Nice alliteration! :)

So...basically, you're saying that you don't want GOG to adopt "indie bundle" pricing...but you're saying that in order for GOG to succeed in your eyes, they should adopt "indie bundle" pricing. Seriously, are you in such dire financial straits that $2.99 to $4.99 for a game is too expensive for you?

There's also no way that GOG would adopt such a strategy as you outlined earlier for revising their bundle pricing, not without in some way adopting a system to actually verify that you own the games that you say you own, either from some other DD store or on disc. Such an expectation would be, quite frankly, patently absurd. What guarantee would you have that people buying it would be honest? We've learned from the early HIBs that even given a wonderful opportunity like a charity-centric PWYW/DRM-free bundle of top tier games, a lot of gamers will still be dicks and pay $0.01 for it.

Exactly. Why should GOG chase or imitate Steam in order to be successful? Why can't GOG just be GOG? In addition to being DRM-free are the additional extras too. They of course vary wildly from game to game, but in most cases, it's a lot more than what you'd be getting from a Steam purchase.

We have Steam sales and the App Store to thank for that too. Wasn't there an anti-Steam thread here once that argued that Steam sales were bad for gaming in the long-term, as it would condition consumers to undervalue games?

That used to be GOG's official stance; they seem to have given in, somewhat.

And yet, people still complain. Hell, why on earth am I surprised by this? GOG's most vocal complaints most often come from whenever they give away a game for free.

Short version: I firmly disagree with almost everything you said. Almost. Then you really must hate e.g. Steam and HiB sales, because in their bundles they usually force you to re-buy game that you already have _even in the same service_. And yes, also there you usually get a better price only if you buy a whole bundle.

As for your feeling that GOG doesn't have as good deals as other services (which is a separate issue from the one above), vote with your wallet. Crying isn't going to help, money will. After all, it has caused GOG to implement higher discounts like up to 80-90%. I think in previous years this high discounts on GOG were pretty much unheard of. Maybe it is now possible as GOG is fortunately not restricting itself only to old games anymore. You need masses of games, even fluff, to afford such high discounts. I agree GOG should try to stay competitive with their pricing, but then they know the best working price points much better than either of us. We two are just guessing, while GOG has real raw sales data from various sales. I presume they experiment with different deals to maximize their profits. Obviously they are not necessarily trying to price-match e.g. Humble Indie Bundle $1 bundle sales, just like Steam is not either. That doesn't make any sense whatsoever. No other DD service does that either, and it just sounds too complicated for what it is trying to achieve. If you simply want the same higher discount as those who buy all the games (regardless whether you indeed have the game elsewhere or not), why don't you just say so?

The correct fix for that "problem", if there is any, would be to adjust the discount percentage. It just makes more sense for GOG to recognize the people who buy more games, ie. the more you buy, the more you save. No you don't. After all, you are complaining that GOG doesn't let you cherry pick games and still get the maximum discount, because you like to buy games from other services too.

GOG knows that much better than we do (ie. what kind of promo models seem to reap the biggest profits). They have experimented with all kinds of different discount models (even "PWYW"), and you can clearly see they are nowadays offering higher bundle discounts than before, ie. they are trying to offer more competitive discounts too.

The OP is simply telling GOG to cater better for cherry-picking people who shop around in various different stores (and buy on GOG only if something here is not sold in e.g. Steam), rather than people who buy most of their stuff in GOG.

I personally like most GOG bundles because they are simple, and they never feel like they are trying to lure you to buy stuff that you already have _in the same service_.


I personally felt that is great, as I could buy all I wanted in one day (I think I used about $120 on GOG games that day), instead of having to make smaller purchases over several days (esp. as I will be travelling the following days).

Maybe they could have had that blowout sale at the end of the sales though, to keep up the hype for the likes of me.

They know the reality much better than you. You are just guessing, they have the real sales data.

GOG has tried several different promo models before, so if they seem to favor certain kind the most, maybe it is working the best for them, regardless of what you believe to be the case.

I totaly agree with timppu.

As for what GOG needs to do to differentiate from the others.
I think they have already done a big deal, all games are DRM-free (no need for 100 clients to run in the background in order to play your games) fixed price worldwide (please check sometimes the prices on Steam where 1$=1€ and then check the excange rates).

As for the bundles, I see them in this way "Hey you like to play this kind of games, so let us offer you this similar games too, and at a much better discount).

Well I liked it :)

The whole post was pretty epic, but here I applauded out loud.

This.


Also, I don't agree with the OP, but I think that GOG should be more flexible when it comes to giving away gog keys to the devs/indie bundles. I suppose they are afraid they won't be making much $ with those indie titles, but I think that would be the lowest cost of bringing more people to GOG. That would also solve the OP problem in some cases (certainly not with games bought on Steam, and I guess HIB is out of question too, but IndieRoyale and other sites are possible).

First of all, I like the bundles, especially the themed one. It's a great opportunity to get some games from a special theme you may like for a much bigger discount then they already are during the sale. I also liked that they put all bundles at once on sale, because so it's easier to get everything of interest at once and to have some time to rethink about some bundles to get them maybe later. Of course doing so the christmas feeling is gone (what's today in the box, it's something I want), tom compensate that gog should maybe add some other interesting stuff like interviews with developer, mod recommendation or updates (mac, language, bonus).

Reading some of the threads I guess the problem is mostly because many have already many indie games thanks to the huge quantity of indie bundles. For that case of course some of the indie bundles are not really interesting, because you only want one or two games out of it. But good news, gog already did a build-your-own indie bundle sale twice, and as far as I remember and understand they liked them and I'm sure they will return. Patience is the key here, wait and the games will come ;-)

And how do you propose this feature to be implemented with the umpteen gajillion digital distribution channels out there?

Or is GOG supposed to take your word on good faith? Because I don't see that backfiring horribly at all... I've read that four times now and I still don't get how that's supposed to prevent scams. If anything it invites scammers with open arms... No, it makes LESS sense (apart from the first sentence which is just plain wrong).

I'll let you in on a little secret: GOG is a business, not a charity. They want to make money. And while they may not want to make money by any means necessary, they'd still rather you spend more money on their service than less. A measely 5% difference between bundle and individual purchase would incite virtually no one to buy the bundle who doesn't want all of the games anyway. Even in cases where the bundle costs less than your individual selection, while making a bit less money total, it creates revenue for publishers where there wouldn't have been one under normal circumstances. So by making you buy a whole bundle they increase sales figures for individual games, making their service more attractive for publishers.

What you're proposing would hurt their business in the long term. No, you really don't. Otherwise you wouldn't even have this problem with GOG because you wouldn't own games on other services.

What you DO want is to buy everything as cheap as possible without regard to anything else. It's all about you...

A little bit about why bundling is done, from the wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_bundling When I read something similar years ago, it really cleared up some confusion I had about bundles myself.