I love GOG and prefer to buy all my games here. However, I've been extremely disappointed with all the bundles in this year's summer sale. There are several games I wanted from GOG during this sale, but because of the way the bundles and sales are set up, it would cost me several times the prices I could get them elsewhere. Therefore, unless something changes, I won't be buying any of them from GOG and will just be waiting for the Steam sale, which is very disappointing to me.

In my opinion, the biggest problem with the GOG bundles is that it doesn't allow you to denote games that you already have on another service. There are tons of games out there, and they have different sales at different times. Plus, like many others, I buy lots of game bundles (for example, the Humble Bundle, Indie Royale, IndieGameStand, Groupees, Bundle Stars, Indie Gala, and Bundle In A Box, etc.). Almost always, bundles only include Steam and/or Desura keys. Only twice have I received GOG keys, which I have immediately used (Pid from IndieGameStand and the Groupees Topware Interactive Bundle). You shouldn't be forced to buy games you already own just to get a better price.

The other problem is that often the bundle discount price offered at GOG is the same as the individual daily and summer sale deals offered from other services. Therefore, to get the exact same price on GOG, you need to buy a bunch of games you don't necessarily want.

GOG has always been fervent about DRM-free games and their trust in their users. I believe this trust should extend to games already owned elsewhere. If GOG puts trust in us to not pirate their games, they should also trust us to denote which games we already own.

I like the idea of GOG bundles, especially since they spotlight similar games that you might not have heard of before. However, I don't like the way it's being implemented and I think it will hurt GOG in the long run.

The other issue with the current implementation is that it encourages insecure payments to others who already own the whole bundle and can gift individual games for the discount price. This practice shouldn't be encouraged.

I believe there are several ways these issues could be resolved:

1) Allow games to be marked as owned on other services. You would not need to allow people to download these games from GOG, but it should be a third ownership state (in addition to the current two: "owned on GOG" and "not owned") that affects bundles and shows up when you go to the game page. This way, if you have every game but one in a bundle, just not all on GOG, you can still complete your collection at the lowest price. While this would require the most work, it would be a great feature that I and others would use since it would save me time looking up if I already own a game on another service when a sale is on (or when trying to track down different games in the same series).

2) Trust the user to denote which games in a bundle they already own on another service without making a feature for it. The method for doing this could be non-intuitive, but still possible. For example, if you add a bundle to your cart, then manually delete the games you already own, it shouldn't recalculate the price for all of them when you delete one. This would require minimal changes to GOG, and wouldn't even have to be documented well. However, it would allow GOG to continue trustings its users like it does with all DRM-free games and prevent scams.

3) I firmly believe that the bundle price should only be slightly higher than the individual prices. For example, 80% for buying the whole bundle, 75% individually for that day, and 50% off for all other days of the summer sale. The bundle price should be better than, not equal to, the individual prices offered by other services. This still gives an incentive to buy the whole bundle, but the games aren't double the price than when bought individually. Also, there should still be a difference in price when a game is part of the daily deal, instead of being the same as every other day unless you buy the whole bundle (especially when you already own all but one of the bundle on other services). I believe this point should be implemented in addition to either (1) or (2) above, since it makes more sense regardless.

To illustrate my points, here are some examples of my own frustrations with the bundles this year:

1) With the RPG Rarities Bundle, the only game I want is Evoland. I have everything else in the bundle, just not on GOG. I have 3 on Steam; 2 of those were acquired through bundles. I would much rather have Evoland on GOG, but I guess I'll be waiting until it goes 75% off in the upcoming Steam sale:

RPG Rarities Bundle
- Anodyne (Retro Groupees Bundle -> only given Steam key)
! Evoland
- Sword of the Stars: The Pit (Steam New Release Sale - weeks before it came out on GOG)
* The Real Texas (GOG daily sale)
- Costume Quest (Double Fine's Humble Bundle -> only given Steam key)

2) Same thing with the Indie Adventure Awesomeness bundle. I only want The Cat Lady, and I own every other game in the bundle. However, only one is on GOG; the other 4 are on Steam (all bought from indie bundles).

Indie Adventure Awesomeness
- Botanicula (Botanicula's Humble Bundle -> only given Steam key)
- Machinarium: Collector's Edition (also in Botanicula's Humble Bundle -> only given Steam key)
! The Cat Lady
- Stacking (Double Fine's Humble Bundle (with Costume Quest above) -> only given Steam key)
- Lucius ($3 from Bundle Stars, still ongoing -> only given Steam key)
* To The Moon (GOG daily sale)

3) I have been wanting Deponia 2 for a while now to continue the first which I have on GOG. It went on sale for 75% off ($5) on Steam and GamersGate last week, but I waited to buy it on GOG instead. However, it's only 50% on sale at GOG. To get the same price as the other services from weeks ago, I would have to buy other games in the bundle, which I don't want. I guess I'll just wait until Steam's summer sale and pick it up there, although I'd rather just buy it at the same price on GOG.

I apologize for the really long post, but this really frustrated me and I'm bothered by the direction that GOG is going. I want GOG to succeed and to buy all my games from them, not to be forced to go to other services because of the way they organize their sales and bundles.

If you agree, please show your support and keep this post alive. Thanks in advance.

Wow... I can't believe I actually read all this huge wall of text...

Well, that's an awful lot of text for a very simple complaint that (imho) just amounts to "I'm disappointed because GOG doesn't match my personal preferences 100%".

GOG offers great bundles for a very good price. It's not GOG's concern whjether or not you already own these games on any third party services. GOG simply offers you a bigger discount if you buy more from a bundle, and a smaller one if you don't, that's all.

You're trying something like going to a supermarket and saying "Hey, you got that great discount for 5 bars of chocolate. I already bought two bars of the same chocolate at a different shop, can I still get the same discount when I just buy 3?" Feel free to try that in your local supermarket and tell us the results. ;)

Just because the bundles may be bad doesn't mean that bobbling the bundles will make the bad bundles better. Besides, a badly bobbled bundle becomes a bungled bundle and a bungled bundle is bound to be a big black eye.

Please, they're giving an extra 25% off if you buy a game in a bundle. Almost *everything* is already 50% off. I can't believe that we've come to a point where 50% off just isn't good enough. SMH. /rant

Nah, can't trust gamers. To open for abuse.

There are less bundles for sale this time than during the winter sale, so GOG is already heading in the direction you want. Also no matter how much people would say they wouldn't, people will still go "Oh, I own all these except that one game I want already."

If you really want something that is in a bundle and don't want to pay the extra fee, ask in the trades section to see if anyone else has it already and would want to help you get it for the full discount.

I find myself agreeing with the OP somewhat. I passed on today's RPG bundle because I bought Anodyne and The Real Texas directly from the devs when they came out. So GOG missed out on some of my money because I didn't feel like buying two games I already own for a second time.

When Defender's Quest and Resonance came out here, they gave the devs GOG keys for prior customers. This was great because it meant I didn't have to rebuy them when a bundle on GOG contained those games. They seem to have changed their policy though because GOG never gave Dave Gilbert any Primordia keys despite him asking.

Well I'm not sure I would qualify as making better posts, but I ninjaed the code. I give you my thanks.

Just have fun with it, that's all I want. Also, give FS2 Open a shot, it looks pretty and it helps keep the game up to date. Plus there are plenty of new campaigns floating around.

I guess they could keep the bundles publisher specific first and add extras to fill the bundle after. That may allow you to fill your collection better. I think your issue, and one that i have also experienced, is that when GOG hand picks a themed bundle, it doesn't always have every game in a series -just a sampling of randoms in a genre. This way you don't always get to cross each item off your grocery list because there are a couple of games you A. already have or B. haven't heard of/don't want. It's kind of like opening a pack of baseball cards i guess: need 'em, got 'em, need 'em etc.

Perhaps they could also have a "pick 5 of 8 of the following..."

When it comes right down to it, we have to understand that this is a business and GOG has to try and make as much money as possible by keeping publishers and clients happy at the same time. Hopefully, they don't deliberately try and sell multiple copies of games to us on purpose to keep the publishers happy.

I think the point the OP was making (and that I tried to make) is that they're missing out on our money.

I kinda agree with the OP but (for selfish reasons) kinda don't.

I don't like the bundles because I don't want to be forced to buy games I don't want. I would buy games if I had the option of being able to pick as the OP suggested, 5 out of 8 games.

I have only bought 3 games this sale, 1 to complete a bundle, 2 which went on sale individually. However, I am ok with that because I have a huge backlog of games and don't need any more and don't want to fill up my backlog. So, thanks gog for not hurting my backlog too badly!

I have also decided not to purchase a couple of bundles because i did not want to buy multiple copies of the same game, and by removing the game from the bundle, the cost went higher than it was with the game I already owned in the bundle. So, i completely understand.

But, my take was that it looked like the OP was lobbying for better deals because the bundles were not to his/her liking; He would have to buy the games he wanted individually which was no greater deal at GOG than elsewhere. At that point, he has to make a decision whether he wants a game DRM free, or wants to buy it for the same price elsewhere for achievements/multiplayer-community hubs or whatever is offered elsewhere.