Thunderstone: Agreed on the tiles, as is when you get near middle and past the gog mixes it just seems like a lot of space is being wasted that needs to be filled.

I really don't see what the problem is with the best sellers list. Its easy to ignore it and move on your way

Tormentfan: But it's not..apart from the cynical side of it, I've now got to change the arrangement and wait for a refresh.. and btw the lag that's been introduced to the catalogue is a further annoyance. So as opposed to just going in to the catalogue and scrolling down and choosing my purchases it's become choose rearrange, wait for buffer then scroll and choose my purchase.. ok, fair enough.. not a HUGE thing considering all of the previous bugs in the forum are still there, it's just a further annoyance to this supposedly new and better site.

orcishgamer: The "lag" is almost certainly due to a high volume of site visitors. I doubt it's among the new features.

I'm glad you know some folks in advertising and all, but clearly there's a lot of advertisers that kind of... well, you know, disagree. I don't think Amazon.com is exactly suffering from poor sales, after all.

Tormentfan: What's that got to do with their use of the same sales tactic? If they aren't suceeding in sales then it's going to boil down to other factors.. doesn't mean they're not participating in the same kind of push does it?

Tormentfan: The catalogue now defaults to bestseller list... I'm not interested in what everyone else is buying, and trying to put some influence on us that way is just a dick move.

orcishgamer: Well, you made an appeal to authority stating that your friends in advertising "laughed" at these tactics. I just thought I could make a similar appeal to authority pointing out that apparently they work.

Tormentfan: Seriously, I have to explain this again, you can't read what I've written previously?

It's a sales tactic, it's not about the info, it's to introduce the thought that you're missing out and everyone knows something you don't... It's a play on your insecurities, if you can walk past it, then fine, but you can absolutley guarantee other's will be suckered in.

It's just one thing on a long list of everyday push, push, push.

It's not even that it's being provided as 'new' information, it's always been there, but it now defaults to it with no way to set and save a preference, which also makes the list less user friendly.. so in the end, gog's push for more profit results in less convienient functionality.

I thought gog's point of the overhaul was to make the site better... this isn't making it better, just easier to push things.

Tbh I'm not interested if you think I'm wrong, that's you're opinion that's not backed up with anything.. I however KNOW that this tactic just boils down to pro activelty pushing products as opposed to providing a range for the customer to choose, so regardless of how you feel about my comments, like them or not, you're not in a position to tell me I'm wrong.

spindown: Really, this is how you argue? "I know I'm right and you're in no position to tell me otherwise. If you disagree with me, then that's just your baseless opinion." I don't think I even need to comment on that.

orcishgamer: Umm, we've long known that humans make the same basic cognitive mistakes as all primates. Advertisers exploit this a lot, and rightfully should be despised for it most of the time. However, not all people running a storefront and including popular features are out to get you. And requiring your to "make an extra click" is a bit of a stretch, I'm all for usability as a principal concern, but it just so happens that what's less usable to you in this case is actually more usable for the vast majority of visitors, particularly those that don't frequent here a lot. The most "bought" list is no different from any other method of selectively promoting games, it just happens to be base on a different metric than, say, the most recently released and on sale banner stuff at the top.

dudalb: I am concerned about them gettng away from offering classic games in favor of the Indie games. I don't mind them offering them, but not at the expense of the classics.

Tormentfan: Really?

You think that the vast majority of users come here to see make their choices based on everyone else's choice rather than come here with a preconceived idea of what they want?

I can't argue either way on that one, except to say imo I would disagree.

As for the useablity aspect.. why change it?.. I don't think the stretch is that much, it was easy, now it's more involved, degrees aside,.. I just don't see the improvement... new users aren't going to be impacted eitherway, it simply affects existing users. So if the site isn't better/easier for existing users and new users wouldn't know better, who is the site 'better' for?

EDIT... it's when gog do all this needless tinkering, leave in the existing annoying bugs, that people have been screaming about for ages.. then announce 'New and Improved'.. that's just balls.

orcishgamer: Because I'll bet the average user buys under 5 GOG games, they don't post on the forums, etc. These are the people who don't know what available, but it's a strong bet they're more likely interested in the top 10, statistically. You're making a mistake, I'd guess, assuming most people come or spend a huge amount of time on this site. On other sites today people were saying, "What, GOG has X? Sold!" about games GOG has had for some time. People come here because they've heard about a game, true, but they'll find that game and possibly want a few more, showcasing the most popular (based one what people do, rather than what they say) is probably actually useful. And like I said, they're the majority, not the people who do (or can) post about the 100s of GOGs they own in the e-peen threads.