I stopped caring about CDPR pre-consumer talk after W3 free DLCs. They simply left out some content out of the game and then released it now and than as PR move. Then they stopped releasing some of their games on Steam and now this. They are not that different from other publishers. I also fully expect them to try and make CP2077 GOG only.
What games they didn't release on Steam exactly? Because they released all their catalogue but Gwent on Steam, and it makes sense, considering Gwent is F2P and if they release it on Steam they need to give Valve a cut from microtransactions, it can still happen of course, but if it doesn't there are plenty of F2P titles which don't release on Steam.
Regarding the free dlcs for Witcher 3, probably it was cut content, yeah, but still it was a nice marketing thing to do, I appreciated it, their paid expansion were so good, nothing compared to dlcs for other games.
Also not a single company is "pro-consumer". Their goal is to do money, plain and simple. I didnt follow the Thronebreaker case, did they tell it wouldn't come to Steam? Did they tell it was a GOG exclusive? If the first answer is "yes", than the fact the game released two weeks later on Steam is just crappy and they acted in such a way to boost GOG sales for the game. If they otherwise stated the game was a GOG Exclusive, they do that with plenty of titles (like the Remastered from Double Fine, in example), but eventually the game comes to Steam too. Other times (Sam & Max, Monkey Island 4) it doesn't, but I think that's up to the publisher (in this case Disney) than GOG.
I really dont get why devs/pubs dont care about regional pricing.
It has been shown that it can be totally healthy for some pubs. I mean when Steamspy had regional sales, you could see that e.g in China the regional priced atelier titles was the biggest region. For some XSeed games it is the biggest sales region.
And then on Era if you usually open a thread about pubs going away from regional pricing in low income regions, you read shit like "If they are that poor, they have other things to worry about" or "Gaming is a luxury. They dont need to play games." when I am pretty sure the era thread about a new Assassins Creed costing 400€/450$ would have 2000 threads and it would blow up on all major websites...
Because people don't give a fuck on questions which don't touch them directly, plain and simple. Another (maybe stupid) example: the retail releases in Italy now all pretty much cost 75€ each, while they are 69.98€ in the rest of Europe, and in US the same releases are 60$. On Steam we also pay games like the rest of Europe (the "rich" part). Now, I won't say Italy is comparable to places like Ukraine for the average monthly salary, it woould be just a lie, but as you know Italy is in a very bad economic situation with a huge unemployment rate, but still we pay games like (or in case of retail releases even more) than Germany, in example. But guess what? No one cares. While it's true if you/your country are in a bad economic situation gaming is not strictly the first world problem, it's also true if you have a full time job, you manage to live by yourself, paying your bills and in general having money to spend on things you like, you should be able to spend those money without being fucked by people who straight up refuse to aknowledge the economic situationt/disparity with other countries of your country. It would be like paying 3/4 times more for a Coca Cola, of course you don't need it, but if you want it, you should be able to buy one without getting ripped by the company.
But in general yeah, people don't give a fuck because they live in a country where the price of the game goes along with what they gain each month, and if someone argue about it (maybe someone from Brazil, which usually gets the short end of the stick), than gaming it's a luxury, you don't need it to live etc. etc.
The big thing with Thronebreaker isn't that the game came to Steam after being branded as a GOG exclusive. The real story here is that CDPR released the game on Steam with correct regional pricing, then noticed that people from poorer regions would rather buy the game from a store with fair regional prices (Steam) instead of GOG, and decided to say "fuck it" and remove regional pricing from most countries, saying it was "a mistake"
In this case yeah, they fucked up people badly. I hate when this happens, a company which used to be "good" or at least ok just fucks everyone with no respect, throwing their good will into the garbage. I still like CDPR for their games, W3 is one of my favourite title, but at this point I expect some garbage related to Cyberpunk like a Premium edition with a five days early access to the game and an exclusive golden rifle if you pre-order it.
