The money-back guarantee states that you can return any game for any reason within 14 days as long as you didn't download the game. Very cool.

What about this scenario:
- I buy a game at the "normal" Winter Sale price, for instance 50% off.
- Two days later it becomes part of a "special" sale at 75% off
- I return the game at the price I originally paid and then immediately buy it again at the cheaper 75% off price

Is there anything to stop me from doing exactly that?

Ethics.

Has GOG ever had sales of the same game that close together? I thought they avoided that because it annoys people.

Timing would be an issue. If you get your refund back right away, I think you'd be okay. But if takes a few days to process, you might miss out on any deals.

That said, I have never returned a game and have no affiliation with GOG.

I don't see any reason why you shouldn't be able to do that.
I guess GOG.com just figured that it wouldn't be something many people would think of and go through with it (you still have to contact support), so it won't be a huge loss for them.

Not sure what's unethical about it. Lots of retailers allow you to do what I described. This is just new territory for GOG, so I wanted to clarify.

Also, you're right that they don't generally do that with their weekly sales, but the seasonal sales are a little different in that they often have a blanket percentage taken off of most games and then daily deals on specific games.

Not so new ground, they already had a return policy like that in place since long ago, only it was 7 days and now it's 14. The new thing is about refunds if the game doesn't work.

As for your actual question, why go through the motions and annoy yourself and support? Just buy the games you didn't see on any daily sale on the last day. Or the one day when they put all the daily deals at the same time, as they have done before.

And just in case you didn't know, they state on the GOG FAQ that if they feel you're cheating the system, they'll politely notify you that it will be the last refund they ever give you. So you might want to play the gentleman here.

Good to know. Thanks for the info. I'm not trying to cheat the system. That's why I'm asking ahead of time if this is acceptable behavior or not. GOG's been good to me. I want to be good to them.

That's up to the blues, and they are probably pretty busy right now with stuff like having dinner and such. So I can only give these words of wisdom to you: follow your heart.

You are only supposed to return the game if it does not work on your system and GOG specifically states that they will work with you first to try and get the game to work and if they can't then they will give you a refund.

Thanks for the answer. I won't do that, then. :^)

Like I said above, I want to be good to you guys. You are hands-down the best RETAILER on earth (not just the best games retailer). Thank you very much.

Sounds like fair game, as long as you didn't already download it. But personally I wouldn't do that. I think what it really comes down to, is how much a particular game is worth to you. If you buy a game for 10 bucks, and you know for sure that it is worth that much to yourself, then you shouldn't let it bother you if a better deal comes along. There's always going to be some better offer, if you're willing to wait and look around a bit.

Also, personally I'd rather pay a "fair" price, rather than just hunt for the cheapest possible deal, especially here at GOG. When I buy games here, it always feels like the money goes towards a good cause ( GOG itself, as well as the developers and publishers willing to work with GOG and sell their games here ).

In view of these high transaction costs, how come it's often impossible to combine special promo deals with other purchases in the same shopping cart? For instance, when you add one of the current surprise deals to your cart, you cannot add anything else without losing the special discount. So if you want to buy several games at the same time you have to create two separate transactions instead of one, adding to the processing fees GOG has to pay.

I could be wrong about the "mystery box" deals, but I've definitely observed this several times in the past. If you have a special deal (e.g. an Insomnia flash deal, not a regular discounted game) in your cart and you add anything else, the special deal disappears from your cart. Same thing if you have some games in your cart already and you add the special - then whatever you had in your cart before just disappears.