The problem with wishlists, is that they can almost be a set and forget action, unless you are really anal about checking them.

I wonder how many game providers think about the 'Buy at first price' scenario.

While I know a good number of folk use the wishlist for games they cannot currently afford, a good number of us use the wishlist for games that aren't yet cheap enough.

So for me for instance, I have too many games on my wishlist, to simply just browse it. So any game that goes on it, is reliant on me detecting a reduction in price, and that reduction being significant enough.

I rarely decide to buy a game that on further reflection or some kind of change (additions to the game), I am willing to pay the asking price for.

So really, the first time you see a game advertised, is often the most important moment. If it isn't priced right first time around, you may have lost that customer for good. This is something game providers should think really seriously about.

Some game providers of course, think their game is worth X amount, and refuse to accept less in their arrogance and stupidity. In reality, a game is worth what the customer thinks it is ... they are after all the ones paying for it, and the ones who will like it to varying degrees. There really is not set price a game is worth.

Profit is profit, and reduction of cost is reduction of cost.

Of course, it is all about picking that sweet point, where you satisfy the majority and get a fair return.

If I see a game I am interested in enough and the price is fair, I tend to just buy it, unless there are too many games currently like that, and so I have to decide between them.

So if you are trying to sell me your game, you really don't want it going on my wishlist, where it might end up residing on the Forgotten Shelf. Once it gets there, you are solely reliant on a future discount grabbing my attention enough again.

Often I am very reliant on memory about a game that is on my wishlist. The first time I see a game, I will look into it, maybe research it somewhat. But then over time, that memory weakens or is maybe confused with other games etc. I will only tend to look into it again, if a reduced price catches my attention enough.

Do many of you feel the same?

Hahaha - I love the distinction you made here. What is that sweet point for all games, where the devs/publishers "satisfy the majority and get a fair return"?

I think they will have to form a committee to work that out, but there surely is one. LOL

Some of it of course will be based on how much the game cost to create and provide, along with projected return, etc.

And what they think the majority of folk will be prepared to pay.

And factor in possible competition.

And does the game have staying power (popularity etc), so it will be around a long while, giving ample opportunity for a good return.

Perhaps I made it sound far simpler than it is. ;)

You may have a point here. :)

Would make sense to have the wishlist have a notification on pricepoint.

Save a lot of traffic. I feel like it is a waste of my time checking the list. Most games are a overpriced waste of money, that will be deleted 5 minutes after I try it. So spending much over $10 is a waste. Especially when the competition has better games that I would pay more for here, but cant. Mainly because staff dont care to court developers.

The wishlist notification in particular is quite unhelpful. "64 games are now on sale" or whatever - OK, but I still have to scroll through the wishlist to find out which ones. It's particularly tricky when a new batch of wishlisted games gets discounted in the middle of an existing sale - you receive another notification a day or two after the previous one, then have to navigate to the wishlist and try to distinguish which discounted games the new notification refers to.

Tracking specific discounts is mostly impossible too. The "Lowest price in the last 30 days" feature is moderately helpful, I suppose. But whenever there's a sale on, I have to scroll through my list hoping some discounts will stand out as potentially lower than previously, and then I have to search a price-tracking website to find out if they're new historically low prices on GOG or elsewhere.

I suppose the problem is that publishers don't really want you to know whether a game has been cheaper in the past. You might be reluctant to buy a game at 50% if you know it was 75% off in the previous sale, say.

You might want to refer to the All-time High Discounts thread. It's kept up fairly consistently and usually has the best discounts for at least the past five years and sometimes longer. :)

+1 about games not being cheap enough.

The problem with most games is that I will wishlist a game, after looking at the price, and thinking...well, this game is pretty much a clone of X, or at least in the style of X with some added twist, and I have played X, and I'm not convinced that Y is so different to X, but if it's cheap enough I will buy it and see if the twist makes it worth it.

And then if it gets cheap enough I buy it and never play it.

And if it doesn't get cheap enough then I just feel frustrated for a long time.

But either way I only play classic games (e.g. Caesar III), outstanding games (e.g. Rimworld), or groundbreaking games (e.g. Balatro) nowadays. I don't have the motivation or the patience to try new variations on old genres because I've seen the cycle too many times.

To be fair to GOG, they did bring in that previous price thing a while back.

Still, wishlists are not that user friendly, as some have noted.

I used to get emailed about a Wishlisted entry price change, but disabled that due to too many emails.

I use a program now, that I whipped up to check and keep a record of price changes for games I am really interested in. With over 1,000 wishlist entries now (games, dlc, etc), they aren't all being listed and checked in my program.

So I guess I have an edge on most folk, when I run that program, usually once a day, which only takes a few minutes, for a few hundred entries. When I get a special redeem discount email, I'll manually add any prices from that, which are lower than in my records. I enjoy it too, to a point.

It can get rather tiresome and boring and take an age, which is why I gave up browsing GOG's huge sales pages a few years back. If you were just checking new stuff, that might be alright, but really it is just going over mostly the same games, time and time again.

Depends how that was implemented I guess.

I used to get those pesky Wishlist emails, and it wasn't specifically for games that were now cheaper than ever before. It was basically just games on my wishlist that were now discounted. They might be only 10% off now, when in the past they have been 50% off, and you didn't buy it then, so why would you buy it now at the dearer price.

What's really needed, is a history of prices with dates.
But I guess that adds a psychological element that GOG maybe feel might turn a buyer off, make them more hesitant etc.

It was really painful, browsing long sales pages, only to have to redo it again for some changes, that usually stuffed up where you were browsing at. Yeah, going by memory is quite flawed usually.

I seem to recall that GOGDb keeps a record of prices with dates.
I couldn't imagine constantly switching back and forth between that and sales pages though. Indeed. But that presumes it isn't already on your Wishlist, and that you are prepared to investigate the game again. So it is often down to how well you know the game, and what you think a fair price is. I'm not even going to spend time checking the game again, unless the current discount motivates me.

My problem with the Wishlist is that it keeps growing faster than I can buy games...

That might indeed be handy, but I cannot imagine myself being bothered to switch back and forth between that and sales pages. Alright I guess for just a small number.

And let's not forget, that it doesn't include those special redeem email discounts.

Then there is having to convert the price to whatever your country price is, if not in USD ... or as I have just seen for one lot with a revisit, Euros.

P.S. Those special redeem email discounts can be a bit misleading sometimes too, and in quite a few cases the price is that in the next sale.

Yep, mine too.
But often only due to the prices, at least for me.

I've started being a bit more circumspect now, about what I will add to my wishlist, because of its size. Maybe I should have been that way all along, but I never expected it to grow as big as it has, and the effort to trim entries from it now, is just not my idea of time well spent.

I'm probably not doing such comparisons myself or not often. I tend to judge each game on its seeming own merit, and don't care about similarity to what has gone before so much, because there should be enough differences, even if it's only visual ... unless of course the cloned game was crap. In a way, it is like replaying such a game but with some kind of fresh take. But them I'm all about not paying too much in the first place.

All of the items on my wishlist are items I have some level of interest in, and the majority would not have any kind of priority. A much smaller number I have greater interest in, many of those being an instant buy if the price is ever reasonable.

While GOG still have a lot of cheap games, most of which I already have, if they grabbed me enough, there has been a rise in base price for many over the last few years. The price in many instances has increased so much, that the result of an 80% discount now, is still more than the previous 75% discount, for example. So if you aren't paying close enough attention, you could be fooled into thinking a game is cheaper now, just because it is 80% off. I don't go by percentage much, because it is a form of trickery. My records don't include percentage, just the resulting price.

Sometimes I buy a game, even though reviews aren't that great on average, if the blurb grabs me enough, the price is cheap, and I like the artwork and or soundtrack, and especially if those are extras to download ... or it just has some appeal factor. Price will definitely dictate though. Appeal Factor, could be classic status or part of a series, etc. I can play a game just for the experience sometimes, and not just the fun factor ... entertainment can come in many forms.

P.S. As many will now know, the WarCraft games have now left the store. It might seem strange, but I now feel relief, because their high price was really irritating me, as they were often in my face. On some level I am also disappointed, but then I am disappointed about a lot of games not being here at GOG. My view, is a high price might as well mean DRM. I'm not an emotional buyer, unlike some ... or at least I don't let my emotions override good sense.