I don't mean this as an insult at all if it comes off that way. However GOG doesn't have the size and sale volume to be able to do constant high markdowns like other stores. Part of that is making sure they turn a profit so they stay in business and part is having leverage when dealing with publishers.

Like Square-Enix. They were only able to put the games on sale a week and only one special pack. That was because Square wanted to push people to buy their games on steam instead when the sale started there. GOG does what they can, but are limited by what publishers are willing to agree to.

You have other stores like Gamersgate trying the undercut everyone strategy that ends up back firing when they have to do things like cancel the IGN deal and cancel orders from their pricing system going haywire.

Edit: Regarding if Steam sales hurt the value of games or not, I think bundles do more damage than sales. With how many are out there now they condition people to think "It will be in a bundle sooner or later" and they wait it out. It doesn't help when you have stunts like Botanicula before when it showed up in a bundle the same day it went on sale. I admit that with bundles being so numerous now, I am more likely to wait it out for a game to see if it shows up in one soon.

Well, I have to admit, that is a sound argument, however, steam is also making some games playable on newer systems like for instance Gothic, which I bought directly from Steam cause it was CHEAPER and somehow it didn't stop Steam from offering a better deal.

And at the of the day, where did my money go?

Note to all you guys: Im not trying to run a rant here, or offend anyone, im just trying to understand GoG policy and why they agree to missing out on some profits.

But with the likes of legal downloadable humble bundle torrents, they can be used for the force of good. Not all torrents are illegal/bad ;)

You just explained the idea of offering deeper discounts if you buy more (in this case, the whole bundle). Impulse purchases.

There was a "Darksiders Franchise" bundle deal in Steam just recently. Why couldn't I remove e.g. Darksiders 1 from that bundle (which I already have on Steam) and maybe some of the Darksiders 2 DLCs I don't necessarily want, and still get the same sweet discount percentage? Why, why, why oh why????

If it had been a GOG bundle, I would have been automatically compensated for having one (or some) of the games in the same service already, in this case Darksiders 1. So GOG bundles are far better and more logical than the bundles in e.g. Steam or GamersGate which just try to get you to buy same games several times from the same service.

Fair enough. GOG is obviously still experimenting with different discount models, they've tried so many different types, even including "pay-what-you-want", which I personally disliked even though in the end it worked out pretty good for me (sheer luck).

If the current model means GOG sells now diddly squat, I guess they will not try this current model again in the future. You think GOG must be selling now poorly because you personally refuse to buy anything from GOG with the current model. I, on the other hand, have so far made impulse purchases in GOG that I didn't originally intend to buy.

http://www.gog.com/forum/general/what_did_you_buy_holiday_2012_edition/post80

So does the current model work, or not? Only GOG knows, by looking at their sales data. You and me are merely guessing.

You are wrong, I didn't buy my 300 games in bundles, I bought each one of them separately and thats what im getting at. I don't want to be forced to buy bundles where I want 1 gem and 10 other are of no interest to me.

About the Darksiders bundle you mention, the reason you couldn't remove it from the bundle is because you could just as easily buy each game/part of the bundle separately at the same discount price (if i remember correnctly), exactly what im getting at here.
Also on steam, if there is a bundle and games don't have the same % of discount you can be sure that one way or another the one specific you want to buy will get that sweet % discount either on steam, gmg or gg and thats what attracts people.

Also, if you want to compare bundles on steam and gog i would suggest you reffer to the same games/bundles. Saying that today's action indie bundle is better cause they will compensate you for the game you already have as compared to Darksiders bundle where you can simply buy individual games at the same % seem to me like a matter of convenience.

Is that link still relevant? I'm pretty sure that a few weeks back TET essentially said marketing was rethinking their position, and deep discounts (like the End of the World bundles) were the result.

Mixed messages still feel afoot. :P

Still, to me it seems like despite the problems you mentioned, GOG has done pretty well for themselves over the past four years. I can kind of see GOG evolving and opening the floodgates for all games and essentially becoming a "DRM-free Steam" (if they don't mind losing part of their claim to fame about all games "working on modern systems" and then leaving support up to the developers and publishers), but obviously that's a vision I personally don't want to embrace as I'm here for the good old games.

I think the end of the world special was more of a "Steam sale is starting tomorrow, throw up everything we got to make as much as possible before then!" With the exceptions being stuff they couldn't sell but for one day like the Dungeons and Dragons bundle.

Every store in the world sells games packages, but when GOG does ihe same, it's suddenly wrong.

If you don't feel being a target for such bundles, buy something else. Or somewhere else.

PS. There were of course -75% daily deals for some games (Pick & Mix), but who would remember them...

The gaming world changes rapidly, and so do businesses i guess. GOG may be re-thinking things for next year, who knows?

All i know is that they don't like to do steep discounts. I'm pretty sure that they will stick to that.

I'm pretty sure that was not the case, because otherwise I would have done exactly so. Steam bundle offers always have at the end the math "This is how much these games would cost bought separately, and this is how much you save by buying them all in this bundle.". Usually the latter price is considerable lower than the former, ie. you get a bigger overall discount by buying the whole bundle, without even being compensated for the overlapping games _like you do in GOG_.

But in case I saw wrong, then I could take e.g. the "Saints Row 3 The Full Package". I bought it, and didn't get compensated at all that I had SR3 base game already in Steam. So I ended up buying the same game again.

And if some new user wanted to buy only some parts of Saints Row 3, that would end up costing more than the full package bundle simply because the SR3 base game alone already costs the same as the Full Package bundle.

It would be nice. I would´ve bought Hotline Miami, Retrocity Rampage and Carmageddon also. But I can wait till next year. my backlog has been growing and growing anyway with all the sales.

I think many of the newer title and indie already on sale at some point in the past deal. Some of them expire much quicker than the others. Think i saw ArmA, Hotline Miami and Retro City Rampage for limited time before.

Anyway, about RCR, you can get it from the official site at discounted price. You can even choose to redeem your extra copy on GOG.

GOG actually did have some 75% off sales for individual games. The Witcher 1/2 and Scandanavian Pick & Mix come to mind. They don't however, do that as often as some other retailer, this is true.