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Darvond: GOG has sold bundles, typically during sales or as a small package.
You are, of course, absolutely correct that GOG has sold bundles during sales - though this doesn't quite capture the crux of what I'm saying. Perhaps my explanation is a little lacking - which is further confused by my direct comparison to Humble Bundle-style bundles as being distinct in function and appeal to what might otherwise be fairly described as a regular sales bundle.

What I'm referring to is a regular programme of 'ultra-value' bundles, which differ from traditional sales offerings. Ultra-value bundles I would characterize as being sold at almost uniquely low prices (usually at a discount of more than 90% off), but offset that seemingly impractical sale price by encouraging a much higher volume of purchases from;

A) people who might not have bought the games at all during a more traditional sale (in many cases, having already passed up the opportunity to purchase these games during prior sales),
B) people who might only have ever purchased a small number of specific games in the bundle but would happily pay that little extra for the additional titles that come with it,
C) people who may have already purchased these games on other platforms but require greater incentive to double-dip, and
D) people who are simply bargain-hunters.

The bundles you're referring to I have purchased during GOG sales on numerous occasions. There are definitely some very good value sales - I don't dispute that.

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Korotan: I have to correct you. The sold bundles. On their 10th annisvary the offered three bundles where in each you get three games for the price of one. Oh and they sell GoG keys on Humble Bundle too. When Brightrock Games celebrated War for the Overworld comming to Japan and with it giving a free event skin with achievment the made a celebration sale on Steam offering the Game cheap as never before. Because I find that unfair, I looked up on Humble Bundle where whas a sale dispite not as low too and they even offered up GoG Key. The Sale is still running for 4 hours and the event skin is still during may so if you want hurry up: https://www.humblebundle.com/store/war-for-the-overworld-the-ultimate-edition?hmb_source=search_bar
https://www.humblebundle.com/store/war-for-the-overworld?hmb_source=search_bar
To clarify, I'm not really referring to individual titles that GOG sells on the Humble Store (of which there are very few).

Thank you for the heads-up on the War For the Overworld sale. I wasn't in time to catch it, though did happen to have the game already - which actually brings me back to the ultra-value bundle point I'm trying to make. War For the Overworld I would probably never have considered buying - even during a heavy sale. This is not to discredit the game or the developer - I've no doubt that it's an enjoyable game - but the fact is, it's a game that sits a little outside the genre sphere of games I might typically buy as an independent purchase - AND I had already purchased it by way of the August 2017 Humble Bundle monthly. They essentially got a micro-sale out of me for a game I wouldn't have otherwise bought.

Let me put it another way:

In the past 12 months (if my quick glance over email receipts is accurate), I have spent just £27.99 on game purchases on GOG. In the 12 months prior to that, I spent £58.62 on game purchases on GOG. I wouldn't read too much into the fact that there was a decline from one year to the next as that could easily be down to a lack of spare time and lower disposable income. As a minor aside, I've spent even less on direct Steam purchases.

BUT ...

In contrast, I've spent roughly ~£100 each year on the Humble Bundle monthly programme alone. That's regular, annually recurring payments to Humble/charity/developers that does not even include separate standalone ultra-value Humble Bundles (so my annual expenditure will unquestionably be meaningfully higher). Would I have bought most of these games during a regular sale? No. Will I ever PLAY most of these games? No. Is this poor money-management? Oh yes. But given that GOG is easily my favourite games distributor/platform, I would HAPPILY jump on board for a similar programme with GOG - and I can't help but feel they are missing a trick by not running one.

A few questions to anyone willing to answer:

1. Would you buy or subscribe to a Humble-style ultra-value GOG Bundle programme (monthly or otherwise)?
2. Do you spend more annually on ultra-value Humble Bundles, or on GOG purchases?
GOG doesn't has as much shovelware that can be bundled.
Bundles devalue games.
Also it's the trend lately to bundle the base game and then charge an arm and a leg for the DLCs. So I started to avoid bundles completely.
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RedRabbitRun: 1. Would you buy or subscribe to a Humble-style ultra-value GOG Bundle programme (monthly or otherwise)?
no

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RedRabbitRun: 2. Do you spend more annually on ultra-value Humble Bundles, or on GOG purchases?
depends completely on which games gOg gets
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blotunga: GOG doesn't has as much shovelware that can be bundled.
Bundles devalue games.
Also it's the trend lately to bundle the base game and then charge an arm and a leg for the DLCs. So I started to avoid bundles completely.
I completely agree with you that there is an increasing trend among (Humble) bundles to incite after-purchase sales through DLC and expansions that aren't included in the base game. It's a step toward the way Origin sell their games and I'm not a fan of that practice either. I don't think that has to be the way it's done, however - and it's certainly not true of most games included in those bundles, even if the headline triple-A games are especially guilty (particularly in Humble monthlies). At the time of writing, Humble have a single games bundle on sale (disregarding the monthly) - and of the 11 games included in it, only one has additional paid DLC available to purchase - excluding non-game content, like OSTs, etc. I wouldn't describe any of the games as shovelware, either.

There are unquestionably bad methods of game distribution that devalue games - and Humble do contribute to that, especially when keys make their way onto grey-markets (G2A being the most disgusting and morally corrupt platform that springs to mind). There are some games/developers that simply don't participate in any kind of a sale (the excellent Factorio, for example), and others that have and been severely burned (again, refer to numerous articles on G2A).

On the flipside, I do think that there's a debate to be had over whether bundles actually devalue games.

In the simplest terms, if you're spending more - for a multitude of reasons - than you otherwise would, is that not actually increasing the overall value of the games?
Humble GOG Bundle could probably direct some customers this way. They wouldn't even have to strike a deal with other publishers, "only" arrange something with Humble Bundle crew.

Tier 1
The Witcher, The Witcher 2

Tier 2
The Witcher Adventure Game, The Witcher 3, Hearts of Stone DLC

Tier 3
Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales, Blood & Wine DLC, Gwent booster packs
I don't really understand why anybody would want that. The Humble Bundles have always included games that I had no interest in along with the ones that I was interested in. Buying extra games in order to have a bundle doesn't much make sense to me. Sometimes the extra games are great, but they're not great enough for me to buy on my own.

EDIT: Or have I misunderstood the problem here. Receiving GOG keys through Humble isn't necessarily a bad idea as long as GOG is making enough money to make it worthwhile.
Post edited May 28, 2019 by hedwards
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DadJoke007: Humble GOG Bundle could probably direct some customers this way. They wouldn't even have to strike a deal with other publishers, "only" arrange something with Humble Bundle crew.

Tier 1
The Witcher, The Witcher 2

Tier 2
The Witcher Adventure Game, The Witcher 3, Hearts of Stone DLC

Tier 3
Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales, Blood & Wine DLC, Gwent booster packs
They could - though they should be cautious about flooding the market with surplus keys. That's one significant drawback to doing something like this through Humble Bundle. They could be better off doing something on GOG exclusively, where titles can be directly redeemed to the purchasers GOG account without much chance of ending up on a grey market and tanking future residual sales.

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hedwards: I don't really understand why anybody would want that. The Humble Bundles have always included games that I had no interest in along with the ones that I was interested in. Buying extra games in order to have a bundle doesn't much make sense to me. Sometimes the extra games are great, but they're not great enough for me to buy on my own.

EDIT: Or have I misunderstood the problem here. Receiving GOG keys through Humble isn't necessarily a bad idea as long as GOG is making enough money to make it worthwhile.
No, I don't think you've misunderstood - though you might simply be a more discerning purchaser than I. :) I also might have failed to explain clearly or concisely enough that I don't think GOG should do ultra-value bundles through Humble.

Ultra-value bundles aren't for everyone, of course (my respective libraries probably betray the fact that I'm not the most selective of purchasers at times). Perhaps unlike you, I'm often happy to buy games in a bundle that I might not have bought if they nevertheless seem to be of reasonably high quality (perhaps with an idealistic idea that one day they might tickle my fancy and I'll give them a shot several years down the line). I'm also someone who likes to have ownership of my purchases, so a means of broad economic purchases are infinitely more appealing to me than, say, the worrying march toward always-online games-as-a-service models.

But from a more objective stance, irrespective of whether you don't buy bundles or I do, I suspect that they hold a lot of appeal to a lot of potential customers. An example I used earlier is that in the last few years I've spent more on ultra-value bundles (Humble Monthly, mostly, though not exclusively) than I have on GOG purchases. I wouldn't be surprised if I had spent more on ultra-value bundles than GOG and direct-Steam sales combined - and this is coming from someone who considers GOG to be the best retailer/platform, by far.

To answer your first point most specifically ("I don't really understand why anybody would want that") - I want GOG to attract more sales, to be a bigger force in the market. I look at my own spending habits and I believe that there are lessons from ultra-value bundle programmes (like those on Humble Bundle) that GOG could adopt to their benefit, as well as the benefit of their customers. With some adjustments, perhaps (like not flooding the market with re-saleable keys).
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hedwards: I don't really understand why anybody would want that. The Humble Bundles have always included games that I had no interest in along with the ones that I was interested in. Buying extra games in order to have a bundle doesn't much make sense to me. Sometimes the extra games are great, but they're not great enough for me to buy on my own.

EDIT: Or have I misunderstood the problem here. Receiving GOG keys through Humble isn't necessarily a bad idea as long as GOG is making enough money to make it worthwhile.
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RedRabbitRun: No, I don't think you've misunderstood - though you might simply be a more discerning purchaser than I. :) I also might have failed to explain clearly or concisely enough that I don't think GOG should do ultra-value bundles through Humble.

Ultra-value bundles aren't for everyone, of course (my respective libraries probably betray the fact that I'm not the most selective of purchasers at times). Perhaps unlike you, I'm often happy to buy games in a bundle that I might not have bought if they nevertheless seem to be of reasonably high quality (perhaps with an idealistic idea that one day they might tickle my fancy and I'll give them a shot several years down the line). I'm also someone who likes to have ownership of my purchases, so a means of broad economic purchases are infinitely more appealing to me than, say, the worrying march toward always-online games-as-a-service models.

But from a more objective stance, irrespective of whether you don't buy bundles or I do, I suspect that they hold a lot of appeal to a lot of potential customers. An example I used earlier is that in the last few years I've spent more on ultra-value bundles (Humble Monthly, mostly, though not exclusively) than I have on GOG purchases. I wouldn't be surprised if I had spent more on ultra-value bundles than GOG and direct-Steam sales combined - and this is coming from someone who considers GOG to be the best retailer/platform, by far.

To answer your first point most specifically ("I don't really understand why anybody would want that") - I want GOG to attract more sales, to be a bigger force in the market. I look at my own spending habits and I believe that there are lessons from ultra-value bundle programmes (like those on Humble Bundle) that GOG could adopt to their benefit, as well as the benefit of their customers. With some adjustments, perhaps (like not flooding the market with re-saleable keys).
I'm probably not more discerning, I just have a library that's so large that I couldn't possibly play all of the games that I already have. At one point, I had fully 1/3 of the games on this site and that was just this site. I had games from Humble and various other places in large numbers too.

I think the biggest issue with offering bundles is simply that the margins aren't very good and that GOG would have to get the publishers onboard and take a massive hit to their margins. From what I gather, GOG isn't making very much money when you take out the chunk that goes to their R&D department and Galaxy.
There's GOG Direct (to Account) feature which was announced some time ago. Last i've heard is that they are still working on it with Humble Bundle and other stores.
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hedwards: I'm probably not more discerning, I just have a library that's so large that I couldn't possibly play all of the games that I already have. At one point, I had fully 1/3 of the games on this site and that was just this site. I had games from Humble and various other places in large numbers too.
Haha yeah, I feel your pain ... :)

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hedwards: I think the biggest issue with offering bundles is simply that the margins aren't very good and that GOG would have to get the publishers onboard and take a massive hit to their margins. From what I gather, GOG isn't making very much money when you take out the chunk that goes to their R&D department and Galaxy.
But what if the would-be margins are overwhelmingly dominated by the volume of sales?

Are a significant number of the games in your library ones that you wouldn't have bought if you'd seen them on sale at a 50-75% discount? Or games that you've not and may never play? The fact that you've bought them at all is meaningful, I think.

I don't have any statistics. I don't know what sells for how much and in what quantities - this is all speculation on my part. I just think that a significant number of us are likely buying large volumes of games that we oftentimes don't play - and are spending more on those (even if only a few pounds or dollars at a time) than we are on the few-and-far between titles that entice us to buy at full value close to launch. It's an entire market that GOG seem to be missing out on.

The margins for ultra-value bundles LOOK low, but it's a model that has seemingly served Humble very well. I wonder how much success and attention the Humble Store could attribute to the publicity they've garnered from their bundle sales. I would guess a significant amount.

I don't see ultra-value bundles as an alternative to traditional sales - or even full-price purchases. I think they simply appeal to a different audience. If there is a price at which games can be sold to people that wouldn't have normally bought them, then that's surely significant, no?

If GOG ran an ultra-value bundle of their own, once per-month for a year with, say, 6-7 games in each - that would represent a total of about ~2.4 to 2.8% of their gaming catalogue (from a little over 3000 games, currently, I believe). It might be that hundreds or thousands of people would buy those bundles where only dozens would have been buying the individual games. It could drive more people to the GOG storefront, especially if it ran with regularity that people became accustomed to.


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PainOfSalvation: There's GOG Direct (to Account) feature which was announced some time ago. Last i've heard is that they are still working on it with Humble Bundle and other stores.
I hadn't heard about this. Interesting.

This would seemingly give GOG the opportunity to raise awareness of their own platform through third-party sites without the risk of grey-market 'pollution'. Pretty neat - though I'd still like them to run their own equivalent bundle programme so that they received a better share of the profits (even better, do both).
I really liked when during GOG sales they had publisher deals that let you buy multiple games from a publisher at an increasing discount. It was a really good deal.

I guess it wasn't profitable or they'd still do it.

GOG sales have less price cuts than they used to. Again they must have realised they make more profit selling less for more. That's they're segment right now.
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supplementscene: I really liked when during GOG sales they had publisher deals that let you buy multiple games from a publisher at an increasing discount. It was a really good deal.

I guess it wasn't profitable or they'd still do it.

GOG sales have less price cuts than they used to. Again they must have realised they make more profit selling less for more. That's they're segment right now.
Yeah, I remember those, too. I can imagine that any of these sales are complicated to get right.

Even Humble have made significant tweaks their strategy over the years - from literally pay-what-you-want for an entire bundle, to tiered pricing, to monthlies with hidden content - and probably some variations in-between.

I do hope that GOG Galaxy 2.0 broadens GOG's appeal and gives them a much deserved (and sustained) boost, but I hope they crack the code for appealing to bargain hunters, eventually, too.
Looks like they read this one.
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Buttspikes: Looks like they read this one.
Haha maybe ... ^_^ Not quite the same thing, but the coincidence made me smile.

Looking forward to throwing a few quid GOG's way when my account's looking a bit healthier in a few weeks' time. ^_^