all prices are collated here

Outlast is 66% discount, price $6.66

Yeah, that's the single reason for offering games on sale to someone that they already own that could make any sense. But the problem with that, is that if they offer someone a game indiscriminately that someone alraedy owns, the chance of the person buying it if they own it already is only if they might want to gift it to someone else. Let's call this a "potential purchase factor of 1". If they post you games instead which you don't own already, then you might want to buy the game for yourself - or - you might want to buy the game for someone else as a gift - or - both. Let's call that a potential purchase factor of 2. If they make it a random game from your wishlist - and the wishlist is ultimately a marketing tool that allows GOG to gather data on what games you are personally interested in and give them an insight into how to market things to you personally better - then they're offering you a high value target product that increases the likelihood you'll buy it from a marketing perspective, and if you've thought highly enough of a game to put it on your wishlist you might think highly enough to buy it as a gift for someone else also. I'm going to say that's a potential purchase factor of 4, but it's probably much higher than that because it is something someone's indicated they want already. It might actually be a potential purchase factor of 10.

This is all theoretical of course but it illustrates a concept of the likelihood of a purchase being made as a concept of foreknowledge of different things which influence customer desire having a strong influence on the likelihood of a purchase being made. There might be some other mechanic at play from the marketing department which I don't understand of course as they have all the data to make the decisions, but it seems to me that the wishlist and games-owned databases aren't being utilized fully in a way to maximize the number of potential sales that occur. In the end, if a game you actually want to own and have wishlisted is in the pool of games they can offer up at a discount and they're offering a random game you own allready or have not indicated you want somehow - there is less likelihood mathematically that you'll buy it IMHO.

One thing I didn't mention or take into account in my above thoughts too, is that some people are only here to purchase games for themselves. They might not have any or many friends or relatives that play games at all or which would want a GOG game, and might not have any Internet based friends/contacts or engage in forums and whatnot. None of those people are likely to buy games as gifts even if they're here to buy games themselves. No way to know what percentage of people that might be though, but GOG would have some amount of internal demographics that show "n percent of our customers have purchased a game as a gift code before" at least with which to gauge the likelihood of potential gift purchases.

So I totally agree with your theory being a possibility as to why they have it as it is, but from a mathematical point it wouldn't make sense to me to maximize the number of purchases being made business-wise. :)

Incidentally, last year I bought 20 games as gifts for a friend of mine too on top of the tonne I bought for myself. Hehe. Haven't gotten any for anyone this year so far but that's not due to anything related to the pros and cons of the promo but rather I knew last year some individual games a friend would have liked from discussion with him and showing him the GOG site and planting an idea in my head of possible gifts, which later when I found them on sale I did a whimsical gift purchase. :) Now... if only GOG added some semi-social network related features to the site that allow people to share their wishlists with their friends or publicly easily... I could just peruse his wishlist and make some whimsical gift buying decisions. ;oP Now, someone might suggest to me that you can do this with the gogwiki.com and I personally have an account there and occasionally sync my game list and wishlist to it and it is useful to me personally, but unfortunately there are only a few dozen people using the site who tend to be heavier forum users and the existence of the site is not known to the majority of customers I don't think, as well as the need to use a browser plugin to synchronize it would have most people not likely to use it. I hope GOG adds this kind of functionality directly to the website in the future so everyone has the option of twiddling a setting directly in their GOG profile to allow their wishlist to be shared publicly or with friends - which would mean they'd have to add a way to specify someone as a friend also. I know some people would balk at the idea of doing this as there are purists out there, but GOG is a business and this is an idea that is likely to generate more sales even if some people would not like the idea (but they wouldn't have to use the functionality so it wouldn't affect them if it existed either).

Anyhow, some interesting thoughts I hope! :) I think it's good for everyone to speculate about such things and throw out brainstorm ideas here like this as GOG appears to be reading things we all say and occasionally seems to implement some of the ideas that show up from time to time. That's one of the cool things about GOG, they are more in touch with the great community they have here than other gaming retailers seem to be.

Take care, and hope everyone gets games they want showing up on the promos coming up! Hope everyone has a great holiday season!

Yeah, I think the reason we see most games being traded are Steam keys or other non-GOG keys is that the way people accumulate keys they end up wanting to trade with others is by making purchases of bundles that come with some games they aren't interested in and those bundles almost always are off-site non-GOG game bundles. If bundlestars/humble/indiegala/etc. started offering as many bundles with GOG keys as they do for Steam and Desura, then I'm sure we'd see people having bucketloads of GOG keys spare to trade too. While GOG does have the "buy all these games get a deeper discount" promotions frequently which are very similar in nature to a bundle, they're not really the same thing as the external bundles from a point of incentive though I don't think as the external bundles you usually can buy anywhere from 4 to 12 or more games in a bundle for like $2.50 to $8 price range which is much deeper price discounting than we are likely to see on GOG's own promotions. Some people here buy GOG games on sale explicitly for gifting, but I get the impression that spare GOG codes that were just incidental to another purchase someone received are much more rare, so people don't accumulate a lot of spare GOG codes.

Has anyone ever seen any external bundles offered by any website out there which all of the games were GOG games? Just curious as I've only ever seen a small number of individual GOG games show up in external bundles spread out over time and no GOG specific bundles.

The odd IGS game as well as a handful of Groupee and one IG bundle i think. I can understand why that don't do it. It kind of devalues the games on here, and people will be less likely to buy if they *know* a given game with GOG key will end up in a 5 cent bundle so to say. Yeah people can say exposure exposure.. but the reality is, GOG is a business and likely to make a bit more money offering the games at competitive prices rather than throw games into super cheap bundles (see how many steam games end up as trade fodder). There are many people who prefer to get their games here at the prices gog has them for imho (and judging from forumite comments).

I would find this surprising if this is indeed the case. I knew there were threads dedicated specifically to non-GOG gift codes, but was also sure there were some also dedicated to GOG-only gift codes. In addition, yeah, I was going off of all the thread postings I see whenever there is a large sale, of people saying "check your PM" or "PM me for trade offers" or what-have-you. GOG would have better data I am sure as to how prevalent this (if not it is a lost opportunity), but I would be very surprised if trading for only GOG games is relatively minimal.



I agree with you on that a 1000%; however I suspect that may be a limitation inherent in tying individual games to a packaged deal or something contractually required. If the former, perhaps GOG could implement a code for the deal, and then tie the code for each individual game in the deal to that code? Not familiar at all with the technical aspects of this, but do know from my own job how system, legal, and/or contractual limitations can put a crimp on something that to outside observers seem simple to implement. All speculation, so take that with a lot of salt :-)



I agree with you on this point, and you elaborated better some of my thoughts than I could, and yes it does feel like a lost opportunity business-wise.



I definitely fall into this category, though I have been changing in recent months. When I first joined, all of my purchases were for me. As luck would have it, the vast majority of my friends are not gamers (oh it is a form of torture to have friends who do not share one's passion), so there is not many I could gift a game to even if I wanted to. This year though I have slowly started buying some extra copies specifically to gift or trade here, partly because the community is just that good and it is a way for me to contribute to that.



IMHO, this is a good idea and would definitely help with community building. Only thought I have is: what happens if you have game X on the list, and then 5 friends/family members purchase game X to gift it to you? 4 of them are going to be out of luck, or you would just have 4 extra copies of game X. XD I would that if GOG does add this feature it needs a way for someone else viewing your list to indicate that a particular game has already been bought so that others do not do it (much like some online wedding registries some retailers operate).



Very good thoughts and made for a good, well-thought-out read which is so refreshing these days.

I know there are still a few days to go but a great and happy holiday season to you as well.

There are gog and non gog *gifting * threads. Bit different from the main Classifieds where the majority of the trading takes place. Have a look through all the trade offers in Classifieds. The majority are pretty much steam indie for GOG offers.

What bothers me a bit, here as on Steam, is that you can't add games you already own to the wishlist. While it would not be a true "wish"list anymore, as long as we don't get a "games I'd like to watch so I can gift them to someone I know as soon as they are on a sale" list there is no way to track games you own and would probably buy again.

The problem is GOG keys can't be splitted. I bought the D&D bundle months ago and while I'll probably never play some of the games and even hide them in my library, I can't give them away. The way bundles and keys work here, there is almost no way for "spare" codes to occur.

They actually can be split... as long as its done within 14 days of purchase AND the codes are unused. I asked support about a potential split... but they said mine was well outside the timeframe (months)...

Personal opinion on the lack of GOG trading options is that it is because the cost of a GOG game is the same everywhere. If I want to trade for Wasteland, the value of Wasteland will be $3-$6 no matter who I trade it with. On the other hand, if I want to trade Alice: Madness Returns on steam, its value is from $5 to $20, depending on who I trade with.
Let's go a bit more in depth with Alice.
The recent -75% discount it had on Steam means that I was offered the game at a price point of €12.5, or a bit more than $17. The same game cost $5 in the US (again, with the -75% discount). So, if I can offer more than the US value of Alice, but less than the EU2 value of Alice, it is a beneficial trade for me. By offering $10 for it, I pay a bit more than half price, while the "seller" doubles his money. Both of us profit.
In the case of Wasteland though, both of us see the same price. Looking for a GOG trade makes sense if one can get the game cheaper than others can (which is quite rare), if one won't have the funds until the discount is over, or if one is looking to trade an already obtained item for something else (eg a bonus code for a discounted game).

So, if I'm looking to trade Wasteland for more than $3, I will not find someone to trade with, since Wasteland will be available for $3 again later this year, and even then, the price difference of $3 doesn't make that much of a saving. So trading GOGs isn't something that can be done for profit, and it's mostly done for convenience, like offering you the game at the higher discount, since you can't currently get it at that price.

There were quite a few interruptions while typing this, so it is possible that I'm rambling incoherently. But the tl;dr is that GOG games don't make a good commodity to stockpile and trade later on, because their price is quite stable and the same worldwide.

Anyone in here ever play The Last Express?

I have all the Fanatsy bundle except Lords of MIdnight, how's the gameplay and difficulty?

I hope it is a typo, because otherwise it'll be a rather big downer. :( Patrician 3 is sitting very high on my wishlist, and I was hoping it would be part of a bundle at some point during this sale. I would like to play the first two Patrician's, as well as the Port Royale's, but given the choice I'll probably just buy Patrician 3.

Voted for the Sail, Trade, and Plunder pack for tomorrow, as of the offerings that one contains the ones I would be most likely to get if it wins.

Having said that, I have been reading the user reviews on Port Royal 2, and how its combat is very limiting. Can anyone who has played the game offer up their opinions on that particular mechanic? Is it as bad (i.e. frustration-inducing) as I am interpreting those reviews to be, or are there ways to game the system to alleviate it somewhat?

In addition, is there any reason to get Patrician 1 + 2 if I already have Patrician 3?

Lastly, for Corsairs Gold, how is the RTS aspect? Does it devolve into a click-fest furball (probably not a fair question since all RTS's do to some extent)? From what I have seen so far Pirates! would be better, but to get the full discount I would have to get this one as well, so not sure which way I am going to go yet.

Only Lords of Midnight missing...i was unsure about the game on the day it hit GOG...but now....for under €0,80 i guess i can try it.
Maybe its a nice surprise?