I doubt it. I'm sure the likes of Steam have done well with their Halloween sales. There are lots of decent horror games of many different game types. Regular sales aren't anything to write home about. They can be done at any time in the year.

The fact that GOG has done alot of sales is great. But they could have put 1 horror game for their wednesday gem promo instead of a bunch of random games for sale.

You don't really think that the games in this promo will sell more or attract more people to GOG than a horror-themed pack of discounted GOG classics would, do you?

A point to consider though, is that most of the 'scary' games GoG sells are games not available on other sites, so they still would have been in a unique position for sales since this is the only place to get said games.

I can't tell. It's not impossible, but I don't have access to the data that would be required to even make an educated guess. I was, however, mainly talking about GOG's recent tendency of bucking the trend in general, not about the games in this promo specifically.

Generally, the market situation is like this:

Steam, which controls about 80% of the market, puts lots of scary games on sale for prices that GOG can't (or doesn't want to) compete with. Several other shops follow suit. At this point, for GOG, doing their own promo of similar games would appeal to a very small segment of the market, namely people who are specifically interested in the older or Indie titles that GOG's catalog consists of. All other potential customers will find Steam's offers (newer games for less money) more appealing.

In short: GOG has neither the catalog nor the financial power to compete with Steam on whichever turf Steam has currently chosen. Therefore, bucking the trend seems a viable alternative.

Whether or not this succeeds, will hinge on details that we don't know. We don't know how many of GOG's customers have already bought the scary games in the catalog. We don't know how many customers are interested in the "cute" games in the current promo. We don't know how many new customers have been driven to GOG by the recent two bundle sales, and what their preferences are. GOG has this data, or at least can extrapolate it from users' wishlists.

Nevertheless, I maintain that the general notion of bucking trends that other shops are following, seems very viable for GOG, considering the current structure of the market.


Yes. The question is if GOG would really benefit from putting these games on sale at a time when everyone else is offering games that are similar, newer, and cheaper.

With people, bucking the trend is usually unpopular. If someone goes with the crowd, they are more likely to have success.

So with a business it may be the same?

Yeah I have no way of knowing whether or not they'd actually benefit, but I can say that the issue of newer and cheaper wouldn't come into play, though similar might be an issue. People come to GoG for the classics, so newer is irrelevant, and at typically something like 2.99 a game when on sale, that makes cheaper irrelevant as well since 2.99 is insanely cheap -- cheaper than most games of the games on sale through Steam, in fact.

I would have rather seen a horror game promo, but it's not a big deal either way. The only two games I would want from this sale are the two good Simon games, which I already own. The rest of the games I have exactly zero interest in playing, so I guess it just means a week where I don't buy any games from GoG ;p

If that were true, then Apple would have been dead a decade ago. ;)

It's a simple matter (imho) of supply, demand, and certain attributes of the offered products. If all (or most) of your competitors supply one type of product, and you can't beat those offers either by price or by perceived quality, then bucking the trend may allow you to tap into those parts of the customer demand that your competitors are currently neglecting.

Ipads/pods are trend setters, and i think thats what has kept apple alive. It's certainly a mainstream product.

I believe Psyringe made some really good points to consider.

Being a person who doesn't generally like horror games, I find it very refreshing to find some games that don't fit that genre for sale. Being the pricepoint that they are, it also makes me consider purchasing games that I maybe wouldn't otherwise.

The games on aren't the kind that generally grab the newer gamers, but rather the target market GOG originally went for.

Though I believe I'm in the minority of gamers, I'm sure this sale has attracted some. And as said before, GOG isn't able to compete with some of the sales (both in price and games offered), perhaps this will allow GOG an edge on the other minorities.

Another thing to consider... when all the game sites are having their sales people spend a lot of money. A sale on smaller or inexpenseive games (like GOG's sale) allows some to purchase an extra game or two when they may not have otherwise.

We simply don't know the statistics. It'd be interesting to see the actual results :)

Well, actually, GOG doesn't want to limit its customer base to the people who only come here for the classics. ANd I think you underestimate the effect of even small differences in price on the potential customers. :)

If GOG puts (say) Alone in the Dark 1-3, and AitD: A new Nightmare on sale for 3$ each, while its competitors are offering AitD 5 or (say) F.E.A.R. for a lower price, then a huge part of the customer base will prefer those latter offers. Note that I'm not even saying that the latter games are better than the previous ones I mentioned, I'm simply arguing from a perspective of customer decisions. So if GOG put those two items on sale right now, they would probably appeal only to the people who are interested exactly in those specific products, and they wouldn't create a lot of publicity, since everybody sells similar games right now.

If GOG puts these games on sale a bit later (or, ideally, earlier), then they would appeal not only to the people interested in those specific games, but also to the people who are interested in playing a scary game right at that moment, and can't find a good offer on the market at that point in time.

Personally I don't think I'll buy anything from the current promo either (well, perhaps one game, but it's not quite at the price point where I'd bite yet). On the other hand, I already own most of the scary GOG games that I'm interested in already. Promos of games like Gabriel Knight, Sanitarium, or Phantasmagoria, haven't been especially rare here. ;)

From my perspective, it seems GOG has generally been "bucking the trend"- they started with the focus on old games that were hard to find. They give free games to EVERYONE who makes an account, they are DRM free to the core, and the community is helpful and great.

It seems the only thing to me that isn't "bucking the trend" is the addition of new and generally Indie games (since Indie games have become a trend). I believe GOG attracts a lot of people who are not trend followers, including the older gaming community.

I think any business is taking a risk when they go against the trend moreso than following it. Going another direction is usually either considered a "death sentance" or "revolutionary".

Could go either way :) Thanks for the input Gameon

I'd be curious to see some statistics as well, but I wouldn't be surprised if some of you might be overstating the issue of worrying about GoG's sales because other websites are having sales. I could be wrong of course, but I'd think GoG would still do fine, because GoG sells games to a niche market. GoG isn't at all like Steam; it's not a massive digital distribution platform that sells all the latest and greatest games. It's a smaller market that caters almost exclusively to people who are interested in the classics, DRM free. So, I'm not sure that other websites really take any business away from GoG because the vast majority of what is available on GoG, updated to run on modern OS's, simply isn't available anywhere else.
True. Though, I didn't pick up a few of the horror themed games the last time they were on sale (like Phantasmagoria) because I was buying so much other stuff and I was hoping there'd be a Halloween sale ;p Oh well! Maybe I'll pick them up at Christmas time.

I could certainly be wrong as well. :) One thing we all seemk to agree on is that we don't have enough data to do anything but speculation. :)

I think that GOG is trying to break out of its niche though. But that discussion is a whole different can of worms. ;)

Speaking of worms, I really wish they'd get Worms Armageddon on here =( I know that Worms United and Worms 2 are on sale right now, but I simply can't buy any Worms games because I know how good WA is =( If I hadn't ever played WA, then I probably would jump all over these two Worms games that are on sale.