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I'm really in love with GOG's way of doing things and my enthusiasm for the people behind it is without limits. I will continue to support GOG in any way I can. ( Financially, but not only )

The only thing I don't like about GOG is the price choice.
They should just make them $6 and $10 instead of the $5.99 and $9.99

The $x,99 is a very old and cheap marketing trick and it saddens me that GOG suffers from it. GOG would do well to rid itself of this, as well as help it stand out even more as being honest and transparent about everything that it does.

What do you guys think GOG should do about this ?
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shadi.lahham: The $x,99 is a very old and cheap marketing trick
Does it even still work? Even when I ask people how much things are, if it ends in .99, it gets rounded up.
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shadi.lahham: The $x,99 is a very old and cheap marketing trick
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xyem: Does it even still work? Even when I ask people how much things are, if it ends in .99, it gets rounded up.
It's still annoying, stupid and useless, but on the other hand it's so ubiquitous that I hardly notice it anymore. So yes, I'd prefer GOG didn't do it (it'd be nice, as a customer, to not be treated like a moron), but I'm not going to give them a hard time over it.
But... but... the price tags of the games won't be the same length then! It will be possible to know the price of any game by just looking at the list without reading! Madness!
Cheap marketing trick or not, it still works. It takes a second for the brain to process the .99c, and that second could mean the difference between a sale and no sale.

Brains are silly things.
I believe they should list in whole numbers in base4, so that the prices would be listed at 12 and 22, respectively.
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Pemptus: Cheap marketing trick or not, it still works. It takes a second for the brain to process the .99c, and that second could mean the difference between a sale and no sale.

Brains are silly things.
I'm not so sure that it works. At least in my mind, when I read $5.99 it registers as $6 instantly. It might work better if it were a somewhat unusual amount like $5.85, but the .99 is just too old and too ubiquitous to have any effect on me anymore.
Bitching that they're charging you one penny less? That's a new one.
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Wishbone: It's still annoying, stupid and useless
Definitely not going to argue against that. I'd be happy for them to be rounded up. If anything, it'll make the "We have 2 price points. Five ninety-nine and nine ninety-nine" phrase shorter :P
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Pemptus: Cheap marketing trick or not, it still works. It takes a second for the brain to process the .99c, and that second could mean the difference between a sale and no sale.

Brains are silly things.
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spindown: I'm not so sure that it works. At least in my mind, when I read $5.99 it registers as $6 instantly. It might work better if it were a somewhat unusual amount like $5.85, but the .99 is just too old and too ubiquitous to have any effect on me anymore.
It usually registers as $6 for me as well, but I do have my thick moments of brain slomo. Marketing tricks thrive on those moments of thickness and durrr :P
I'm very careful with my very limited amounts of money, so I don't really fall for it by default, but the potential is always there.
I always apply the ceiling function to almost every price I see. Thus I think of GOG prices as $6 and $10, but I have a problem that I always use crazy conversion rates with dollars (they're like rubles, right?).

I don't think it needs to change. 5.99 is different than 6, very unlike if it was 5.9999999999... in which case I would think it'd be silly and deceitful.
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Adzeth: I always apply the ceiling function to almost every price I see. Thus I think of GOG prices as $6 and $10, but I have a problem that I always use crazy conversion rates with dollars (they're like rubles, right?).

I don't think it needs to change. 5.99 is different than 6, very unlike if it was 5.9999999999... in which case I would think it'd be silly and deceitful.
Give the US another economic crisis or two and even the Russian ruble will be stronger than the dollar :P
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shadi.lahham: I'm really in love with GOG's way of doing things and my enthusiasm for the people behind it is without limits. I will continue to support GOG in any way I can. ( Financially, but not only )

The only thing I don't like about GOG is the price choice.
They should just make them $6 and $10 instead of the $5.99 and $9.99

The $x,99 is a very old and cheap marketing trick and it saddens me that GOG suffers from it. GOG would do well to rid itself of this, as well as help it stand out even more as being honest and transparent about everything that it does.

What do you guys think GOG should do about this ?
It's not a marketing trick. The reason why they started doing that in the first place was to make the cashier have to open to till in order to make change, rather than just pocketing the money.

OTOH, those x and 9/10 of a cent gas prices are a marketing trick as far as I can tell.

OTOOH, I'm not sure why there'd be any reason to carry that practice over to the internet.
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Adzeth: I always apply the ceiling function to almost every price I see. Thus I think of GOG prices as $6 and $10, but I have a problem that I always use crazy conversion rates with dollars (they're like rubles, right?).

I don't think it needs to change. 5.99 is different than 6, very unlike if it was 5.9999999999... in which case I would think it'd be silly and deceitful.
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JudasIscariot: Give the US another economic crisis or two and even the Russian ruble will be stronger than the dollar :P
Don't laugh, if things get worse around here we might start fleeing to Poland.
Post edited September 02, 2011 by hedwards
Doesn't make a damn bit of difference to me, I still need to convert it to £ in my head anyway. Making them nice round numbers in $ don't make them nice round numbers once you've converted them to other currencies. And since you need to think about it anyway that extra penny isn't going to trip you up like it might if it where your own currency.
I guess even if they set the prices to $5.01, some people would still KNOW that it's $6 ;).
$5.99 is $5.99, guys. No more, no less.
Though I guess using Roman numerals to represent the number of cents each game costs might help people who have trouble with decimal points... So we'd have DIC and IM.