I like Good Old Games. I like their DRM free philosophy, their dedication to hunting down old stuff and making it runnable on current systems, their usually reasonable prices, their refusal to use Geo-IP identification. I find though that the way they promote their games brings about a weird behavior in me that I probably wouldn't have if things were priced statically.
 
As frequent users know, GOG regularly promotes older releases through sales every weekend, often from a single publisher or part of a theme. The discounts vary, sometimes decreasing on a sliding scale based on how many you buy. Considering the games are already individually priced from 10 dollars on down, the extra discounts are often symbolic; they're gunning for a volume of sales.
 
When a game I like is featured, part of me goes "when I'm more willing to play the thing, I should definitely get on that, but right now I'd just be throwing the money away." So I wait, because I know that games will likely go on sale again, even though it may be months or even years before that might happen. It sets up part of a sort of gambling mentality, where I try to balance what I'd do with the little wad of cash I'd be spending while I wait for my interest to reach its peak.
 
Yet when my interest HAS reached its peak, like it has with Darklands or a few other games they have featured, if the current sale doesn't include the games I'm interested in, or if the discount drops if I try to exclude the ones I'm not interested in, I hesitate. If the game isn't included in the sale, no matter how much I might want it, part of me wonders if I could save a few bucks by waiting. It's almost more from pride than a monetary decision; I feel like I'm one of the dupes if I buy too early.
 
I don't have this twisted thinking when buying games straight from the market. I know that you pay a lot to start, and as time goes by you may get discounts (and whatever you may think of used games or renting games, those are priced even lower after other people had paid to play the same game at a premium). Because there's an understanding that the demand will only increase past the initial release if the price is dropped, you have a certainty in this relationship that lets you plan your next move and buy things when they reach a comfortable level.
 
The comparison isn't exact because GOG tends to release games that have been out for quite a while, but many of the widgets they sell are games I haven't seen in such a long time that they might as well be new to me. If big-time new releases were treated the way the majority of GOG games were treated, I wonder if people might buy less of them knowing that some day in the future there would likely be a sale. 
 
So, I find that for an individual game, like Darklands or Starflight (1 and 2), the choice is not so hard. I look at the price, 6 bucks each in this case, and convince myself it's not so bad. When you don't feel too strongly about the game, though, there's this doubt that creeps up. "What if I wait a bit? Will they put it on sale?" I wonder if all these promotions, then, wind up causing a bit of lag in sales. In the case of games I love, like Starflight and Darklands, I wonder if they will be part of a bigger sale at some point. So, because the games I want are associated with other games I might never want to buy or play that might be part of some future sale, the gambler in me chooses to bide its time.
 
Still, if they had a static pricing drop I don't think it work quite as well as it does for most high-budget releases, since a lot of these games bank on nostalgia, a value that's not likely to change a whole lot over time, rather than the urge to be on the cutting edge of the games conversation (like I have with Skyrim, or used to have with Grand Theft Auto). Maybe if I focus on getting the few games I absolutely want, the ones that keep coming up in my mind, I might actually be LESS susceptible to sales later on because I won't feel like I'm holding back just for them.
 
Not sure any of you out there go through this. I'm willing to bet some of you buy things you like and don't worry so much about potential price drops, although I imagine some of these folks wind up with a bunch of games they have yet to play. I do have some of that going on, but not to the extent I've seen some people go, according to some of the lists I've seen here. Does Steam foster a similar behavior, or are their sales more all-encompassing than GOG's?

I like Good Old Games. I like their DRM free philosophy, their dedication to hunting down old stuff and making it runnable on current systems, their usually reasonable prices, their refusal to use Geo-IP identification. I find though that the way they promote their games brings about a weird behavior in me that I probably wouldn't have if things were priced statically.
 
As frequent users know, GOG regularly promotes older releases through sales every weekend, often from a single publisher or part of a theme. The discounts vary, sometimes decreasing on a sliding scale based on how many you buy. Considering the games are already individually priced from 10 dollars on down, the extra discounts are often symbolic; they're gunning for a volume of sales.
 
When a game I like is featured, part of me goes "when I'm more willing to play the thing, I should definitely get on that, but right now I'd just be throwing the money away." So I wait, because I know that games will likely go on sale again, even though it may be months or even years before that might happen. It sets up part of a sort of gambling mentality, where I try to balance what I'd do with the little wad of cash I'd be spending while I wait for my interest to reach its peak.
 
Yet when my interest HAS reached its peak, like it has with Darklands or a few other games they have featured, if the current sale doesn't include the games I'm interested in, or if the discount drops if I try to exclude the ones I'm not interested in, I hesitate. If the game isn't included in the sale, no matter how much I might want it, part of me wonders if I could save a few bucks by waiting. It's almost more from pride than a monetary decision; I feel like I'm one of the dupes if I buy too early.
 
I don't have this twisted thinking when buying games straight from the market. I know that you pay a lot to start, and as time goes by you may get discounts (and whatever you may think of used games or renting games, those are priced even lower after other people had paid to play the same game at a premium). Because there's an understanding that the demand will only increase past the initial release if the price is dropped, you have a certainty in this relationship that lets you plan your next move and buy things when they reach a comfortable level.
 
The comparison isn't exact because GOG tends to release games that have been out for quite a while, but many of the widgets they sell are games I haven't seen in such a long time that they might as well be new to me. If big-time new releases were treated the way the majority of GOG games were treated, I wonder if people might buy less of them knowing that some day in the future there would likely be a sale. 
 
So, I find that for an individual game, like Darklands or Starflight (1 and 2), the choice is not so hard. I look at the price, 6 bucks each in this case, and convince myself it's not so bad. When you don't feel too strongly about the game, though, there's this doubt that creeps up. "What if I wait a bit? Will they put it on sale?" I wonder if all these promotions, then, wind up causing a bit of lag in sales. In the case of games I love, like Starflight and Darklands, I wonder if they will be part of a bigger sale at some point. So, because the games I want are associated with other games I might never want to buy or play that might be part of some future sale, the gambler in me chooses to bide its time.
 
Still, if they had a static pricing drop I don't think it work quite as well as it does for most high-budget releases, since a lot of these games bank on nostalgia, a value that's not likely to change a whole lot over time, rather than the urge to be on the cutting edge of the games conversation (like I have with Skyrim, or used to have with Grand Theft Auto). Maybe if I focus on getting the few games I absolutely want, the ones that keep coming up in my mind, I might actually be LESS susceptible to sales later on because I won't feel like I'm holding back just for them.
 
Not sure any of you out there go through this. I'm willing to bet some of you buy things you like and don't worry so much about potential price drops, although I imagine some of these folks wind up with a bunch of games they have yet to play. I do have some of that going on, but not to the extent I've seen some people go, according to some of the lists I've seen here. Does Steam foster a similar behavior, or are their sales more all-encompassing than GOG's?

I used to have a problem with steam sales, until I owned everything they put on sale. So now I dont feel the need to check steam daily. but normaly I dont mind paying full price for a game if I know I will like it.

This happens to me all the time with Steam. Especially if there's a deal on a single game in a franchise I'm hesitant to buy it because I know it will inevitably end up in a "Complete collection" type deal later on.

With indie games it's starting to get even worse to get a sense of value when you have the Humble Indie Bundle and Royal Indie Bundle that both offer redeemable Steam codes for the games. For instance, I had waited for Aquaria to go on sale for a long time, as it was 20 € for the longest time. Ironically, I ended up buying it unknowingly just this week as part of a retroactively added bonus to the Humble Introversion Bundle.

I often wonder how sustainable these huge discounts on Steam will be in the long run. I feel like we're already seeing a lot of people complain that they already own everything, and thus have nothing to buy. I only started using Steam seriously in 2008 or so, and now I have over 200 games tied to my account. Before that, I was even against the whole idea of digital distribution. It may just be a problem for us enthusiast gamers now, but I think that eventually more and more people will encounter the same "problem" of already owning almost everything they might want to play.

I imagine GOG is still a long way from having that issue with their customer base, but who knows? As you mentioned, nostalgia is a powerful selling point, but does having sales lessen that sense of value? I imagine it does, but it's impossible to say how much.

Yes, I suppose you're right about the nostalgia factor not changing much over time. Either you want that old game you used to love or you don't.

And sure, 200 games is a significant investment, but when you have these dirt cheap deals it becomes a non-issue. At least for me. What's more worrying though is that I'm never inclined to buy anything at full price anymore (well, to be honest I rarely did anyway). It's just impossible for me to justify paying full price for a game when I already own tons of unplayed/unfinished games. Even when there's a game I would really love to play on day 1 (like Skyrim, for instance), I look at my backlog and just go "No". Still, even with that overwhelming backlog I would never pass up on a good deal.

I realize I'm straying further away from the original topic so I'll just stop writing now.

Steam sales are bad enough, but I never end up playing anything to completion I buy from GoG.

It's only 6-9 bucks. You're not saving a ton there.

I almost never buy anything at full price on steam, unless it's something I really want or I'm in one of those "bad impulse buy" moods, something that as a poor college student I have been trying to suppress, this time by vowing to not spend any more money on Steam for the rest of the year. I digress. Generally, waiting for a game to go on sale isn't a very big gamble the way it is for GOG, since steam has midweek madness, weekend deals and daily deals in addition to the wallet-destroying holiday sale. I figure that since I've only played around half my steam library, I'm good this year.

Same goes for GOG, though their deals are more of a gamble, at least until the holidays when everything is cheap, not that it matters a ton anyways since I have pretty much everything I would ever want to play in my library already (and plenty of things that I never want to play again), and considering my play-rate for those games is even lower than that for my Steam library, I once again feel perfectly fine in not touching anything this year.

Of course, the last time all the D&D games were on sale I managed to facilitate that into one of the weirder blogging competitions on this website. Temple of Elemental Evil for $2.50 or so is not a deal to be trifled with.

Don't have really anything to add here. Pretty much on same line with Tordah here. One thing I need say that these sales are evil.

I own 150 games on GOG and have played very few of them (specifically in their GOG iterations, that is), so clearly I have very little restraint when it comes to buying games online provided that their initial, non-sale price is so low to begin with. My own reasoning when buying GOG games for their full price (despite the almost certain knowledge of upcoming sales in which said game will be included) is as follows; A) I want to support GOG as strongly as possible for taking the time to acquire the license to release the game in question, and B) I want to send a signal to the publishers/rights holders in question that these are the kinds of games I'm willing to spend money on. Not that I think that, say, Ubisoft will actually start funding a Might & Magic X just because I own MM1-9 on GOG, but it's better to speak with my wallet than just whine about why no AAA publishers release good old school RPGs anymore...

That said, despite my relatively large GOG library I've definitely held off on a few purchases - sometimes for many months - for some of the same reasons (i.e. not being quite satisified with the selection of games included in the "sliding scales" sales etc.). It only lasts for so long, though, and right now just about the only GOG release with real nostalgic importance for me that I don't already own is Settlers 2.