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General discussion (archive)GOG says big sales are bad for gamers.(259 posts)(259 posts)
(259 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted April 06, 2012
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Hawk52: Simply put, their argument is wrong.
I can't even begin to list all the games I've bought on sale that have become some of my favorites of all time. It's a lot.
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F4LL0UT: Sure, you can get good games on sales but I agree with Guillaume. When I pay 30 to 50 bucks for a game I buy it because I "respect" it. Before the special sales started on Steam I used to play every single game I had there - now I haven't played about a third in my library and have only seriously played like 3-5% of them.

The main problem however is this one: by buying any game you cast a vote. You give money to the developers or their publisher and this way they know which projects are good, which one show the right direction for the future. If you just pay for games that you don't even bother to play, this evolutionary process is being disturbed.

For example this might happen: some indie developer made some game, hundreds of thousands of people buy it just because it's on sale. Seeing the success the developers assume that their game was awesome and people want to see more like it. Then they develop a sequel or something but it fails epically. People don't really bother buying it. They actually bought the previous game but didn't like it at all or aren't ready for a sequel yet because they don't know if the previous game was any good as they had no chance playing it because their games library ist just too huge. As a result we either get worse games or even destroy some developers just by being ignorant consumers. That's terrible!

But sill my main problem is that I generally loose respect for games, even the good ones, when I'm drowning in them. They really do loose value.
Conversely, you have a large number of customers that might look at a game and say "Nah, not really my style, although it looks intriguing", Now the game goes on sale, and they buy it, thinking, "Well, I'll spend a few bucks for to test it out and see if it's something I might like". They end up playing through the whole game, really liking it, and then end up buying other games by the same developer.
Posted April 06, 2012
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keeveek: And you think that Valve would put games for 0.99 there if it wasn't profitable?
Yeah, when they earn more on selling other titles.

They can lose on 1$ sales, but some people will join just to buy such game, and then they will spend more $ on other games.
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keeveek: How putting the game on steam costs developers with transfer?
Not devs. But when you offer a game (as a store) for 1$, then you have to pay taxes, give devs their cut, and then provide service for the customers (pay for servers and transfer).
Post edited April 06, 2012 by SLP2000
Posted April 06, 2012
Oh, you're talking from GOG's perspective, not the devs perspective.

Then I don't know if it's profitable for GOG to sell games for one buck. Somehow, they can afford to give 1,1 million of Witcher 2 copies for free, or Fallout copies, and they're not losing money on that process.

From the devs perspective, after some point, every single penny is a profit. And it's better for them to make $1 x 10 000 dollars, or don't make any. Because with so many games in so many different stores it's really that alternative. Either you earn on sales, or you earn jackshit (unless you have big marketing budget)

But from the store's perspective, I don't know. I think transfer costs are fairly amortised to cost hardly nothing on a single sale.


PS. Once again, I'd say I don't need any bigger sales from gog. Games that cost 2.39 or 4.99 are cheap enough for me to buy all games I want (in some time perspective)

But they have 19,99 games now. So they gonna need -75% sales, or they gonna earn nothing on them.
Post edited April 06, 2012 by keeveek
Posted April 06, 2012
Yes, compulsive buying is bad. I think nobody is going to dispute that. However, saying that lower prices are somehow bad for the consumer is insane. It's not a store's responsibility to "protect" their customers from buying things that they don't need by charging higher prices. Implying that consumers can't judge what's good for themselves is, frankly, insulting.

The devaluation of games in the consumer's mind is a real phenomenon, but it was caused by the retailers and publishers themselves. Charging higher prices for a product that is available more cheaply elsewhere is not going to reverse the trend - you can't change the way the market works. Competition will drive down prices, whether you like it or not.

I have to say Rambourg's statement makes me somewhat suspicious of GOG's decision to expand into new, highly competitive markets. I'm not sure they understand what they're getting themselves into.
Post edited April 06, 2012 by spindown
Posted April 06, 2012
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keeveek: But they have 19,99 games now. So they gonna need -75% sales, or they gonna earn nothing on them.
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gameon: Personally i have no problem with games being listed at $20 if they are worth it. But i wont be getting assasins creed for that price!
Of course. When I said "nothing" I obviously meant "a little" :P

AC and HOMMV are not premiere games. Nobody (a few) would jump on them just because their on GOG.com. These are several year-olds, many people already have it and bought it much cheaper than here.

Selling day-one releases for $20 shouldn't be a problem. But selling several year-old titles might be. Unless GOG.com old releases were unavaible somewhere else. But AC and HOMMV are avaible like anywhere, so it's natural for people to wait for a better deal.
Post edited April 06, 2012 by keeveek
Posted April 06, 2012
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jungletoad: In scenarios 3 and 4, GOG's philsophy of deeper sales being bad for me causes them to lose out on a sale. If Spellforce was a game I would buy, but only on sale, then GOG just lost a sale for this game to Steam. I will not buy the game twice and it's one more game off my wishlist at both services. Basically GOG needs to beat Steam in scenarios 1 and 2, more often than it loses to Steam in scenarious 3 and 4 if they are not going to use scenario 5.
And it's that short term thinking that's having, imho, negative effects. Across the board - both on consumer, publisher and sometimes producer's side. I.e. if you only focus on the discounted, cheapest price, whenever possible, even if you could afford to buy the product for a higher pricepoint elsewhere - then you support the consistent devaluing of the product. Someone's always losing out with these really heavy discounts, and it's most likely those with the least power to negotiate. By and large that's not the people doing the discounting that lose out. And by and large it is not the big company but the small independent one that does - even, or especially, if the latter offers the far better service.

Loads and loads and loads of examples of that out there in the retail world, and I, personally, would rather prefer to still have the more personalised, knowledgeable and friendly stores around then turning everything into supermarkets. I am happy to pay a premium - and do! - for that.
Post edited April 06, 2012 by Mnemon
Posted April 06, 2012
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keeveek: Oh, you're talking from GOG's perspective, not the devs perspective.
Yep.

Then I don't know if it's profitable for GOG to sell games for one buck. Somehow, they can afford to give 1,1 million of Witcher 2 copies for free, or Fallout copies, and they're not losing money on that process.
Directly - it's not. But they want those 1,1 mln people who bought TW2 to join GOG.com and start buying games here. First step is the most difficult, but when you sign up, there's a chance you'll buy something.

Someone could say it's something similar to a Steam 1$ sale, but there's a huge difference, because they gave what they own (TW2) and something that Interplay agreed to give away (probably gog will pay Interplay for it, and I guess that the thing that Fallout is going back to Bethesda has something to do with it).

From the devs perspective, after some point, every single penny is a profit. And it's better for them to make $1 x 10 000 dollars, or don't make any. Because with so many games in so many different stores it's really that alternative. Either you earn on sales, or you earn jackshit (unless you have big marketing budget)
Maybe yes, maybe not. In some cases it's possible that it could make some damaged. Like people saying "why should I buy games from indie developers for full price, when it's on bundle sale three months later for 3$ with 3 other games?".

But they have 19,99 games now. So they gonna need -75% sales, or they gonna earn nothing on them.
We'll see. I don't think such games will be bestsellers, but I think some people will buy them. I, for example, will buy AC series for sure, and some other Ubi titles. Not sure if I pay 20$, but for 10$ (50% sale) I will go for sure.
Posted April 06, 2012
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keeveek: Somehow, they can afford to give 1,1 million of Witcher 2 copies for free
For GOG giving away 1.1 million Witcher 2 copies costs nothing except potential losses of a future sale. Considering those 1.1 million Witcher 2 copies are going to people who already have Witcher 2 on Steam or elsewhere, those potentials of future sales are negligible at best, and are far eclipsed by the opportunity to get new customers onto GOG.
Posted April 06, 2012
I certainly don't have much discipline and I buy lots of games that I don't play, but I think it's a win-win situation because I both pay more than I would otherwise, and come upon gems that I wouldn't have bought have they not been discounted so much. Sometimes that makes me pay even more, for example I bought Faerie Solitaire on sale and enjoyed it so much that I ended up pre-ordering Faerie Solitaire 2. It's an inexpensive game as is, but if it wasn't discounted I think I would never have bought it.

I also don't think heavy discounts train people to buy bad games. I wouldn't buy games I think are really bad. I buy games I think I might enjoy, and since I'm paying very little I can afford to make mistakes. If I had to pay a higher price, the failures would just encourage me to buy less, or perhaps stop buying altogether.

As for games not being valuable, I agree that sales reduce what I feel I should pay for a game. However given the number of people who buy games at full price at release day (or pre-order), I don't think that's a real effect on the market.
Posted April 06, 2012
In my case, I buy games at a discount in order to create a backlog of games to play when I get into the "mood" for something specific. Naturally, I try to pick out the best-of-breed titles, but I am not infallible, which is why discounts really work for me. They are a way to get the stuff I want, and to pass some cash to the people who made the games.
Posted April 06, 2012
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Navagon: I think that he's doing too much to try and justify GOG's pricing instead of looking at ways that it does need to change, given the inclusion of newer titles.

GOG is way ahead of the curve in many respects. But releasing newer games has taken them out of the specialist DD category and placed them in direct competition with the likes of Steam and Gamersgate. It has also places them in competition with indie bundles, given that the titles now appearing on GOG have seen a few bundles in their time.

Gamersgate has already learned lessons from the indie bundles and has released its first now. Steam has done indie bundles for a long time and probably invented them.

Gamersgate has its blue coins to reward positive community involvement and repeat custom. They've also done a lot to bolster the community side of things (despite still lacking a forum). Steam's community features are unrivalled.

Where does this leave GOG? Behind. In some regards, by quite a significant margin. GOG still has its DRM-free games and no regional pricing but it's going to be very hard for them now to justify certain deficiencies in the overall service.

No doubt many will stick with GOG no matter what, just to support the ideals. But there's no denying that releasing newer games has had the unintentional side effect of drawing parallels that aren't so easily explained away as they used to be.

Some things, like rigid price points, no bundled games and wish lists and user pages that aren't viewable by others are some of the things that GOG will simply have to change to compete in its new market.
I could not agree with this post more. And thanks for taking the time to type it so I don't have to. :)
Posted April 06, 2012
The interview got edited a little bit--and it was an interview with me (which is a little weird, given they're quoting it as Guillaume), but I possibly didn't make that clear to RPS.

I don't think I came off quite as patronizing in the full quote as the edited line there makes me sound. :">
Posted April 06, 2012
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TheEnigmaticT: The interview got edited a little bit--and it was an interview with me (which is a little weird, given they're quoting it as Guillaume), but I possibly didn't make that clear to RPS.

I don't think I came off quite as patronizing in the full quote as the edited line there makes me sound. :">
Don't you proof-read those thing before they go out ?!
Posted April 06, 2012
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TheEnigmaticT: The interview got edited a little bit--and it was an interview with me (which is a little weird, given they're quoting it as Guillaume), but I possibly didn't make that clear to RPS.

I don't think I came off quite as patronizing in the full quote as the edited line there makes me sound. :">
I would have thought the accent would have been a big clue!
Posted April 06, 2012
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rewsan: I would have thought the accent would have been a big clue!
It was conducted over email; I've been busy as a one-armed paper hanger, so I didn't have time for a phone or Skype interview.
Post edited April 06, 2012 by TheEnigmaticT
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General discussion (archive)GOG says big sales are bad for gamers.(259 posts)(259 posts)
(259 posts)