Be it games or anything else, promos and the like have gone so far these times that...it's better to only think if the price (listed as discounted or not) has increased or decreased. On a more quality&support viewpoint and less about pure value/saving, I'd still think the question is "how much is this game generally worth?", or, being generous, "how much is this game worth for me?"
Base price and actual price are becoming more a sales pitch point than something factual.
They actually even spoil the selling, because if you spot a game that is definitely worth its price or more (at least to you, objectively, or for you, with nostalgia factor or personal taste) *but* you notice it's not discounted...chances are you don't buy it immediately; you probably take note to come back for it when it will hopefully be discounted!
Vainamoinen: When artists try to break into the industry (or even when they've already broken into the industry), they often get the offer to work for commercial purposes "for exposure". That means they get no money, but supposedly reputation/awareness. Artists reject these offers when they have any kind of self respect and actual reputation, because the people who ask them are leeches whom you don't want to work with anyway. Other artists however tumble from one 'exposure' job to the other, amassing a huge workload, getting nowhere.
I kind of feel that the game industry has stepped into the same trap.
It's hair raising if you do the numbers. Let's say a quality 20€ game is sold 90% off, they'd have to sell like 3000 or 4000 units to even pay a programmer for a month. I don't think they even do it to make money during the sale, they do that for awareness of their game to raise sales at base price afterwards. They do it for exposure.
These absurd sales, the giveaways, who introduced that? Oh, right, the lord savior of the PC, Valve Corruptation, I mean Corporation. And the "choices" that Valve gives their business clients reliably aren't choices. Participate in the sale for exposure or don't sell your stupid game, we don't care. This often sounds like extortion.
Less money in the bank, smaller budget for the next game, more attempts to rake in the cash via micropurchases and assorted other industry ills, more complaints of poor quality and greed, more one star reviews, and the vicious circle is complete.
I mean, it can work out for some exceptional developers, but this isn't an ideal situation for fledgling indie developers by a long shot. And it isn't a situation that GOG could thrive in as well, because as soon as the A and AA developers pass the awareness threshold and actually make a buck with these insane sales, it's goodbye GOG and hello Steam exclusivity (here's looking at you, Anapurna, and Devolver seems to be next). The underfunded indie games in the awareness grinding mill are of course on GOG, where they're torn to shreds in the reviews – even the gift horses.
I apologize for the bit of negativity that I'm typing up sleep deprived at 5 AM in the morning, there's a truly horrific family situation going on that's keeping me awake and in dire need of distraction, but I've been worrying for years about this trend in video games. How is this industry supposed to work, how is the GOG platform supposed to work if the people who are into indie games react to the release of a great game with "waiting for a sale"/"put it on my wishlist" instead of buying the god damn game?
Yes, I'm of course happy about giveaways and about these insane price drops, but I seldom profit from those. They don't usually give away games I'd have fun with, and if a game releases on GOG that I'd really like, I'm simply buying day one.
Sad but true, this mechanism to pay the minimum or at least to economise everything when you can is a general trend, including nearly everyone. Programmers get paid less because they sell games for less, but this is done not (or no more) because people is miserly, but people too, and gamers too, get paid less (for their non-gaming jobs).
They still manage to get a game this way, without spending a (relative) fortune (an excessive % of their income).
To those saying "then less quantity and more quality": to get back to a market similar to mid-nineties, you'd have to have the nineties conditions and, more importantly, collective mindset, which we(as a whole) are very far from
PS: Another factor is: how and how much are you sure the price goes to the authors instead of being distributed (fairly or not) in intermediate steps and corresponding providers such as taxes, publishers, management, even commercial missteps, etc?
