any game included in their catalog, to boycotting them and calling everyone else to do the same. Considering the length of the post, if you’re in a hurry I guess you can skip straight to the call itself.

Before moving on, I would also like to add a link to a part of a presentation made by them only last summer, where they even named two publishers they gave up on specifically because they demanded regional pricing and, to quote them: “If there is a backbone of your business and you change it, you are destroying your business. It will come in time, maybe today you will make a fast dollar, but afterwards you will deeply regret it. That’s how we see that.” And later in that same talk: “The moment we will betray our values, the whole GOG will explode and that’s the end of it.” In addition, don’t forget the commercial they made dealing specifically with the unfairness of regional pricing, which they had briefly removed after the announcement, before probably realizing that doing so only made matters worse. And there’s also the last part of yet another commercial, mentioning fair prices for newer games as well. “But of course“, eh?

Considering all of that, I do believe it can’t be said that I’m overreacting and being entirely unreasonable. However, since some are doing just that, I’m going to include what I posted there yesterday, after getting past the stage during which I admittedly didn’t even care to be reasonable. It’s a long comment and I’m copying it exactly as I wrote it, including the words in bold, the only changes being adding a word that I had “eaten” in the original post and correcting a typo.

All right, was saying I just moved you straight from the strong support list to the boycott list and won’t bother with anything else, but let’s try a somewhat more reasonable message after just letting off a bit of steam Friday. This is darn difficult, mind you.

Regional pricing for on-line sales is wrong. There’s absolutely no excuse or justification for it. For physical sales there are varying taxes, transportation costs, the shares taken by the various shops themselves and wildly varying bills, rent and wages those stores have to pay. On-line, nobody can argue that it costs 0.01 USD to send a certain number of bits to the US and 5.46 EUR to send it to the EU for a 19.99 USD / 19.99 EUR game (even 0.46 EUR would still be entirely unreasonable, if it’d be 19.99 USD / 14.99 EUR), and let’s not even mention the even more outrageous situation for Australia / New Zealand. Hence, publishers merely do it because they can get away with it, there’s absolutely nothing that can be said to justify it or your choice to give in to this.

When you gave in for The Witcher 2, it was as a result of a court order, after a lengthy court battle that you lost, and you tried to make up for it with some store credit and even “broke” the geo-IP for a while to allow people to pick their location when buying that as well, which incidentally was an even greater plus for those same Aussies who had even worse problems than pricing to worry about. In that case, you fought for us, the customers, and alongside us, and even though you lost one battle, you did what you could to make it so we won’t lose it as well. And it was just one battle in a war, it happens, moving on.

Now, however, with this announcement, you did not lose a battle, you simply surrendered in the war, and contrary to what you said, you are pissing on our heads and telling us it’s raining. As that video people have been sharing proves, only last summer you were saying this will never happen, that if you ever allow for any dent in your values that’s the end of GOG, and just two months ago someone from support told me regional pricing will never happen, and now… There is nothing you can say to justify this or make it tolerable. Nothing! You had two clear, specific, core values, DRM-free and flat price worldwide. You gave up on one of them. It’s not a question of slippery slope, of potential consequences to the no-DRM stance in the future as well or anything else, not right now and not specifically at least. It’s a question of betraying one of your two core principles, and therefore betraying us. And hiding it in a so-called positive announcement, hiding your traces by making that video private, trying to justify it in who knows what way now is not making it any better, but worse.

As I saw someone else put it at some point on here, people like sales, coupons, free stuff, etc. everywhere, but people loved GOG. You were the good guys, you fought for us and we fought for you. Some people bought dozens or even hundreds of games on here (even if on big sales) just to support you, not because they absolutely wanted them, and definitely not because they needed to get them legally anywhere. Others shared your news, your offers, your announcements, supported you in other ways, persuaded friends and acquaintances to join GOG, make purchases as well, spread the word even further. It wasn’t a client – store business relationship, it was an emotional attachment because it truly felt as if we were in this fight against the other, evil, businesses in this industry together. And you now proved that not to be the case. That’s a betrayal, and the reaction to this, the rejection, will be just as emotional and vehement and steadfast as the support used to be, and possibly even more so.

If you were so desperate to get publishers too rotten to allow for fair prices for some of their games in one shop among several, just to count the major ones, you could, at the very worst, make an entirely separate site, without any visible connection to GOG, run by an entirely different team, that would sell just those games, and leave GOG as it was. That’d have still been a blow, but it’d at least have been something else, wouldn’t have soiled GOG directly.

If you truly believe you’ll get many games like this, you could still do that. Once you get, say, 50 or so under those terms, new, DRM-free but not fair priced, make another site, selling just those games, without negatively affecting GOG. Guarantee that GOG will maintain its principles, so including the fair flat price one, and still get at least 150 new releases per year (100 from the old two games at least three years old per week rule, rounding down to give a week off during the summer sale and one during the winter sale, and 50 more to justify the fact that you decided to stop focusing just on those “older” games some time ago – which incidentally started the slippery slope that led to this, mind you), and put the others on said other site, with the rule that they may not stay there with non-flat prices more than two years after being included in the catalog or more than three years after launch, whichever comes first. Then, once you can get a publisher to accept flat pricing for one of those games, move it to GOG too, but if you can’t get such an agreement before the game is on that other site for two years or three years have passed since it was first released, whichever comes first, it will be removed from that other site and forgotten about, since the point wouldn’t be to cater to rotten unreasonable publisher demands forever, but just to provide a gradual way in for them towards a fair model. And either way name and shame, spell out precisely which publisher made this rotten demand and what they said to your attempts to persuade them otherwise.

Again, this other site idea would still be a blow, would still be a betrayal, but not as much of one and at least it’d be a betrayal by CD Projekt (which won’t exactly be a first if you recall the going after Witcher 2 “pirates” bit or the fact that they just signed a distribution deal for Witcher 3 with the same rotten <bleep> who forced you into the regional pricing for Witcher 2), not by GOG.

Sorry for the length, but… I guess that’s as reasonable as I can get. Adding any game on GOG with regional pricing, or of course adding region locks or other such things that may follow, is not tolerable under any circumstances. Period.

With that out of the way, here’s another message, this one posted by me last night and explaining why a boycott is exactly what needs to happen, and why it needs to happen now. It was a reply to somebody else saying that there’s nothing we can really do.

Continuing to support them after this is the reason why the prices will increase. Need a united front against it, those of us who do see these things and care, here of all places, otherwise of course the silent mindless apathetic zombie crowd will always win out. And that’s what “they” (not necessarily GOG now, but those publishers) count on. Those who’re either easily fooled or just don’t think they can achieve anything by going against the stream will always be far more, so those of us who aren’t in that category (though I’m sorry to say you seem to be, at least in this second one if not the first) need to make enough of a ruckus to cover their silence. Sometimes it may even work. If it doesn’t, at least we tried, and at least we didn’t soil ourselves by going along with something that’s wrong.

Sure, this tends to apply to more important things than a games shop, but ideals are ideals, can’t claim to stand for the bigger ones if you wave away the smaller ones. (Which should go for GOG as well, with this.)

From that I’ll move on to a reply posted today on a thread against a boycott.

Judging from what I see in this post, seems that if GOG decided to pull down their pants and bend over in front of certain publishers, many of you are more than willing to follow suit. That’s what not boycotting now means, no matter how you justify it. You either fight this with the best weapon you have as a customer and are fully in that fight, regardless of whether we may win or not, or you don’t and the message sent is that they can get away with anything. Which is of course the very reason why this happens.

And finally, here’s yet another message I posted, this time in reply to those who claimed that such a course of action signified overreacting and that so far we can only speculate about precisely how the regional pricing will be implemented, and also asking people to at least wait until we’ll see which games will be added to the catalog thanks to this change.

What’s speculation? Why would what the new games are matter? They had two clear, firm principles. They announced deciding to give up on one of them. That’s the end of the story. It doesn’t matter what sort of shiny bribe they did it for, be it in terms of new games added or anything else, and it doesn’t, at this point, matter whether it will be a slippery slope or not (though I’ll remind you that TET admitted it may lead to region locks and existing games regionally priced in the future as well, when they’ll come up for renegotiation). It’s the fact itself that’s more than enough.

Now I believe I have already explained my stance in those messages, and I also believe that the first one showed that I can be reasonable about this and am even willing to offer solutions that will go a long way towards bridging this gap between the major publishers and the consumers without destroying what GOG is and what it has stood for all this time, so there’s no need to say much more in this post… Not much more except to apologize for allowing myself to be fooled into supporting them and perhaps persuading others to do the same all these years, at least.
There is nothing to negotiate or discuss here, or should I say that I have already stated how far I’m willing to negotiate, put my best “offer” on the table in that long message. As such, the call I want to make is very simple and very clear: As of now, until and unless they will renounce this change and once again enforce flat worldwide prices as one of their values, do not make any purchases from GOG.com anymore, do not purchase any games published by the companies that have pushed for this change, the first one announced being Triumph Studios, from anywhere, and persuade everyone you know to do the same. In addition, make it perfectly clear why you are taking part in this boycott by posting firm, though preferably thoughtful and reasonably polite, messages stating your stance on their forums and social media pages, and by sending such messages directly to them. And you may want to add a vote to the wishlist item as well, for what it’s worth.

For those interested, here’s also an incomplete list of reactions to the initial announcement found elsewhere on the Internet:
News pieces with comment threads containing over ten comments: IGN, Polygon, Joystiq, Kotaku Australia, Lazygamer, Ausgamers, Game Debate.
Forum threads with polls: The Escapist, CD Projekt, Neowin.
Forum threads without polls: reddit, Steam, GameSpot, Quarter to Three, Gameplanet, HEXUS, SEGA, Linus Tech Tips.

Edit: The announced letter explaining their plans for the future was finally posted as well, and in short it spells out that things will be even worse, with regional pricing applied to all games, which I’m sure implies tracking by IP everywhere too. Yes, the rates are far better than those usually used, but regional pricing is regional pricing, it still implies betraying their principles, and somebody’ll get screwed, even if less than in other places. Not to mention that exchange rates vary, so prices being set at one point in time instead of dynamically determined according to each day’s exchange rate will only make matters worse.
Honestly, I’m shocked right now. Didn’t think a business I respected and supported so much could stoop so low, so quickly. I mean, I know it was my mistake to allow myself to believe in them, to believe that a corporation may avoid being evil, but… It’s still shocking…

Second edit, copying something else I just posted: I do want to make it perfectly clear that boycotting them, and asking for others to do the same, does in no way imply wanting to see them bankrupt or otherwise gone. Quite the contrary, it’s just because I don’t want to see GOG gone, I don’t want to see them weak and defeated… Yet in one major way it already is gone, and they have admitted defeat, and therefore weakness.

I don’t know. Comments (and votes) say that many don’t think this is the right response, but after thinking about it for these past days I disagree with that and think it is. I think it is a way to send a strong message and remind them that some of us are fighting those practices and those publishers as well, and that if we will continue this fight even without them, even against them if need be, then it’s all the more clear that we will continue it alongside them, if they’ll decide to return to their previous stance, to their principles.

At the same time, the timing of the Humble Store change as well makes me have this nagging feeling that there’s something bigger at play here, something they’re still not saying. Maybe It’s “only” a coalition of publishers and retail stores making a push, complete with ultimatums, but may it also be some other court action, some high-level EU directive, or have something to do with the proposed European internet, forcing retailers to move away from transactions in USD as well, or quite the contrary, with the Trans-Pacific Partnership… Just speculation, of course, but it is odd…