Plenty of folk unfortunately, willingly pay high prices ... even some who can't really afford them.

They keep the prices high for the rest of us. What comes around goes around.

Sure, some will say they are just giving support to the Dev or GOG. I can relate to some degree, but very few Devs (usually because of the Pubs) pass my cynical test, and even GOG much of the time, though they are certainly better in many ways. For me, it is not just about what they do, but what they don't do.

I also apply logic. If something is truly good, then the reward is there for the Dev and Pub and GOG. We don't need to give them further advantages, which they all too often abuse in some way. In any case, if us giving them extra is necessary, then really they just aren't going to survive and probably shouldn't try, and we shouldn't waste our money on them.

And honestly some folk, many now it seems, have far more money than sense. They have very little or no self control, cannot wait and must have now, even though the choice out there now is huge, and so relatively easy to bide your time.

We all know, or should, that full price is mostly an absolute con job. Just as false rarity with a digital product is a con job.

especially those who can't, it would seem. I want to cry everytime I see people wailing when they "must" take out a loan to purhcase something trivial and overpriced that they cannot live without; whatever the product and whatever the reason. I won't waste your time by enumerating them all, it would only be a vast and inexhaustive list of why humanity baffles me.

I will agree with you here. But knowing this, does it not sometimes call the earlier logic into question? That many things survive, things which are truly poor, displicable things, because they appeal to people with more money than sense. Some addictive games designed to part a player from his money come to mind. Though perhaps something tapping into a primal instinctual enjoyment is "good" so to speak, by different criteria - or that this is the "good" which survives and thrives by least resistance. That which is truly good may require additional funding to survive. Even if the good sold is digital and its scarcity imaginary, it stills requires a certain amount of funding to make. If it is wonderful but only appeals to a narrow audience, it may still die. The only available reward may be respect, rather than the sustinance of gold. But maybe this doesn't apply to games, in the same way as something like... space exploration.

Recently, i happily purchased Warhammerly , total war warhammer 3... CA's magnus... magnum w/e ;) on the microsoft store... I do own the complete trilogy on steam, at least as complete as you can get with new upcoming DLC releases etc but yea, another 60 euro's down the drain so to speak. Another 60 euro's that managed to grab again 44hours and 45m of my personal time and probably will add a similar amount in the coming years

As someone who started collecting on GOG and leaving Steam behind, I only buy GOG now.
If the game is not on GOG, no problem, my backlog is slowly growning, I have many games to play!

Since I won't buy anything with DRM, I never really have the choice to buy games cheaper elsewhere. The opposite happens though - if a game is available on both Itch and GOG, I may prefer Itch if the game there offers the option to pay more, since I want to encourage devs that make games that I particularly enjoy.

Yepp.
We recently had this other thread about "how were we hoodwinked into accepting gaming clients", and what people don't seem to understand is, that we got "hoodwinked" by our own acceptance (or - to make some here feel better about themselves - by the majority's acceptance).

And the same principle applies to higher prices for DRM-free games.

If the devs/publishers see, that their overpriced (in comparison to DRM'ed stores) games sell here on GOG, they'll see no reason to adapt/lower their prices.

And the longer that higher pricing functions, the more devs/publishers will take notice and start to follow that example.

And sometime down the line, GOG users will rub their eyes in amazement and ask: "how the hell did that happen???"

It's true: history repeats itself - but only, because people don't want to learn from it.

I don't so much 'shrug' as 'grind my teeth'! Currently, a game I'm tracking is 75% off here, 90% off elsewhere. I briefly thought about buying it DRMed but realistically, I've come to the conclusion that ownership is more important so I'll wait it out until GoG gets the same discount.
When I returned to gaming last year (my Feb 2023 rego date) after many years away, I had no idea about DRM. More recently, I've decided that it's not for me. Other people here have noted that they don't look at prices on DRM stores and I should probably do the same but hopefully those prices are an indication of discounts that will flow through to GoG shortly.

I go for a drm-free version even if outside gog. And I always go for the cheaper version if it's drm-free, but I don't mind spending a little bit more for a good drm-free version (I never buy a version with drm even if cheap).
My current price limit is like 25-30€ so it's not like it will make a lot of difference between 50-80% off...

I'd have to say YES and NO.

Clearly once made available, most things are still available somewhere, regardless of how good they are. How easy to access is another matter. But as we also realize now, especially stores like GOG, even crap can have worth, if it is historical, and of course many folk now never got a chance to find out the game was crap for themselves, and nostalgia can be quite revealing, where a memory does not live up to the reality of now.

More on that last comment. Games started out very very simple, but at the time had some degree of amazing about them ... it was early days after all. Hell, as a young man, I thought computer games were only for kids and not worth my time, until I was introduced to Quake, which blew me away. Hell I used to worry about Quake being too evil and dark and maybe something not good psychologically. I still kept playing it nevertheless, and it has remained my favorite game, despite many many other great ones.

Getting back to your suggestion or query. Clearly going by reviews here and elsewhere, gamers can have quite polar opposite views of a game, and games can often have some redeeming factor, even in the worst ones ... though clearly not for everyone.

For me, games can be like movies and music and books, where often it is your state of mind at the time, that can make all the difference. I've hated or disliked or not much cared for something on first exposure, that years down the track I have come to like or love. I generally put that down to things like mood and growth, plus experience and understanding. A bit like how I thought rock music was noise when I was young, until I learnt how to listen to it properly ... having been brought up solely on Classical and Church Music, I had no points of reference to use outside their context.

Yep, what comes around goes around.

I'm not sure it is a 'don't want to' thing, so much as denial and ignorance is bliss.

I've often been told in my life, that I think too much. That my life will be unhappy because I do that. Utter rubbish really, as I have always continued to enjoy many things. I do agree though, that the way many others seem to think, does tarnish things at times .. the willingness to turn a blind eye and be somewhat selfish, usually for some perceived personal benefit that is often only short term or not as good as expected. Despite that, that type of mentality continues to persist ... like a form of brainwashing yourself ... a bit like saying or believing it enough, and it will come true.

The irony of the whole situation, is that we the customer do potentially have a huge amount of power, if only we exercised it smartly ... had more self control etc.

None of us are perfect, we no doubt all have a weakness with something ... even if its only chocolate. LOL

The poor conflicted flawed human animal.

It's very simple for me. If a game has DRM I avoid it like the plague. That goes especially for games with a build-in kill switch like Denuvo. I don't say I never ever buy them, but only when they are dirt barrel deep cheap, so I have not much to loose. I also sometimes buy a game when Denuvo (or another DRM) is removed, or a "alternative" version is "released", so I cam make sure my investment is safe. I have not much problems with the "standard" Steam DRM, because that has a easy work-around, and in some cases even that DRM is not even inbedded in the game at all.

To be clear - I payed for that DRM lesson several times now. I have games sitting on my shelf that are completely unplayable. And that's just because the used DRM is outdated and does not work on any longer, or that authentication servers are down and the game refuses to start up. I lost money and games this way.

These day's GOG is my primary platform for buying games. Yes - I still have games on Steam, but that's mainly because I purchased Half-Life 2 (yep - still have the box), and the only way to play it was subscribing to Steam. Of course I bought games over there, because GOG did not even existed in those day's.

These day's I have more games on GOG, and have the off-line installer files from the most important games backed up to my NAS (in raid configuration, so when a hard disk breaks down I don't loose anything). At the end I will store all my games on that NAS, but I have to expand the storage room first.

I am a long time gamer. I actually started gaming from the moment I wrote a Tic-Tac-Toe in machine code on my very first "real" computer (the Cosmac Super Elf from around 1978). I have a nice collection of games (most games where for the early home computers like the Acorn Atom, Acorn BBC-B, Acorn Archimedes and the RISC-PC). I still have boxes from early DOS games and so on. In that time DRM was not very common (I still remember those block codes from Sim City you had look up in the booklet provided). Games like Unreal and Quake, Quake 2 and so on had no DRM at all.

These days DRM is like a illness that infects more and more games, guaranteed to make them unplayable some time in the future. I hate this development, and fight it tooth and nail. Of course there is not much you can do to against it.

I can only do the most sensible thing I can do - Buy my games on GOG when ever possible, even if that's more expensive. I gladly pay a bit more to get my games completely DRM free. Having something DRM-Free is a added value "an sich".

Well, I guess you could say a DRM-Free game has added value.

But then so many of them that come here, don't have MP and are sometimes missing other stuff, and often fall behind with updates or get no updates at all or get abandoned here. So that can be a difficult value judgment.

In any case, DRM is an addition they pay to have on top of the game. So you could argue we should pay less.

Anyway, paying more should never be actively encouraged.

Well - I do not encourage it, but at the other hand I don't mind it. GOG can be a bit more expensive (but also sometimes less expensive). I want a product that is DRM-Free, Client free and has off-line installers. GOG is the only one that can provide me with those, so even if it costs more then I still going to buy on GOG.

Of course if another store front gives me DRM-Free off-line installers without the need to run a Client in the background for less than GOG offers, then I have no problem buying it over there. But so far not any other platform did, so that's that.
You can argue that GOG should sell it at less, but at the end it's the developer/publisher that makes the price choice. GOG can only advise and politely suggest, but cannot demand a price point (the same goes for Steam by the way).

About stuff missing. That's also something that is out of control for GOG. GOG just have to work with what the publishers are willing to give. If something is missing, I am afraid you have to contact the developers/publishers. Sure, GOG will take some shots too, but there is only so much they can do. If the publisher outright refuses to add stuff, there is not much GOG can do. Adding stuff without approval from the developer/publisher is a big no-no, and can lead to nasty stuff legal wise.

I don't compromise. A game must be DRM-free or no buy.

And broken record - if there's a game I absolutely have to experience, then I'll watch someone's playthrough of the game on Youtube. And even I don't do this anymore being busy with life like having a demanding career, having a social life/extracurriculars, and trying to settle down.

Why? You feel like you made a bad deal? Sure nobody, who has to manage spending, likes paying more, in this case double, for the same thing when there's nothing physically stopping you from paying less but it's the way the discounts were cooked up this time. You can always wait for the next time the game gets discounted. It's a question of are you willing to wait and how much? Do you really think and feel you have to play that game now? Maybe you can play some other game or do something else. Also how much are you willing to spend? If you think you may need the money for something else, maybe save up some more. The way I see it the other store has a higher number of games than this store, so the chances the game you want gets discounted are higher here, even though I have no statistics. Seems like "playing roulette" here is going to net you the percentage you want to fish out faster. Of course that's all down to luck, but still if you have to make a bet... besides they have weekly sales here and the seasonal stuff in addition. Sometimes they do publisher/developer sales too, if I remember correctly. No and no. As some people already mentioned, I also just don't check the other store/stores with the DRM. If I'm unwilling/unhappy about the price, I wait. I have other stuff to do too. I guess my repugnance for the other store also helps to some extent. Reasons other than DRM may or may not be at play here, though. It's a shame that I already have several games bought on the other store from 5-6 years ago, because I really wanted to play them then and I thought they were never coming to GOG, and later, about 3-4 years ago, they started appearing on GOG 1 by 1. I don't feel like rebuying the stuff I already have... bought. So they're gonna stay there like scars, reminding me of the mistakes I made, so that I never make them again. It's why I don't look that way anymore. The problem is if you want to play something like Portal or Starcraft, for example, you have only 1 place to go to. Well OK, maybe 2 but we all know about the 2nd and that's not what we're talking about here. Possibly, who knows. I don't think they're being pressured, but again you never know. Who know what sort of contracts they're signing. If the store site decides to make a "discount" for the publisher, then the publisher may decide to make a bigger discount for the customers who are buying on that same store site. They're competing right now or well some of them are. It's why sometimes you get some expensive triple A games for free on yet another store with DRM, but then you probably give them a bunch of data and you have to use the epic fail launcher of that yet another store with DRM in order to play said games.