It seems that you're using an outdated browser. Some things may not work as they should (or don't work at all).
We suggest you upgrade newer and better browser like: Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer or Opera

×
Community
General discussionAdvice on spending in GOG sales(19 posts)(19 posts)
(19 posts)
Pages:
1
2
This is my favourite topic
Posted January 08, 2016
Hi everyone.

I'm new here - I found GOG a few days into the winter sale back in December. I'm very impressed with what I've found. Perhaps too impressed, as I've spent loads of money on games already.

I'd like to ask for some advice in order to be able to plan my budget in the future.

Background: I used to game on consoles in the 1990's, and have recently decided to build a gaming PC and find time to get into gaming again (only this time on Windows). Through the winter sale I bought loads of games because the prices seemed like an opportunity too good to miss. Since then there have been more sales and 'opportunities' to spend lots more money.

What I'd like help with is trying to gauge the usual landscape in the world of GOG. I'm thinking that sales are frequent and that I need to calm down and be more selective with my spending. Should I fight my urges to snap up games every time there's a sale? On the other hand perhaps there aren't always sales this good and I should take the opportunity to build up a catalogue of games ready for my new gaming PC?

So, are these sales due to the holiday season, or is it usually like this all year round? It seems that there is a weekly sale, but what is the usual quantity of games available? And what would be a typical cost if I decided to buy them all?

My line of questioning is hard to answer, I know. I'm hoping to get some subjective answers just to get a feel for what GOG is all about.

By the way, please let me emphasize that I think GOG and the community here is fantastic!
No posts in this topic were marked as the solution yet. If you can help, add your reply
Posted January 08, 2016
The best thing you can do is check historical sales. For example, this current weekend sale at 70% off, is pretty normal. Nothing is discounted more than in the past, so I'd give it a pass unless there is something you are really itching to play.

You can also check out Isthereanydeal.com to find out (generally) what the best sale has been, although this won't tell you about bundle deals. Elsewhere on the forum, there is a MaGoG search engine which lists some sale data.

I've also periodically been working on a spreadsheet to track the best sales (worked back - not including - to Summer of 2013 so far) as best as I can backtrack...

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1fW_hBX_4Ldej4YDIpaSu1357CH3-o0rLUwnXWKLm_bE/edit?usp=sharing
Posted January 08, 2016
You have basically two big sales - the Summer sale and Winter sale. On top of that there is usually a Spring and Autumn Insomnia, but those might not be happening again and might be replaced by a regular sale, so you should definitely wait for more sales later on if you'd like - the weekly weekend sales happen really everyweekend, and usually the biggest sales are during Summer and Winter. And game bundles during those two seasons tend to be the cheapest.

Overall if a sale on a game is at 80% or more, it's the biggest discount you can get (but I think there might've been a 90% on few games too but you very rarely see it). Also the newer indie games sometimes have their price reduced permanently and if Insomnia ever happens again, if you're fast enough to catch the game on sale (it's always a certain amount of copies for one games until it runs out and it's replaced by another), you can get games for a dollar, two or three (often it was the same like the 80% discounted games in Summer/Winter - right everyone?).
Post edited January 08, 2016 by Green_Hilltop
Posted January 08, 2016
avatar
nigelbeans: Hi everyone.

I'm new here - I found GOG a few days into the winter sale back in December. I'm very impressed with what I've found. Perhaps too impressed, as I've spent loads of money on games already.

I'd like to ask for some advice in order to be able to plan my budget in the future.

Background: I used to game on consoles in the 1990's, and have recently decided to build a gaming PC and find time to get into gaming again (only this time on Windows). Through the winter sale I bought loads of games because the prices seemed like an opportunity too good to miss. Since then there have been more sales and 'opportunities' to spend lots more money.

What I'd like help with is trying to gauge the usual landscape in the world of GOG. I'm thinking that sales are frequent and that I need to calm down and be more selective with my spending. Should I fight my urges to snap up games every time there's a sale? On the other hand perhaps there aren't always sales this good and I should take the opportunity to build up a catalogue of games ready for my new gaming PC?

So, are these sales due to the holiday season, or is it usually like this all year round? It seems that there is a weekly sale, but what is the usual quantity of games available? And what would be a typical cost if I decided to buy them all?

My line of questioning is hard to answer, I know. I'm hoping to get some subjective answers just to get a feel for what GOG is all about.

By the way, please let me emphasize that I think GOG and the community here is fantastic!
Welcome Nigel.
The normal pattern for GOG is to have three big sales each year - one in summer, one in November, and one in December.
There are also weekly sales, usually focused on one developer or publisher, but sometimes on a certain genre with selected titles within that.
Good luck building your collection, and enjoy playing and being part of this community.
Posted January 08, 2016
Best deals are in winter and summer sales. In autumn and spring gog usually has special sales and sometimes they are also quite good.

And last but not least, you have as well the "regular" discounts: on monday you have the weekly staff picks and on friday the weekend promo.
Posted January 08, 2016
1. Wishlist your favorite games. And enable email notifications. More details.
2. Use MaGog to find more info about the history of discounts.
3. Also, there are some sale tracker threads (previous sales). They have useful info about discounts too. For example, see big winter sale 2015 tracker thread.
4. IMO, over 50% discounts are good. If you want more discounts, you should wait for the big sales or special offers/bundles.
5. If you really want to play a game as soon as possible and you have enough money, don't wait for discount. Just buy it. Your money supports both developers and GOG.
Posted January 08, 2016
avatar
nigelbeans: Should I fight my urges to snap up games every time there's a sale?
If you don't have collector's OCD, then yeah. It's very easy to end up with a catalog of 100, 500, even a thousand games, but you're never going to play all of those. If you've gotta catch 'em all, well, more power to you. If you want to play the really good games, then rejoice, because GOG is a curated store, and you can do some good research on titles. Of course, buying a game at or near release (which will be close to full price) is the best way to keep developers developing games, but those steep sales are great for picking up the "well, maybe" games on your list. [url= And, let's face it, GOG has been living on the long tail for years. Buy cheap! Spend the savings on fish and chips! ][/url]
Posted January 08, 2016
Hi there! Welcome to GOG , I hope you'll love it and will enjoy your time in the forums as well :)

It is a good idea to make a browse thru the catalog and populate your wishlist (see the attached screenshot "wishlist-add"), then make it public from account -> Orders & settings -> wishlist -> share with everyone (screenshot "wishlist-public") in order to be able to see the games you want and give a per title advice, because there are titles which goes on sales every two weeks or every month and there are titles like SIN for example that goes on sale 1 or 2 times per year (I think SIN wasn't discounted even on the recent winter sales :(). Usually newer titles are discounted 10 to 15% at most if the game is relatively new, to -50% if the game is new to GOG, i.e. DRM-Free (like Sins of the stars: Rebellion) and it's not very likely they are discounted very soon afterwards (but I really, really hope you'll halve the price of Rebellion again GOG!). The older games, that got the GOG treatment (i.e. bug fixes and made them playable on modern OSes) usually start with the same discount as the new ones, but hey could be discounted again sooner. The major sales are 2 with a relatively fixed time period - the Holiday Winter Sale you witnessed and the Summer sale that's, yes you guessed right - during the summer (but I don't know when exactly), and there is a 3rd or even 4th so called Insomnia sale that's a lot of fun :) that again I'm not sure when it happens, but features a BIG discounts, so it's worth hanging out for it.
Attachments:
wishlist-add.jpg (270 Kb)
wishlist-public.jpg (130 Kb)
Post edited January 08, 2016 by leon30
Posted January 08, 2016
avatar
nigelbeans: snip
Welcome aboard ;)

Well, the last few sales (the big ones) were mostly due to the holiday season.

From what I've seen so far, there are only a few really big sales scattered throughout the year (mainly during longer holidays, but I'm not always paying attention)

Otherwise there are either new release sale discounts (somewhere between 10 -75%, really depends though, and does not always happen... usually safe to skip unless you really like what you see), the weekend sales and themed sales (like all avaible games from Nordic for -X % ), which can be somewhat hit'n'miss, and to some extend tend to repeat somewhat regularly (not too often, but some sales seemed to happen 3 - 4 times last year (or at least there was quite some overlap with the games)), so unless you really want a game now, you are fairly safe to skip and wait., unless you see a rare 90% or cumulative discount (very rare outside the huge sales) or a goodbye sale (games will be removed from catalog afterwards. Sidenote: Not from your library if you own it, just no longer avaible for future sale)

So don't worry to much about it.
Posted January 08, 2016
Big sales:
- Insomnia sale (and yes we do mean no sleep whatsoever for a week cause games keys are limited and cycle around for a week) - it happens usually once in spring and once in autumn time - probably the most unique and interesting gog sale
- Summer sale
- Autumn sale and 2-3 weeks after that Winter sale
- Occasionaly some gimmick sale like Pinata sale or Mystery game sale where you get maybe up to 100 picked out games in normal sale and next to that you can buy as many mystery games as you wan't from a pool of usually 100-200 games (for a cost of 3€/3$ per game)

Otherwise weekend sale and monday gog staff picks as two standard small sales.

Also gog is big on bundle sales so you will be able to buy a game package for 75 to 80% while if you wan't to buy only one game from that bundle you will get only 50-60% discount.
Post edited January 08, 2016 by Matruchus
Posted January 08, 2016
A lot has been said already. I'd add :

1) sales format tend to change over time, but the principle is pretty constant : bundles with attractive sales, a daily selection of games with an improved discount, and, during the whole period a lower discount on a larger selection. If for instance you're after Sengoku, you may find it at -50% during the whole sale, but there might be, on a given day a paradox bundle @ -80% or a possibility to get Sengoku @ -65%
2) at the end of the sale, there is often one day or more where all offers are available together; Patience may be more economical than impulse
3) GOG likes "mysetery" games, pinatas and the like; That is a lottery where you buy a ticket that gurantees you, for a low price say 2£, a game that's worth between 7.99 and 45.99£. you gan get nice surprises, or not. It's a good way to waste your budget. But there might be some good trades to do then. However beware the scammers.
4) use your wishlist to track the games you want.
5) some initial discounts ( at release time) might be better than what you'll get in the next sale. but that's not the most commun occurence.
6) some games are often discounted (like current offer, not interesting ) , some far less ( D&D related games f.i.). Jump on the good occasions
Posted January 09, 2016
A couple links to keep on hand:

- those games permanently on sale at 100% off: http://www.gog.com/games##sort=bestselling&price=free&page=1

- sometimes (most times, really) a title will be discounted at release, and occasionally there will be a couple discounted without any (or a very well hidden) announcement. Outside of a big sale you can find any current discounts at: http://www.gog.com/games##sort=bestselling&price=discounted&page=1
Posted January 09, 2016
avatar
nigelbeans: I'd like to ask for some advice in order to be able to plan my budget in the future.
Buy the games you really want, trade for the ones you'd really like. Thusly thou may saveth.
Posted January 09, 2016
Folks have been talking about Insomnia. Great sales, but there have only been 3 of them. There is at least some backlash from people who miss out on the games (the selection cycles through 3 times and that first round can go very quickly for the good stuff) and some backlash from people who really dislike the format.

It has been a while since we've had one. Maybe we'll see one in 2016 - many of us hope. My first one was very hectic. I bought. A. Lot. :)

Welcome!
Posted January 09, 2016
avatar
HereForTheBeer: - those games permanently on sale at 100% off: http://www.gog.com/games##sort=bestselling&price=free&page=1
+1 for that, especially with the recent addition of Bio Menace. :)
Pages:
1
2
This is my favourite topic
Community
General discussionAdvice on spending in GOG sales(19 posts)(19 posts)
(19 posts)