GOG.com, a digital games store known both for their regular deals and their focus on delivering DRM-free games, has released a public apology following a flood of feedback regarding the pricing of their games. The issue revolves in part around "Fair Price," the notion that a game's price should be the same no matter where the purchaser resides. This means that citizens of the UK, for example, should not have to pay more for their games simply because their currency is more highly valued than the U.S. dollar.

In their apology, GOG suggests that in their pursuit of acquiring DRM-free games for their catalog (games not seeking to control user-activity after purchase, like the always-online requirement for Starcraft II and D3), they were willing to compromise on the point of Fair Price. They say that this was due to their perceptions of their customers' desires, which ran contrary to the feedback they've been receiving as of late. Game publishers are, expectedly, not huge fans of selling their games DRM-free and Fair Price, as in theory, it means less wildly-inflated profits for them.

GOG has issued a series of new commitments to do right by their customers. Firstly, they renewed their promise for selling only DRM-free games. They also promised to fight for consistent worldwide pricing, explaining this will likely delay their acquisition of new titles, which is a reasonable trade-off. But the place where GOG.com wins the Good Guy Game Store award of the month is their commitment to honoring Fair Price, even if publishers will not, by issuing post-sale rebates to their customers.

GOG also says they intend to display prices in local currencies, while allowing the option to pay in USD. This both provides choice to the customer, and allows them to avoid any exchange rates or transaction fees. The final promise in GOG's announcement was to create a better dialog with their userbase about their decisions and the reasoning behind them.

For being a digital online store, GOG seems like a pretty cool dude.