Remember, when in 2012, representatives of GOG told reporters that they believe that constant sales and huge discounts will de-value games over time?
They were right.
I basically never buy games at full price anymore.
Why should I?
I know, a few months down the line they will be available for 50% or 66% or 75% off...

For me, it's even worse than that now. I've noticed recently that the discounts that would have convinced me to buy games a few years ago aren't enough anymore, and I'm always waiting for the biggest discounts possible.

Also, sales were an event I looked forward to. These days, it's almost like I consider full-priced games to no longer be available, and discounted games to be back in store, and sold at their normal price.

Indeed, they were right, but they did everything they could to make it happen.

I dont know. Myself I have a list of personal favourites from which I buy full priced sometimes even day 1. These discounted games I often buy some I wouldnt even consider buying otherwise. I have a full "shelf" of "Planning to play soon games" which I bought discounted during Gog sale. I dont even know if I ll ever get to play them. Anyway I bought them on discount dutring sale like this one. So its sort of double edged thing. It has pros and cons.

sales are factored into prices, only idiots buy anything at full price, especially aaa stuff pre-ordered months ahead.

also, if a game is half off every other week, that effectively becomes the actual full price. why would I buy game x at half price now if I didn't buy it in the last 3 years for the same price? I'm sure many are lured into buying them like that because $60 at half off sounds great, even if $30 at 10% off would be cheaper. this is also why shitty devs can get away with silent price hikes, then announcing a 'historical low discount' that only applies to the percentage and the actual price is higher than it was before.

I see that as a natural consequence of all this.

I remember when I had to drive to the next electronics store to buy games.
Searching through the shelves, always hoping the game you're after is available.

If it was, you bought it - full price or not.
After all: you drove there, fully aware that it would cost you full price.

And when you found a discounted game that interested you, it came as a (welcomed) surprise.
And even if it was "only" 33% off, you bought it basically immediately, because such a good deal couldn't be ignored.

Besides: you never knew if said game would still be available the next time you drove to the store.
Due to limited shelf space, games got regularily sorted out.

What you didn't get "while it was hot", you probably got never.

Nowadays?
I know that a game will basically be available "forever".
And I know its price will go down - sometimes even drastically.

No reason to "bite the bullet" and purchase for full price.

And if I miss a game, because it gets removed from sale? Or because my (then) new hard-/software won't support the game anymore?
So what?

I can't count how many games I didn't buy in my life...and yet, I was missing nothing.

Stop complaining about sales, people. I'm very grateful for each and every sale here, thank you GOG! I'm the idiot that pre-orders games on GOG, especially what few AAA games we get here, to encourage more GOG releases.
On Steam I wait for a deep discount or a humble choice drop. And yet I'd pay quadruple to get my hands on a legit GOG copy of:
• Back to the Future - The Game
• Game of Thrones - A Telltale Games Series
• Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy - The Telltale Series
• Minecraft - Story Mode - A Telltale Game Series
• Minecraft - Story Mode - Season Two
• Tales from the Borderlands
• The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena
• Cryostasis
• etc

Old disc-based DRM copies are the ones that last forever, not digital ones, because Gabe Newell killed the used game market for PC. And the sad thing is that, if it wasn't Steam, it probably would have been someone else.

People ask for NOLF1 or 2, etc, but those can be relatively easily tracked down used. The same cannot be said for my list above, without resorting to forbidden measures.

When that new Telltale game set in the Expanse universe comes out, I'll buy it day one, because it may get delisted 5 minutes later, with Telltale's track record.

You are not an idiot but one of the supporters who make such alternative shops possible. If you have enough money for it and you feel good about it, then you are doing the right thing. Exactly, I wish I could buy:

• Game of Thrones - A Telltale Games Series
• The Long Dark
• Minecraft - Story Mode - Season Two

:-(

I find that quite disingenuous. The fanboy'ism that continues to this day with video games is embarrassing. Nintendo VS Sega.. Steam VS Epic or Gog..

Gog posts are full of Steam bashing.. Steam posts claim Gog supporters just want easily pirated copies floating around... Tribalism in everything from politics to vidja games...

The fact is.. disc based media had intrusive DRM like Securom (install limits) and the like without the help of Steam. Floppy based games had to do their best to use nonstandard file systems and code wheels to prevent piracy...

It's been an arms race since the early days. Gabe Newell asserted that piracy was a service problem... And for the most part he was correct... If he wasn't, and Steam offered nothing of value past a new DRM then it wouldn't have grown to the juggernaut that it is today.

Do I prefer to buy my games here? Absolutely. But that's not due to the great experience this site offers... Gog keeps chasing investor interests and fads.. Bloating the website to where it hardly loads on mobile devices.. Each change they make seems to make things just a little worse...

I buy here because, in the end.. Most digital storefronts fold... and so long as I keep backing up my installers, I'll have them until bit rot claims them and they get errors when trying to install them... ZFS along with error correcting RAM helps...

But to claim that used games went away because Gabe Newell identified a service problem with the industry and created a platform that made buying and installing games easier/faster... It's just wrong.

There was never MEANT to be second hand market for software. That's the whole point of DRM... yes to keep extra copies from being made, but in the end.. they want a copy sold for every user... period.

Even blu rays are starting to dwindle as movie releases are ever it digita... They want ALL digital so that everything can be controlled and you can't even lend a movie to a friend once you buy the digital copy.

I'm not defending any of this... But it is what it is...

I for one add my GOG games to steam's launcher because it affords some very user friendly options for playing my games.. Big Picture Mode and remote play being the two most prominent. Consumer focused additions like this are what drive sales to Steam's storefront/launcher as opposed to others.

My pc resides in my basement where it stays nice and cool... I stream my games (Gog included) to a Steam Link.. Chilling out on the couch with a Steam controller (for mouse based games anyway), using steam input to map controls for games that don't have proper Handel's support, using big picture mode to essentially get the best of both worlds.. PC games in a relaxed console setting.

I sit in front of a pc all day at work.. I don't want to sit in front of one when I'm home... Gog games also run fine on the steam deck if you know what you are doing.

I said all of that to say this...

If Gog would step up it's game, do things IN SERVICE of its customers... Give us a first party downloader again and allow us to download our entire libraries (schedule it to reduce server load) verify and update our libraries... Give Linux users a 1st party launcher (yes not everyone likes launchers but they make installing and keeping games updated easier), give is a Big Picture Mode equivalent.. Steam Input equivalent... Maybe partner with moonlight and give is a local game streaming option....Actually COMPETE in this space and promote innovation... Competition is good for the consumer!

Gog's dwindling sales are not anyone's fault but their own. There's a ton of games that don't get updates here after launch... 2nd Class citizens are what we are made to feel like... It IS a service problem.

This post wasn't so much a response to the user above but a plea to GOG to become the Steam competitor that it could be. Offer users "more". Convince them that buying here is better!

Have you read the second part of the snip that you quoted? I said that if it wasn't for Valve, it very likely would have been someone else like Microsoft, Activision, EA or Ubisoft.

I am not a Steam hater. I am against all DRMd digital stores and platforms, Steam just happens to be the largest one in the gaming space. I trash iTunes and the Microsoft Store, Ultraviolet and all this other short-lived garbage just the same.

Disc based DRM was nowhere near as intrusive as any of the online ones with machine limits, activation limits, or any other nonsense that is external. I have loads of old CDs and DVDs and they work great. Some require community patches, but that's hardly different on your lord's platform.

Physical media is the greatest source of media preservation there is. Greater than that of GOG, legally anyway. When a publisher loses the right to sell a product for whatever reason, physical releases do not get lost. There is still a market for them. Art gets preserved and can be traded. Executive pigs may cry how it's "not meant to be" traded second hand, but so far they have failed to lobby and make that illegal.
Now this is very different when it comes to digital releases. If the publisher loses, everyone loses. This content cannot be acquired and enjoyed any more, not legally anyway. I can still buy a CD of No One Lives Forever or GTA Vice City 1.0 and I have, but I cannot buy those delisted Telltale games. Not legally anyway, thanks to GabeN.

Piracy is not a service problem. It's an ownership and control problem. With a physical release, the publisher can't break into my home and repo my copy. They cannot apply any negative patches without my consent. On Steam, however, they can do whatever. They can yank games from my library (and they have), they can remove content with a patch (and they have). I have no say in it. Guess who doesn't have to worry about losing Steam games. A pirate.

When Steam launched, people hated it. People also hated that Half-Life 2 required it. Sadly people had no choice. Majority of people are never willing to participate in boycotts.

Why are both of us HERE, if Steam's services are oh so great? Because the sense of ownership and control trump an infinite amount of other services and fluff. I don't care about your fancy big screen mode, or forums, or guides, or the grossly overrated mod workshop, if you retain the ability to yank games from my library, or allow publishers to patch out content that I paid for.

When Steam yanked agony unrated from my library, to avoid getting sued by a league of soccer moms, I was in shock. It's one thing to yank from sale and quite another to yank from my library. I never expected such a thing from an esteemed paltform such as Steam. I thought I'll contact support and they'll sort it out straight away. To my surprise, Steam's support were COMPLETELY indifferent. Absolutely dismissive. They told me to contact the developer. Looking at the forums, I realised that they were indifferent towards everybody who had lost that game. Developers were blaming Steam and that was far more believable. Who has control over user libraries at the end of the day? Developers are customers of Steam just as much as gamers. The developers did offer massive discounts in the short term, and eventually released the unrated version as a DLC for the censored version, but Valve never returned the yanked standalone uncensored version to this day. All the time grinding achievements for nought. What if the developers acted indifferent too? There was never a sense of ownership with Steam, but now they have lost their so called "service" shtick too. But hey, they are a massive company that prints money passively, why should they bother being nice? They have lost any shred of respect I may have had for them.

Sure GOG is not immune to weird library removals, but the culture here is completely different. Generate a few angry posts and it will get sorted in most cases. Sometimes we may even get an apology. Even if GOG didn't solve a lost game issue, I'd still have its installer. I download everything I buy. GOG's support may be hard to reach, but it is far better that that of Steam.

As for launchers, I launch my games the same way I launch my other applications. Start Menu. There has never been a better launcher. I do not buy games on GOG only to crawl back to Valve's crappy launcher, which is not necessary for GOG games. I also prefer M&K over a controller, so I don't care about no big screen mode either. Not that you can't use controllers with GOG games lol.

I have the Steam Deck and it's collecting dust, because of its crappy half-baked desktop and lack of a keyboard. I prefer GPD, all of their handhelds have keyboards. With Windows, there are no compatibility issues or missing codecs that Valve's unwilling to pay for. Heck, with ROG Ally being as cheap as it it, the excuse for getting a Steam Deck decreases further.

What GOG needs to do is stay committed to DRM-Free games with offline installers. That's the main reason everyone is here. Everything else is just bonus fluff. While more fluff is always welcome, no amount of it will ever add up to DRM-Free games with offline installers. GOG is the second best thing since physical (offline) PC games.

The reason to buy games at full price is if you want them when they are new and fresh and hot. If you don't care about that, then there is indeed no reason to buy games at full price.

But your post seems to be implying that GOG would be better if they never had sales, so as not to devalue games.

But with no sales, then no, GOG would not be better off.

Then all that would happen is a few super fans would buy the games for full retail MSRP, whilst 95% of everyone else would never buy the games, ever, resulting in much less profit for GOG and for the devs/publishers than they would have received had they put their games on sale on a regular basis.

On top of all that, very few people would buy from GOG any more, as it would be the only store not having sales, so almost everyone would just buy the same games from other platforms where they are sold on sale for much cheaper prices.

So even if sales do devalue games over time (but I'd argue they don't, because the sale prices are actually the real value of what the games are really worth, and the reason why they reach those sale prices in the first place is only because they weren't selling a lot of copies at higher prices), then GOG would still have to go along with that premise anyway, since not having sales isn't a viable alternative.

Never having sales might have been viable at one point when GOG only had obsolete old games that have a low starting MSRPs like $5.99 USD in the first place.

But when, like now, GOG sells games that include prices of $59.99+ USD, then there is no way that never having sales on those games is going to work out. Then they would simply stagnate with no one buying them after the first few months of their original release date.

Just like how no one ever buys Terminator: Resistance on GOG even though it is a popular and sought-after game...but even so, no one buys it on GOG anyway solely because it never goes on sale on GOG.

That's just reality though. Back in the day, before digital distribution took everything over, games were gradually with time descending into lower and lower price tiers. Nowadays it's more common to keep high base price forever and giving high discounts multiple times a year - and that discounted price has to be considered actual value of the product because no one expect you to pay $60 for 10 years old games. It's just apparently more profitable to give illusion of great deal with time limited -XX% than permanently lowering base price to the same level.

It definitely has faded but you can still see remnants of the old model, either with physical copies at Gamestop that do tend to trend downward in price over time. Or with most iterative series, not counting Call of Duty and Falcom games to name a few, but with Ubisoft and EA franchises certainly, Jedi Fallen Order now being substantially cheaper than it was a few months ago for example.

• $0.99 • -90% • Volgarr the Viking
• $2.99 • -80% • Zombie Rollerz: Pinball Heroes
• $3.99 • -80% • Plebby Quest: The Crusades
• $3.99 • -80% • Unsouled
• $4.24 • -75% • Warpips
• $5.99 • -70% • Raiders! Forsaken Earth
• $6.74 • -70% • Plebby Quest: The Crusades Soundtrack Pack
• $7.49 • -70% • Insurmountable
• $8.09 • -70% • Plebby Quest Edition Pack
• $8.09 • -70% • Unsouled Digital Deluxe Bundle
• $9.99 • -50% • Aircraft Carrier Survival
• $12.94 • -61% • Insurmountable - Supporter Bundle
• $18.74 • -25% • Inkulinati

It's not a matter of "fanboyism". There are pro-consumer practices and anti-consumer practices. To act as though it is TriBaLiSm is indeed defending the anti-consumer practices if one is making excuses for the latter...and, for that matter, even if there are two "tribes" with pro-consumer and anti-consumer, there is clearly one worth defending and one with negative value.

As for the sale in this topic, DRM-free Volgarr the Viking is easily worth the full price for those of us into difficult games...the 90% discount making it just under a dollar is a huge deal. Absolutely recommended imo, but only to the other masochist sort of gamers among us.