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Caesar.: I just don't have the time to visit GOG every hour to see what's on sale
You don't have to. The games are on sale for 8 hours. Sure, that's still short enough to miss one or two games, but... Well... Who cares? It's just one of many sales throughout the year. I'm pretty sure some kind of easter or spring sale is just around the corner ;)
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ZFR: It's OK. I buy twice as much to make up for those lost sales.
No need I'm not stopping buying GOG games, and already have over 300 games from GOG.
After an initial sales splurge, most of them were bought when the games first arrive on GOG, not in sales.

It's rare for there to be any game I'd actually want, in a sale, so I'll only give it a look once per sale.
If GOG's hiding deals behind time limits, they and the devs will lose my potential purchases.

Steam only stopped using Flash sales after they offered automatic refunds, that's not a coincidence.
Flash sales are unethical, and intended to spur consumers into hasty decisions.
My hasty decision is to ignore the entire sales where they are used.

Much as I like GOG's Offline installers, I'll still call them out when I think they are being anti-consumer.

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Ancient-Red-Dragon: GOG's lottery-style-gambling sales are a lot more anti-consumer than flash sales, but I don't recall people making a thread like this one about them.

Not sure why Steam is being cited as if it's a legitimate authority about this subject. Steam itself is anti-consumer by trying conditionally to rent games to customers who in exchange for that same money should be owning those games unconditionally.
I know I've discussed the Pinata Lottery bullshit before, in sales threads, and if the Forum would show me all "My Posts", instead of just the last 7 days, I'd show them, but here's a few threads that had "Pinata" in the title
Sad to See GOG stoop to Gambling aka Pinatas, page 1 - Forum - GOG.com
Pinatas suck, page 1 - Forum - GOG.com
Concerning GOGs Pinata Madness and the nature of gambling, page 1 - Forum - GOG.com

As for Steam, as posted in above reply, they had only a financial incentive to stop using Flash sales, and I buy all games I own on Steam, on GOG the day they are released here, and unless they have Workshop mods, remove them from my Steam Account for good. I detest the Workshop, but you must own the game on Steam to even download the mods.

Steam is a cess pit, but it has no flash sales, even if the reason why is loss of profit, the results the same.
Post edited February 14, 2018 by UhuruNUru
Eh, I'm lucky enough to be able to check these things throughout the day, and I still don't see the benefit for the consumer here. They're the same discounts, but time-restricted. If they were new historical lows, then that'd be exciting. But if it's just going to be the same discount as always, there's nothing to get excited about. There's something in particular I want from this Lunar sale, it's not on sale right now, and all I'm getting from these flash sales is frustration every time an hour passes. It's never what I want, and it may even be something that was on flash sale a few hours ago. It sucks as a shopping experience. Just put everything on sale at once and have it last the full duration.
I'm fond of the flash/limited quantity sale. You can usually find better discounts vs something on sale for two weeks. To each their own.
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Ancient-Red-Dragon: GOG's lottery-style-gambling sales are a lot more anti-consumer than flash sales, but I don't recall people making a thread like this one about them.

Not sure why Steam is being cited as if it's a legitimate authority about this subject. Steam itself is anti-consumer by trying conditionally to rent games to customers who in exchange for that same money should be owning those games unconditionally.
https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/genetic
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Ancient-Red-Dragon: GOG's lottery-style-gambling sales ... but I don't recall people making a thread like this one about them.
Seriously?

There are a zillion threads about them every time GOG does it.

(or any other sales format for that matter, but with lottery sales it's one complaint thread after another).
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jepsen1977: It's not anti-consumer because the flash-sale is inconvenient but because the sale plays a trick on us. It uses our need for hoarding in times of scarcity by putting a fairly strict time-limit on the sale. That tricks the brain into wanting to get the "thing" before it's gone and also by not giving us enough time to really research the game before we buy. GoG apparently need to trick us to buy something rather than the standard sales with anywhere from 4-14 days to make up your mind. Flash-sales aren't the worst though - the insomnia-sale are much much worse in this but I would consider both to be anti-consumer in that they use a gimmick to get us to buy rather than a straight up sale.
Honestly that sound a little far fetched in my opinion; first nowadays you don't need 4-14 days to decide if a game might interest you, literally in a couple of seconds you can have access to tons of reviews, first impressions, let's play, etc... anything you need to know if a game might interest you or not, especially as games on sales are usually "older" ones (as in released a couple of weeks/months ago).

Also it's not like games sales are rare of anything of the like that, so there is not really any sense of "scarcity" anymore, even if you miss a 90% off sale you can simply wait a couple of weeks or months for the same game to be again 90% or even more.

Finally the same argument could be used for any sales, especially deep sales, they are nothing more than a gimmick to trick you into buying things you would normally wouldn't have at full price; how many peoples end up with games on Steam, or Gog for that matter, that they will never play and only bought because they were at 90%+ off.
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ZFR: Seriously?

There are a zillion threads about them every time GOG does it.

(or any other sales format for that matter, but with lottery sales it's one complaint thread after another).
What the? A totally regular weekend sale‽ Why has GOG forsake me?
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UhuruNUru: Even Steam has given up doing this shit, I thin k it's long past time GOG also did.

Have a sale, and make all the deals available for the full length of the sale.

No stupid gimmicks, just the best deals available for the full length of the sale.

If I want to buy any of the games, I will do so.

All these Flash sales do is lose GOG sales, from those that haven't the time, or inclination to chase this crap.
Plus customers like me that, have and will by many games on GOG, but boycott these types of sales entirely.

Far from getting me to chase these silly time limits, these deals make me avoid GOG for the entire sale.
I won't return here until 21st Febuary, when this trashy sale is finished.
First off, Steam "gave up" on having flash sales because they capitulated to EU legal requirements regarding consumer "right to return" requirements for digital products, NOT because it was a failed promotional method, WHICH IT MOST CERTAINLY WASN'T. Nobody talks about how Steam sales are great now. They aren't great. They are inferior to the old sales and the old flash sales promotions. Flash sales induce more traffic to the site on a daily basis. It creates interest and usually involves LARGER reductions in price than the other games on sale. It BENEFITS the consumer because of those factors.

Amazing how so many people were involved in the Insomnia GOG Promotions. You one size fits all sale people would intentionally avoid this kind of promotion, which offered limited revolving amounts of games that switched every time they ran out, yet hundreds of thousands of people did enjoy them, and refer to the excitement they engendered as people would go without sleep trying to catch a huge deal.

Your personal standards are not typical of most consumers and aren't representative of them. Stop pretending that your interests SHOULD be the interests of everyone else.
Post edited February 15, 2018 by seaspanky
It should also be said that the sale has a repeating rotation that is so slow and repetitive that if you missed a deal it isn't a big deal.

I think some people are just sour because they can't control their own OCD about catching the important deal they were otherwise going to miss. I'd say it's one thing for in game rewards or something, but it's a sale we're talking about, not pre-order DLC.
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UhuruNUru: Steam only stopped using Flash sales after they offered automatic refunds, that's not a coincidence.
Flash sales are unethical, and intended to spur consumers into hasty decisions.
My hasty decision is to ignore the entire sales where they are used.
Steam stopped flash sales because they stopped fighting EU regulations. They imposed a crap automatic refunds standard for ALL regions which meant that flash sales HAD to be removed, because everyone would just return games that went on flash sale later, meaning potential tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of returns for games on normal sale reductions that had a flash sale. Flash sales meant better deals for those who bothered to check the site. You don't like checking the site more than once, you just want to check one, never again during the promotion, and have everything fit your interest. Millions of other consumers would like a return to flash sales because we were able to maximize the purchase power of our money by getting FAR better flash deals than are ever offered normally. To say that the normal average percentage discount has IMPROVED or remained the same for Steam sales is a statement of complete ignorance or an outright lie.

That you actually state that you ignore the ENTIRE sales where flash sales are used is just laughable and is in no way representative of normal consumers and their interests. That you find flash sales unethical is again, just laughable. Most sales promotions are done with the outright aim of inducing consumer interests in what is being offered. Retailers have ZERO ethical or legal requirements regarding your kind of desired restraints on everyday normal sales promotions and pitches. Every single time a corner shop displays a sales promotion or a store wide sales with 2 for 1 specials, by your standard, those would be UNETHICAL because they are intended to grab the interest of the consumer and induce a hasty decision... hahah. Just laughable.
I must say I am finding this idea of a new game going on sale every hour and only for a very short time very annoying. Already I've received two emails that items on my wishlist were discounted, only to discover that the discount had ended when I logged in to GOG. I don't receive emails immediately via my phone. I have to sign in on the web and I usually do that only once a day.
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seaspanky: Steam stopped flash sales because they stopped fighting EU regulations. They imposed a crap automatic refunds standard for ALL regions which meant that flash sales HAD to be removed, because everyone would just return games that went on flash sale later, meaning potential tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of returns for games on normal sale reductions that had a flash sale. Flash sales meant better deals for those who bothered to check the site. You don't like checking the site more than once, you just want to check one, never again during the promotion, and have everything fit your interest. Millions of other consumers would like a return to flash sales because we were able to maximize the purchase power of our money by getting FAR better flash deals than are ever offered normally. To say that the normal average percentage discount has IMPROVED or remained the same for Steam sales is a statement of complete ignorance or an outright lie.

That you actually state that you ignore the ENTIRE sales where flash sales are used is just laughable and is in no way representative of normal consumers and their interests. That you find flash sales unethical is again, just laughable. Most sales promotions are done with the outright aim of inducing consumer interests in what is being offered. Retailers have ZERO ethical or legal requirements regarding your kind of desired restraints on everyday normal sales promotions and pitches. Every single time a corner shop displays a sales promotion or a store wide sales with 2 for 1 specials, by your standard, those would be UNETHICAL because they are intended to grab the interest of the consumer and induce a hasty decision... hahah. Just laughable.
If you bothered to quote my entire post, you would find your points already covered.

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UhuruNUru: No need I'm not stopping buying GOG games, and already have over 300 games from GOG.
After an initial sales splurge, most of them were bought when the games first arrive on GOG, not in sales.

It's rare for there to be any game I'd actually want, in a sale, so I'll only give it a look once per sale.
If GOG's hiding deals behind time limits, they and the devs will lose my potential purchases.

Steam only stopped using Flash sales after they offered automatic refunds, that's not a coincidence.
Flash sales are unethical, and intended to spur consumers into hasty decisions.
My hasty decision is to ignore the entire sales where they are used.

Much as I like GOG's Offline installers, I'll still call them out when I think they are being anti-consumer.

I know I've discussed the Pinata Lottery bullshit before, in sales threads, and if the Forum would show me all "My Posts", instead of just the last 7 days, I'd show them, but here's a few threads that had "Pinata" in the title
Sad to See GOG stoop to Gambling aka Pinatas, page 1 - Forum - GOG.com
Pinatas suck, page 1 - Forum - GOG.com
Concerning GOGs Pinata Madness and the nature of gambling, page 1 - Forum - GOG.com

As for Steam, as posted in above reply, they had only a financial incentive to stop using Flash sales, and I buy all games I own on Steam, on GOG the day they are released here, and unless they have Workshop mods, remove them from my Steam Account for good. I detest the Workshop, but you must own the game on Steam to even download the mods.

Steam is a cess pit, but it has no flash sales, even if the reason why is loss of profit, the results the same.
Steam has stopped Flash Sales, and that's all I said, I never said they wanted to stop, just it was no longer profitable.
I'll ignore the entire sale, in protest at the flash sales, to make my point.
Having already bought every single game I actually want, it's very unlikely I'd buy anything in the sale,
I think I've got one, or two game in a sale, over last couple of years
Unless I miss a particular release, I usually have already bought what I want long before the sale.
I only look at the sales once, these days.
Post edited February 15, 2018 by UhuruNUru
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UhuruNUru: I'll ignore the entire sale, in protest at the flash sales, to make my point.
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UhuruNUru: Having already bought every single game I actually want, it's very unlikely I'd buy anything in the sale,
*lol*