Nope.

I could see someone saying indie games aren't worth getting unless you know you will play through them right away as they usually go on sale or hit a bundle not long after release. However that isn't something unique to GOG.

If a game you are interested in costs more than you are willing to pay, wait for a sale.

Same here. Especially NWN 1 and 2. The amount of free content for them is simply staggering.

... are the death of the industry.

I would like to see some statistics of the amount of unplayed games ever since they introduced large sales. I sometimes look up people that have responded to a discussion thread that own 500+ or more games and too often even 50% of those game have never even been started. Not that Steam's statistics is perfect but still, people shop for more games than they need (including myself).

Anyway, I don't think they're too expensive otherwise I wouldn't buy so many games here but I do tend to wait for discounts as I plan to get many games so I prefer if the average price is lower so I can make it possible.

Some of the new games however are overpriced though but as I said I wait for a discount.

ShinyLoot's non-discounted prices start from under a dollar.

Sure, sure. Most of us probably prefer GOG over any other store, but the thing is that Steam has a lot more customers who are also willing to pay extra to get a game specifically from Steam. GOG is just one small store among many other which all have their own loyal clientele.

Yes. It's like asking if you'd eat more oranges if apples were five times more expensive. ;-)

These are all good questions, but asking them won't change the situation. I'm myself not likely to pay a full price on an indie game because of bundles, but then again, I'm spending more money on indie games because of bundles. From reports it sounds like devs are making higher net profits with lower prices and I'm assuming the bundles make a lot of money since I'm seeing the same devs getting more of their games into bundles. Like Jeff Vogel, who was for a long time against the thought of lowering the prices of his games, once got his game into a bundle. Since then, how many times we have seen Spiderweb games in bundles? I guess it's done good for Spiderweb.

It's hard to say what are all the effects of these really cheap prices to the industry in the long run, but it is indeed a funny situation when there's a large gap between the value and the price.

That is an interesting question!

I remember when I was a child (~15 years ago) most games costed around 80-100DM, that would be ~40-50€ and if you take into account inflation than it is probably 80-100€. Remembering the little pocket money I had during that time I needed a long time of saving and waiting and saving and waiting until I could afford just one game. And now there is GOG with so many great games for just a few bucks.

I understand the point that mobile games are even cheaper nowadays. But on the other hand I wonder in what time you want to play your games? Just take the 80€ that you neded to buy ONE game back then and buy at least 10 games on GOG for that amount of money. How much time would you need to play through all of these games? One year? Of course, to get something for free is always cheaper than to buy something. But still...

For me the only problem is to decide how many games I can possibly play in a reasonable amount of time and not what their price is. At least since I know GOG.

Wait for sales or bundle deals if you think 6 or 10 is too expensive. Really, though, aside from the new/indie games getting into 30-50 dollar price range, you're getting quality games tested to run on new machines at a great price.

I think this is a key statement. These games are guaranteed to run on modern machines. You are also paying for, in my mind, top notch customer service. If games come out buggy or unstable I have seen GoG jump through hoops to get it fixed (MotoRacer 2 I believe). If they were just slapping old titles with nothing else done to them, I would say they were too expensive. But the fact that they work, just makes the experience better.

If I may ask, how much did you pay for a game on GOG back in 2008?

Late to the party and all the good points are already taken, so I'll just reiterate that the classic games are well priced, indeed too cheap in some cases. Given the difficulties in securing the rights of release and making these titles compatible with new systems, I'm often surprised that GOG makes enough money to keep afloat. Yet they still manage to have sales, as well as instituting the recent perma-bundle discounts on related titles. I expect this is feasible simply because a lot of older titles don't command much a base cut from GOG's take. And perhaps the money they make goes further in Poland than it would in say Germany or the US.

I live in a country where the Walmart phenomenon is killing off decent products and companies because people expect to pay pennies when it should be dollars. This leads to a downward spiral on the whole economy, since you can't pay decent wages to workers who produce underpriced goods. Looking at the overall picture, there are times when a bargain is most assuredly not a bargain.

No, I don't think GOG's prices are too high.

Pretty much this.

Common sense seems to say that pushing the prices down to ridiculously low would hurt the industry, but by all accounts the effect seems to be the opposite.

"Despite the fact that Steam sales mark games down to just a small fraction of their usual price, the developers we spoke to don't think these promotions are devaluing games at all. Based on the data they've seen, Steam sales have only been a good thing for their business."

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/174587/Steam_sales_How_deep_discounts_really_affect_your_games.php

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2011/07/volume-vs-price-one-indie-dev-describes-steam-sales/

Interesting how things work. Besides added revenue, cheap prices also seem to introduce indie games to a wider audience. Also, it doesn't seem like cheaper prices make people spend less in gaming. The revenue is simply spread around more evenly to more developers. I can see this a good thing for small indie devs.

I think you can point at some specific examples and say that they are a bit on the expensive side, but overall, no.
There are even some games which I feel could cost a bit more. Not that I want them to cost more, but GOG & EA could easily get away with selling Alpha Centauri for $10, and it would still be a good deal.

Digital media is exceptional in one way, which is that reproduction cost are negligible. It takes time for someone to create an appliance or design a garment, then there are further costs in realise each one physically. In the digital world, once the initial product is created, it can be reproduced effectively to any amount at almost no cost. So once a game is done selling at its debut price, it can easily be marked down to a lower price to drive more sales, as there are no additional costs to recoup.

The main issue is whether or not it makes a profit over its cost of creation. For an indie title with a tiny team and no expectations of wealth, selling 25,000 copies at a dollar each may not be a bad thing. But for a large game studio, or a vendor like GOG, you need a credible amount of income to remain viable. Undercutting the prices reduces the overall perception of the value of games, and thus lowers what people think are acceptable prices. Certainly there is an argument to be made in case where cutting the price in half triples the sales, and thus more money is made, but with any supply-demand equation, there is a point at which the model breaks down and further reductions are not offset by increased demand.

Anecdotal evidence like that which you cite is useful, but needs to be taken in the context of the market as a whole. Many people didn't believe that big box chain stores would have the deleterious effect on the economy that they did either, because they were viewing data in isolation.

Are they really? On GOG BG was I think already off at least 60%, that would mean $4, even cheaper than on the iPad. About 30% cheaper which could be exactly the Apple tax. For me the prices seem comparable. Are there any more games on GOG also available for mobiles, so we can check more games?