And it seems that the deadline for the bundle has been extended for 3 more days.

Now their 3 bundles end at the same time and this one sales picked up very well, 1k in few hours.

For me, I use GOG for DRM-free downloads, Desura for bundled games, and occassionally GamersGate if its something I can't get elsewhere. I use Steam for everything else, or Origin for exclusive stuff. Shiny Loot doesn't serve much of a purpose for me as GOG and Desura do a better job.

Shiny Loot isn't bad, but it has too much competition from GOG, bundles, and Steam.

Well, it's (one of the) newest store(s) isn't it? It does have some games GOG doesn't (why is GOG practically only store in the internet that doesn't have paradox titles?), some games available on both are cheaper on SL and some of the sales are better (all four guild 2 games were on sale for less together than the two GOG got). SL also offers keys (Desura & Steam) for some of it's games in addition to direct downloads. SL seem better than Desura (I've only bough 1 game direcly from them, rest are from keys) and DotEmu (while it has it's exlusives, it really hasn't gotten almost any new games past year or so), both of which have been around much longer. Store has better design than Humble or Desura. So it does have it's own advantages.

Wether or not it can grow it's catalog and user base to survive we'll have to wait and see. IMHO, SL and Groupees should probably merge. It would help survivability and reliability of both in the long run (groupees already showed it's weakness when it lost half of it's backups last year, most of them are still not back up after half a year).

Can I purchase with Steam Wallet funds? I notice you can log in with Steam.
If not, I might be able to try Google Wallet, but would I need a credit card for it? Would Google Play cards work for this? And is the "Groupees does not ship to this location" error still common?

Shiny Loot has better discounts than Desura for sure, I just meant Shiny Loot can't really compete when it comes to bundles providing desura keys.. some devs refuse to provide desura keys to Shiny Loot (look at Mark Leung for example). I also don't know how frequently the DRM-free builds are updated on Shiny Loot, it could be updated a lot slower than GOG/Desura for all I know.

Shiny Loot does have some good discounts and variety at times, but I don't think they're making much money due to the competition. That's not saying that they don't have discounts equal or better to other sites, it's just that name recognition alone is enough for people to shop at GOG or Steam rather than SL. Shiny Loot merging with Groupees (at least to host drm-free files) would be a good idea, but I doubt it'll happen.

No they should not. I love Groupees the way it is now!!!. Groupees has a stuff up so what? It could have happened to ANY of the indie bundlers. They just got caught with their pants down with the backups :/.

Hi,

Caster goal was lowered and the game is available now.

I'd image they are updated at least more often than on groupees, which is in some cases never and in some cases only when game is part of another bundle. Because Groupees is not a store where game is constantly sold, many devs don't feel any need to update the DRM-free installers after bundle offer expires.

Unfortunately Desura also has issues with updates. Quite few games have not received updates and sometimes it takes weeks, even months to get one (this is, at least in part, Desura's own fault as their patch aproval process is slow and obscure and they rarely if ever inform the devs if there are problems with the upload.). Some devs also seem to more or less ignore Desura after getting on steam. Even GOG has never version of some of the games compared to Desura.
The updates to DRM-free installers, as I mentioned above, is another serious issue. And as I mentioned it's been over 6 months now and most of the downloads have yet to be restored. Devs don't care because they no longer sell their games on Groupees.

Merger would not nessarily mean any outward change to either services. Hosting and account merge would probably be the biggest change. It would essentially be like with Desura and Indie Royale so what would be a problem with it?

How many bundle site accounts do you have? Do you refuse to buy from a new bundle site because it means making a new account? ~just asking - not trying to be aggressive ;-D

Frankly, Petrell spelled out the many benefits of Shiny Loot and I tend to agree with him. ShinyLoot may be new but they are actively looking for ways to improve their site, welcome suggestions and are seeking to increase their catalogue.

So pluses;
Website is nicely done (as opposed to Desura, which when I made some suggestions to one of the owners last year, was told where I could get off).

Purchase page lists all of the available ways you can install a game (Desura/Steam/DRM-Free installers). Click the link and you get your game. Easy-peasy ;-)

Prices tend to be very good with frequent sales that are lower than Gamersgate, Steam and sad-to-say, GOG.

Support is friendly AND helpful (like GOG, ShinyLoot got the message that buyers can purchase where-ever they want so excellent customer service is one way to stand out among the crowd)

Community pages are well done if under-used.

Anyway, I hope ShinyLoot succeeds - they seem to be focused on a very wide range of games including stuff we'll probably never see here like puzzle, P&C and even HOG's. And I like that I have an option with keys added where available.

Mentioned this in some other thread, but I'm really impressed with the search functionality they'd set up, which should prove more and more useful as the catalogue grows. With the abundance of traits and features to filter with (and neat touches like semantic search) it's really handy in finding games based on quite specific criteria.

One world-wide price (which many people seem to care about ;), store credit for writing approved reviews... they have many things going for them I'd say.

I think the catalogue is already pretty good, and varied as Momo mentioned (the Conspiracies games was what got me to sign up, check'em out FMV fans), hopefully they'll continue to grow.

The only thing they really lack and need right now in my book is a more active community.