Meh. Still waiting for a Linux-playable version. If it gets a native port, I'll buy it full price on purpose to give the devs extra money. If it only becomes compatible because of Wine, I'll probably wait for another significant sale.

Yeah, probably. Too many devs neglect Linux releases even as Microsoft gets more and more restrictive and consumer-unfriendly. It's not that encouraging.

If you want to minimize the price you pay you might want to delay your buying a bit in the cases where your free time doesn't allow you to play immediately. Typically the prices only go down, not up, and so you save most if you buy during the last sale before you have time to play.

I think they kept the original price for at least one year, that's already quite good.

There are two effects as I already said in the last post. One is newer games with better graphics. You're absolutely right in pointing out that Witcher 3 still has very good graphics. But the second point is interest of the buyers. It's gone down. Many the people who want to play Witcher 3 already have it. In order to convince those that want it less, you have to decrease prices. This is absolutely normal behavior in a demand and supply market economy.

Basically you paid too much because you wanted it too badly but that's okay because nobody forced you and you got what you paid for.

I know this is all theory and in practice it might be a bit different and there might be inefficiencies and limited information.

To say it very short: The price of Witcher 3 is what customers are currently willing to pay and currently they just don't want to pay that much anymore.

A thought just occurred to me that those who look forward to Linux releases of particular games might have more luck convincing game companies to release their games on Linux by actually appealing to other gamers out there (of whom there are many millions) to start using Linux for gaming.

Ultimately what causes the majority of games to be made available for Linux is a game company perceiving the market for the game for a given amount of manpower/resource overhead commitment to be large enough for the return on investment to be worthwhile. The combination of both asking them for a Linux port in combination with creating and/or becoming involved with Linux gaming advocacy campaigns to draw more gamers into trying out gaming on Linux ultimately can only end up leading to more gamers using Linux for gaming and the market for Linux releases of games increasing causing more and more game companies to see Linux as a viable platform for releasing their games on.

Existing Linux gamers are quite vocal already about requesting game releases for Linux and they should continue to do so of course, but what will make it actually happen sooner is advocating to gamers as well. I'm a Linux-head myself but I more or less never personally see gamers out there advocating Linux to others, or at least not in a way that might appeal to the others. Advocacy in this department to be successful I think needs to specifically not come across as preachy or an elite club of sorts, but rather should be focused on solving other people's needs and showing how Linux can meet their needs. Of course it wont meet everyone's needs either, but it certainly can meet some folks needs and advocating to the people whose needs can or might already be able to be met but whom are not currently using it could certainly be a good way to grow the user base using Linux for gaming.

Basically it's approaching it from both sides of the problem at once to break the cat versus mouse catch-22 that is the problem holding back many games/companies from releasing on Linux by default.

I think there is quite a lot of advocacy for gamers. Sites like Gaming On Linux are doing a good job. Take a look at its Wiki as well. I see posts like "I just ditched Windows and switched to Linux, because more games are available now" all the time. So I think things are clearly improving. Of course there always can be more. Do you have any idea where to do more of such advocacy?

The Linux global market share seems to be growing. So the catch 22 deadlock is slowly eroding. But the main barrier is still of course the obnoxious monopoly of Windows on the desktop. Most people use the system that comes on their computers preinstalled, and it's almost always Windows. Only a small percentage are brave enough to install another OS on their computers.

Yeah, I've both started and participated in various Linux and OSS advocacy groups formally and informally over the years with varying degrees of success as well as observing others in their efforts. If there's one thing I've learned along the way is that it is more or less another form of negotiation with the other person and that the key to success at it is trying to understand the other person's specific needs and what appeals to them, what their problems are from their own perspective and then trying to find and present a solution to them that may potentially meet their needs. We're all attracted to things based on our own needs and preferences ultimately, so the key to winning someone over is to show how a given solution may be able to meet their needs from _their_ perspective. I believe that is very key to success in advocacy of anything.

Where I've seen people's advocacy efforts fail is in presenting their information in terms that don't mean anything to the other person, don't solve their specific problems from their own perspective. As an aside, a few years ago I was researching buying my first vehicle and getting different people's opinions on vehicles. A friend of mine was adamant that I should by an enormous king cab track because they're the best vehicle money can buy. He advocated this to me because he is a burly guy that loves trucks just because he loves trucks. His high level of enthusiasm for trucks and recommendation to me did not even slightly take into account what I wanted/needed a vehicle for, what I planned to do with it. His argument was "you'll thank me when you go to move drywall" - as if that is something I'd ever see myself doing in my entire life. I should buy an 8 cylinder gas guzzler truck that is expensive to maintain because I'll look cool and impress people and I'll have that drywall transportation problem solved in advance when I need to do it even though I never will. His form of advice/advocacy was useless to me because it completely ignored the problems that *I* was trying to personally solve. He didn't even ask me what I needed the vehicle for and what I planned to do with it, rather he made his own assumptions based on what _he_ would want and do with it.

I think that's part of the problem, is that when people advocate/recommend things to others in that fashion they're ultimately not being terribly useful to the other person because they're unaware or even ignoring what problem(s) the other person is trying to solve. So it is key to advocacy understanding the other person's problems on their terms without judgment, and making polite positive recommendations that may meet their needs, steering them in the right direction as it were. It also however means realizing that once someone documents their needs/requirements that the thing we'd like to advocate might or might not actually be beneficial to them too, such as my buddy recommending the truck he was in love with personally. Sometimes even when advocating, we need to recommend things to others that are not what we're actually advocating but are a better fit to their own specific problem and needs per se. In other words, we should always put the other person's need first in our mind frame and not try to smother our favourite/preferred solution on them blindly or religiously while ignoring their actual needs.

There are a lot of advocacy groups out there of all tastes, but of course there's always room for more given the problem perceived at hand. It could be contributing to something pre-existing out there as you suggest, or it could be someone starting their own more targeted advocacy group/meetup/etc. For example, someone could create a GOG specific Linux advocacy group, including web pages, discussion forums or threads within the forum here (although I think moderatable forums elsewhere are better for that sort of thing.) The key to the success of such efforts I believe is keeping the entire effort a positive and friendly and inviting environment.

Yeah, the market tends to go where the money is in general, so Linux distributions, enthusiasts, users, developers alike simply need to continue making Linux an attractive platform for solving other people's problems. It's a fantastic system for solving our own problems (which is how a lot of the OSS ecosphere was built - a developer or developers solving their own problems by scratching a personal itch), and it continues to grow and expand to become a more generic platform that is accessible more and more to the average person. Android for example has helped that become more of a reality, which is also rather amusing as many if not most people who use Android on any device are probably unaware that they are running Linux. :)

It's been a 25+ year ride so far in Linux-land, but things have come a long way and I think the future looks bright. It does seem to be taking forever at times though too hehe.

Well, as someone trying to get console-gaming friends into PC gaming, I'm going to be advocating they build their own PCs, and to save additional costs and get a better OS on its own merits to boot, they should use Linux. After all, if you buy pieces individually and build the machine yourself, nothing comes preinstalled, and Linux is free where you have to pay for Windows.

That's good. Linux is a natural choice for those who build their own computers. They are already avoiding Windows tax, so not adding to their costs is a good idea.

By the way, there is a dedicated thread about The Witcher 3 for Linux here, in case you want to discuss it further.
Lately, things have been accelerating, with Linux gaming growing much faster than in the past, so these are good times.

Some made an interesting observation, that too many games coming out, can actually saturate the market to the point that Linux gamers won't be buying them enough which will hurt developers themselves, so gradual growth is good. I'm not sure if Linux market now is saturated that it can't handle much more games, but there is some point to it.

Only if TW3 would go down a little more. When you are on disability, ever $ counts. I am not worried about missing out on all the excitement around the initial release and in most cases the multiplayer time (I don't play multiplayer as hey I know I will get my tail end kicked way to often, I am not a master of gaming, so I beat up on the AI - hopefully, instead). So I am the one who watches for the bargain basement pricing on products.

Hopefully TW3 GOTY will go below the absolute minimum I start looking at buying games with all their DLC/etc (GOTY or buying the base game +season pass/DLC), so I always hope for 19.99 for one or two days eventually.

Please note for those who would attack me for putting that kind of price on TW3 GOTY. I am not using the price as a statement of quality, just the opposite. The longer it takes for a title to hit my starting to decide can I scrape together enough money, the better the title is. A title that is awful will flirt with lower prices sooner rather than later. I have been impressed with TW and TW2, not to mention all the coverage, reviews and applause TW3 + DLC/Season Pass this game has earned and hopefully the devs/programmers have felt good with this kind of response.

I almost bought this at Amazon once, I had a $5 courtesy goodwill credit and it I signed in on their phone app, they would give me $5 off my next purchase, the game was at $29.99 for GOTY, but they didn't get me the app bonus credit in time. However I would still prefer to buy it here over anywhere else, simply because it is DRM free! No not because it doesn't have copy protection so I can hand out copies to friends or torrents, but because I don't have to deal with user client interfaces ala Steam, Uplay, EA Origin, all which while nice can always add a layer of troubleshooting if the game is having a problem and the feeling that anything you play through those clients they can monitor/snoop/log almost without you ever knowing. I want to play without a third party overhead.

So GOG keep going. Thanks again for the prices you offer not on just old titles but new ones as well. Other sites might offer some of the older titles cheaper, but I know that if I want to be assured of it actually being tuned to work with Windows, GOG is the only place safe to buy it at (none of the others really talk about if they have gone through the same effort as GOG has to make a title work in modern version of Windows xp,7,8,8.1 and 10). Please no flame war for those who say other sites do the same, as I just see the specialist at this fine tuning as GOG.

Linux usage is likely to naturally increase over time but I think another thing we're seeing is a gradual shift away from desktop-PC based computing. Many people now use mobile phones and tablets etc. exclusively which in its own has a potentially negative effect on the PC gaming market. I say potentially only because I haven't seen anything happen yet that suggests us desktop PC gamers have anything to worry about in the next few years at least. At the same time I was quite happy to see Valve's embracing of Linux and what they are trying to do with SteamOS and Steam machines even though neither have made any real noise in the market yet to date. They have however contributed heavily to making Linux a more viable gaming platform and drawn more developers to the platform than would have likely occurred otherwise, so that is good to see.

My gut feeling is that the Windows platform is going to become more and more restrictive over time and Linux more and more attractive. I'm hoping as Microsoft turns future versions of Windows into the walled garden platform it appears they intend to, that desktop gaming will continue to migrate off being Windows centric, both embracing Linux, Mac, as well as the mobile platforms. There's still a long way to go though until we're likely to see it get where we want it to be. Wouldn't parity be nice? Yeah, I know... dream on... :)

SO, I haven't Played this game at all, and I dont own any version of it... Should I directly buy the GoTY version and play it... or buy the regular version and play till some specific point and then ugprade it.

:D

Thanks!

At this point in time it's best to buy the GOTY version of the game as you get everything all in one nice installer package that installs the game, 2 expansion packs, and all 16 DLC in one shot, and consumes the least amount of space to archive a backup (by a small margin). The game has won over 800 awards to date in total, 300+ of them being "game of the year" type awards, and it is considered by a great many people to not only be the best RPG ever made, but the best game ever made. As someone who has completed the main game, I can say that it's an amazing deal at triple the price really, and I couldn't do the game nor CDPR justice without recommending someone buy the whole package all at once presently.

You could buy the game standalone and then the expansions separately later on but you'll pay a fair bit more for them in the long run unless you were to wait quite some time until the game has a price drop. I definitely have to recommend springing for the GOTY up front though just to have the complete experience from day one. It's very unlikely you'll regret it, statistically speaking in terms of the game's reception across the board though. :)

Hope this helps.

I've actually been meaning to ask this. So if you buy the GOTY, you DON'T have to download each of the small DLC pieces that were released a few at a time, shortly after the release of the base game? It's all included in the GOTY installers?

If you're talking about RIGHT NOW, absolutely don't buy the regular version. The GOTY is on sale at this moment for $30 USD; the regular isn't and it's $40 ;)

TYVM for the answers.