I think many here may agree that they've come to GOG for their more consumer friendly stance when it comes to digital content (whether that be games or now movies). However, it's become apparent that there's a major sticking point with their stance that may, incidentally, prove to be somewhat consumer unfriendly...But that's the question, isn't it?

Is it more consumer friendly to provide DRM free digital content at the appropriate prices* for users (without some dark magic currency conversion rate mumbo jumbo) or less?

If it is less, is this because it reduces the options available to us as consumers and would it better to compromise on one end of consumer friendly behavior while casting off another (i.e. DRM free at the cost of a higher price due to dark currency magic)?

Moving away from those options a moment, would another, better compromise instead be to press them to more carefully assess their options and strategies so as to not result in the present situation (i.e. removing games from negotiation difficulties)?

What's your stance on this? I've seen an interesting mixture of responses to the effect of the situation sucking but appreciating GOG's stand, whereas others (more bizarrely to me) align with situation sucking and more choice > less choice even to the point of siding with publishers. It's far too much of a drift between extremes for my tastes, and I doubt it's a calm, considered response from many on both sides, so I'd be interested to see some more thoughtful ideas on the matter.

Personally, I find the situation somewhat confusing and unfortunate, but I've hopes that it can be sorted out with due time.

Edit:
*I have no idea if this is even a thing they're trying to maintain. I'm not sure what's going on with pricing now.

Um. I think I've greatly misunderstood the situation at hand and I'm not sure what's fair or not anymore. Sorry guys. Currencies are confusing and strange beasts when crisscrossing nations. I thought I had some grasp of things but I'm pretty sure I never did to begin with. This thread is just useless cruft. My bad guys, I'm going back to trying to decide which games to play and/or pick up now, leaving this subject to those hopefully more in the know.

Business affairs are confusing.

I'm not even sure I understand what you are saying? What are the two sides, and to what issue exactly?

People want GOG to stick around, because they like GOG. Some people think GOG will most likely stick around by being staunchly niche (or revolutionary). Others think that GOG should compromise in order to survive and thrive. It's the kind of decision businesses struggle to make every day.

Everyone on the forums who weighs in on GOG's negotiations with publishers is making things up. We don't know what those negotiations entail. We don't have any records of the conversations. We're in the dark. Which is how it should be. Has to be. Negotiations for a business deal cannot be crowd-sourced.

Sorry, I should have been clearer.

The basic sides as I see it are:
More consumer friendly to lose some games due to attempting to maintain a fair pricing policy.
Less consumer friendly to lose some games due to this attempt, as it reduces choice.

This is, admittedly, a bad way to paint it though, as both are right and wrong in their own respects. The ones that are frustrated with this move are right that less choice is somewhat unfriendly to us as consumers, but the ones that may also be frustrated but are more okay with the losses are right that it's better for us as consumers to pay a fair price as opposed to one inflated for some reason or another (I'm not terribly familiar with the intricacies of this). Albeit the former is wrong to acquiesce to publishers' desires and the latter is wrong to be too complacent with GOG's decisions resulting in a decreasing selection of games.

The issue is a mixture of attempting to maintain fair prices at the cost of losing games in the process. (Some don't care about the pricing side, more retaining choices, whereas some are more concerned with the pricing, it's not what I'd call a simple issue).

At any rate I agree with your observations, and apologize again for not being clearer.

The main appeal of GOG to me is that the games are DRM-free and they put work into making sure the games will work on modern PC's.

I'm in the US so I never really thought about the currency conversions before, but I am willing to pay a bit more for a game on GOG compared to the Steam version so I'd probably be okay with paying a bit more in general as long as the game was still DRM-free and worked on my PC.

But I understand why people are upset about the currency conversions if it works against them.

Worldwide flat prices aren't really fair or consumer friendly to most customers. What many overlook though is that the common regional pricing systems also operate with flat prices, only regionally, arbitrarily lumping together extremely different markets without considering income or purchasing power. It's all just about how attractive or irrelevant the markets in question are and to what extent they can be milked. I think what most protesters are opposed to here is not the idea of regional pricing per se, but the current implementation of it in the videogame industry, which has nothing to do with 'fairness'. If Germans had to pay higher prices than e.g. Italians or Poles that would be perfectly reasonable. Even having to pay slightly higher prices than US citizens due to our taxes couldn't be argued with. But if Italians, Poles and Germans all have to pay disproportionately higher prices in Euro than the US prices, despite them not earning more - and in most cases significantly earning less - than the average US citizen, even an unfair system like worldwide flat pricing (based on the US prices) suddenly becomes attractive in comparison. It's not about being a cheapskate and wanting to pay less than the reasonable prices, it's about not agreeing to pay more than that without good reason.

I'd like to take the side that says "Give me less choice, but make deals with publishers that respect the rules of fairness". The reasoning might seem a little off there, but if some are greedy as such, then they don't deserve to be on GoG.

Principles are to be followed, not broken for the sake of a few dirty specimens.

I expect quality, not quantity.