What exactly does it mean to "run out" of a digital product!? It seems a little disingenuous to continue the Insomnia Sale without the free games. It also makes me less inclined to want to buy many games knowing I'm not earning any credit toward a free one.

Oh well.

Why doesn't GOG just give away The Witcher (1, 2 and 3) as the freebies, since they own them....

I believe they had a Juicy Fruit(tm) and flew over the cuckoo's nest.

They're actually not "free". They're limited quantity licenses to paid products. But they should have defaulted to Witcher codes in the way Valve defaults to source games whenever they run out of partnered products. This was a mistake by them to just put it at "empty". They have for 1 and 2. Just waiting on 3 now. :>

Do you usually purchase things with a mind that you'll get something else "free" down the line?
Have you been buying games you didn't want with a mind to the fact that you'll get something free down the line?

Why?

Because GOG told us that they would do that and we expect them to honor it...

I wonder what they intend to do about the customers who completed 10 purchases while the "free game after 10 bought games" thing was still prominently featured on the front-page, but who didn't get any because GOG ran out of games without telling anyone at first.

Because... You know.... That clearly IS fraud.

It's called "perceived value". The long version: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predictably_Irrational

The short version: once a deal happens customers want that exact deal or better for future sales. The value of the items is permanently devalued and the customer sees it as a bad deal to pay more than someone else had to for the same things.

Read this from GOG staff:

Konrad:

"[...]

Oh, also if you're wondering how digital goods "run out" - its like a few folks mentioned: we basically get a set number of copies that we can put up at a given discount. Same goes for the freebies. So it's not that we literally run out of digital goods, that'd be weird. We just run out of copies we can sell at that price."

https://www.gog.com/forum/general/the_sleepy_sheep_insomnia_sale_is_wide_awake_a2710/post2429

One of the reasons why I really dislike the "extreme sales" culture that has built around videogames : Between that, the "I bought a decent indie game for 9.99$, so no indie game is worth more than 10", and people expecting 75% sales on 6-month old games, our percieved value of what we are buying is completely screwed up.

That leads to some pretty weird stuff, like a game selling for "40$ with 75% discount" because "20$ with 50% discount" would be less attractive for many customers (myself included. I hate it, but I know I'm as affected by this insanity as anyone else.)

I don't think it's as simple as that. If anything, I think the real value (for me, and many other an individual) of the average is still lower than the perceived value, even with all the crazy discounts. Me, personally, I hardly ever play the games I have on GOG. And out of the ones I play, many are games that I already owned before they got on GOG. So how much real value is a game sitting on some virtual shelf really bringing to me? I might not even acknowledge that such a game exists.

You could blame the intense sales for allowing this situation -- that I have hundreds and hundreds of games I don't play -- and that, indeed, might be spot on. As without good prices, I surely wouldn't have bought all these. But, if anything, this shows that the discounted prices are at least coming closer to the real value, for me to consider making such purchases! If all games were $20 or more with small or no discounts, I'd have just a handful of games as I'd feel the prices haven't come close enough to the real value to justify making a purchase.

It needs to be emphasized that the value of a game depends on the buyer. Especially so with digital distribution that doesn't allow you to sell away "second hand". Contrast with physical goods which are likely to have resale value (set by supply and demand) even if the artefact is otherwise completely worthless to the person who owns it.

I'm not sure how many people are actually tricked by the discount percentage. I hardly ever even take note of it; I just look at the absolute price, and how interesed I might be in that game. Because the value of it to sit on my virtual shelf, with a low chance of me playing the game, and perhaps even lower chance of me liking it and playing it long, is low regardless of the base price. A $300 game at 95% discount could very well have the same "fate" as a $4.99 game with 50% discount.

That's part of the reason it bugs me : The sales pushes me to buy games I won't play, but on the other hand, I'm reluctant to buy games I would play right now "because it will be discounted later" (and when "later" happens, I'm not in the same mood and thus don't really keep an eye/buy the game). And even when I get to play them, I'm not as motivated and I will probably only skim them for 1 hour before dropping them.
With smaller but more stable base prices (and a slow decay of said base price over time when they're not as shiny anymore), I would probably be much more likely to buy game to PLAY them, y'know. I noticed that the games I finish are often those I bought day one or when I learned about their existence, without waiting for a discount.

Overall, it's probably good for the publishers and stores that we buy plenty of dirt-cheap discounted junk we won't ever install, sure (otherwise they wouldn't do it), but... I really dislike what it tells about me as a consumer.

Not really. GOG and CD Project RED are both subsidiaries of CD Project, but still separate entities. I assume GOG is still going to need permission before distributing free Witcher keys.

Every discount or free games you see on this site is the result of a contract between GOG and the publisher/IP holder. They cannot decide freely what to give and how many copies.