Did you know GamersGate is just some 8 people or so? I've been saying the same thing as KavazovAngel for some time now: I simply can't imagine what the black hole that consumes GOG's time is. 25 people, if well managed, is a pretty big number for an internet based business.

Over the last 6 months, and in their spare time, members of the community have made a pretty neat PM system as well as two or three separate downloaders. What did GOG do with the site aside from new releases (and while I understand some releases are trickier, some require little to no attention on modern systems)? Fix a handful of bugs, and that's about it.

As other people have said: This

Make a functional PM system and a Wishlist that works and isn't hidden deep in the depths of Crystalskull cave

Although I do like the general idea that users SHOULD somehow be rewarded for more purchases, aka - The more you buy, the more you are rewarded with either credit or other free games

I know that many people on this website have over 100 games, I think this sort or loyalty deserves some special recognition

In the time that has passed since they removed the support interface from the account page "to fix a bug", I could have single-handedly made from scratch an entire new support system, both frontend and backend, several times over.

But surely the web development or customer support people don't do that? It's a good and valid argument and I can imagine this thing eats up lots of their time, but there can't be everyone working on it.

Sure, I just pointed that you shouldn't compare 25 to 8, because it's not that all of those 25 are developing the website or providing support. I'm also pretty sure that GOG has bigger PR staff.

It should be mentioned that some of those guys are working on getting some old games working (it's not always that easy just to use some old crack like with Arcanum). This also means they have to test those games - I don't know if they play them all from start to the end, but in some cases I can imagine that.

You should consider that above has to be multiplied, because they need to make game working on Vista/7, with different configurations.

GG don't do this, they just sell what publishers provide them. If something is not working, they'll just make refund and get over it.

And in this case, consumer support has also much more to do - they just can't resolve the problem by the refund or free code, they have to fix the problem, even if they don't know how.

Although, I completely understand the thing with consumer support, and I agree, it should be better. I just wanted to point out the difference.

And about the topic - I don't need any point system, I prefer them to focus on bringing more old games.

Regarding support I'm talking about things like following a ticket moves it to the bottom of the queue (don't know if this has been fixed or not), the removal of the support interface, the problems they had with the form, the lack of acknowledgment of a submitted ticket, things like that.

As for quoting, I don't have issues with that as well because I do my quotes by hand, but most of the times I've done multiquotes and nested quotes it managed to fuck things up.

They also have a problem with redirects on old urls (after they switched the url structure) which could easily be fixed with a redirect in .htaccess for example.

And other loads of small things, like lack of proper window and content flow, etc.

It is now just some 8 people or so. Originally, before it was spun off into its own company, it was an integrated part of Paradox Interactive which has a staff of almost 50 people. While it was part of Paradox, GG went through its "growing pains" period that GOG is currently in, but, for the reasons SLP2000 already explained, those pains were small in comparison and with twice the available staff as GOG, most likely easier to resolve.

1 employee, half time on the site could actually fix a lot of issues if they had a good priority list. The support thing is separate from the site, presuming GOG is actually getting support requests.

Hope not. Those $16 should give EU buyers the same value (in terms of flexibility of spending) as real cash from lower price US buyers get. For me free coupons for 1x$9.99 and 1x$6.99 is not equal to $16 in real cash as I mostly buy on promos - spendig $16 on promo with -40% discount gives me ca. $27 worth games.

One word: GOG Downloader. The damn thing dies or crashes every half hour or so.

...
okay, two then

Yes, but a code for $16 would surely be worth $16 even if you used it in a promo, thus being able to get 2 $6 games and 2 $10 games at a 50% off promo.

Which was pretty much the other paragraph in the post you quoted, so now I'm just submitting this for no real reason.

The underlying system to something like blue coins on GamersGate is to give a consumer an incentive to buy the game at that service as opposed to another by attaching something extra that requires the consumer to buy more from that service in order to reap the benefits of.

Therefore, while may think they would save money this way, they are actually spending more to get their "reward" by accruing more points so they can get their free game. If that adds value to the service for you, well that's just fine.

GOG, on the other hand, adds value for the consumer by giving the consumer bonus content in addition to the game as well as offering DRM free titles so I see no reason to tack on another unnecessary incentive.

True. That solution would be also fine. Both: gift codes and "gog-money-accounts" are basically the same: allow to transfer a certain amount of money to any gog user with ability to spend those funds here without predefined sequence (no time limitation, no game limitation etc).

So it's just 2 months of waiting. May is going to be hot this year: W2 release, possible new features we mentioned above - and this I wait most - new big publisher announcement.

Yep. Including those in existing titles too.