Several reasons really.

One thing is that many people in GOG are collectors, in which case it just seems a bad idea to get only a base game without official expansions, especially if you fear that later you locate a complete edition somewhere else anyway. If I e.g. wanted Syndicate and saw someone selling the original with the expansion on ebay for e.g. $10 or even more, I'd definitely go with that instead of getting it from GOG, just for completeness' sake. It is like pondering whether you should buy Kill Bill 1 Collector's Edition from some service knowing that if you'd later like to see also Kill Bill 2 (from some other service/retailer), you'd have to buy Kill Bill 1 again from the new service.

EDIT: Add to that also that many people buy here games that they already have as CD versions, but complete with the expansion packs. I'd love to buy e.g. Rainbow Six and Rogue Spear here just for the CD-less gameplay and guaranteed(?) compatibility with new systems, but it just seems pointless because the versions here are incomplete compared to what I already have.


Whether the expansion matters to the gameplay, depends. I feel that e.g. original Starcraft, Ultima 7, Diablo 2 and Alpha Centauri(or so I've heard) wouldn't just be the same at all without the expansion packs, even though you could argue that when they were first released without the expansions, they were already "complete" games.

Also, some expansion packs enhance even the base game. For example, the Age of Empires expansion (Rise of Rome, IIRC) added some much needed features to the base game, at least if you played the base campaigns through the expansion pack.

If the expansion pack is merely a collection of (fan made) extra missions which adds nothing else to the base game, or a DLC which grants a funny hat to your TeamFortress 2 character, then I probably couldn't care that much.

EDIT: Many already said basically the same thing, I guess.

Not likely, when a studio goes bankrupt and the IP is auctioned it doesn't always end up remaining intact. Likewise when a group like EA buys a studio they don't necessarily retain rights in all regions, sometimes they'll sell those rights to say Europe and keep North America or they'll sell the rights to the Pacific or what have you.

Syndicate may well have been owned by parties more willing to come to an agreement or who were more easily bought out by one of the other parties.

Because GOG is 2 Cool 4 School.

I doubt it hurts them more than not having the game at all. That's my point.

In general I don't disagree, TQ: Immortal Throne made the game a lot better, but it's not like the game sucked on its own. Yeah, if you can find a better deal elsewhere and would prefer it, do it, but things like Dungeon Keeper and the like just simply aren't for sale in the same price range.

I wonder if its the nature of how EA deals with base games and expansions. Might be that their legal department classifies both as a separate entity and as such GoG has to go into negotiations to acquire each part separately.

This being the case and GoG being a fairly small operation it could simply be that their legal department can't double the workload for half the number of releases (game and expansion, even if sold separately, is still one release title for them) at this point in time.

So they focus first on getting the core games onto their service, with a view to later focusing on negotiating for the expansion packs as and when they've a larger blacklog of possible titles to release (if we assume they stick to the 2 per week and get a blacklog).

It's not called being "bitchy", it's called not being rich.

Unless we will ever hear the truth from someone I would just wrap up the two main concurrent theories about it and leave it as it is:

Main theories:
- EA is a bunch of closefisted guys wanting to sell the expansion extra and ripping of customers.
- GOG guys are lame ducks that forgot to include the expansions in their negotiations.

Both sounds plausible to me but we'll probably never get to know the truth. That's like it is.

You don't have to be a rich guy to buy $6 or $10 video game.

True but you do have to be rich to think $6 or $10 is almost nothing. And what I mean by rich is not, owning a boat, several houses and swimming in a pool full of cash. What I mean by rich is everyone who is not poor.

You forgot the DRM free tagline. =P

That's indeed a great deal but GOG's target, like they said, is to provide the best possible versions of games Online, so let's hope the expansions will come here someday

Add to it "EA wants to give an extra incentive to people to buy those games through Origin", or that is what I have understood from some previous comment.

My personal theory is that they are using gog to make the optimization for newer OSs and when they are finish they are ditching them and selling the games through Origin.

What? You can never mistrust EA enough.