Last week I made a list of discounted games (14 Anniversary sale) and documented what I thought was the appropriate timer. Then, yesterday, as I revisited the list to make final decisions...

... half the games were no longer discounted!

I saw others claim as well that games had unexpectedly been pulled early from the sale.

Now, it's seemingly happening again...

Some games from the Warner Bros Interactive Sale have left discount prior to the end of the sale.

What's going on here!?

Is this the "new GOG normal?"

Sadly, we've all come to expect some issues here... but... this is becoming a problem.

I can often overlook slightly higher prices, missing multiplayer, and even absent features...

... but pricing that can't be trusted is where I draw the line.

In another thread I related how a local department store during the 2009 downturn went from clear and straightforward pricing to strange sales, missing price tags, and confusing pricing schemes. Was a bad sign of where that company was going. I sincerely hope this isn't a sign applicable to GOG, but when prices get weird... it's often the first sign of internal distress...

C'mon GOG... we're trying to give you money, but need some fairness on sales durations and pricing in return.

@OP - Let me start off by saying that what you are claiming is not good, if true, and that I don't have facts in front of me to ascertain the truth, just your claim.

I cannot say I have particularly noticed what you are claiming.

But then, I tend to buy almost immediately in most cases during a sale. Sure I do sometimes take hours before making my purchase, while I traverse what is on sale and do all my checking and decision making.

Like many I suspect, I prefer to do the one transaction, rather than many of them.

Luckily for me, being retired means I have money at hand, so I don't need to cull to afford, but I perfectly understand that many won't be in the same situation as me, and so can take much longer than me to decide what to spend their limited funds on, taking days even.

So yes, it needs to be very clear when a game that is on sale and discounted, is no longer going to be so. There needs to be a date and time for those who are being very budget conscious, which I imagine is most folk.

It is absolutely not unreasonable to wait until the last minute to buy a game, as competitors might also start a sale around the same time and customers are entitled to wait until the last minute to decide whether or not to buy a game at a certain discount.

I absolutely do not get the wait-shaming from certain people who try to defend GOG for their inability to communicate times to an international audience. Nobody is expecting anything, even if you say CEST (Central European Summer Time, i.e. the local Polish time then people can work it out).

The frustration is when ignorant staff or programmers (we don't know which) claim a sale will end at XXX UTC - and then it ends a day early or hours early.

Then what of the situations that a few complain about when purchases fail to process, because cards are not accepted, they don't have the correct requirements for the accepted payment methods, payments rejected by banks for various reasons. Leaving very little (if any) time for correction (especially during weekends) before the sale/s end. All the while the member/customer is screaming via the forum that it's all GoG's fault that they have missed the deal of the century, and their lives will never be the same ever again...

Which could all have (possibly) been averted if they had made their purchases a bit sooner...

I think GOG is losing track of all the simultaneous sales. The Anniversary sale was set to end Sunday, October 2nd, 10 PM UTC, however the Fulcrum games that got added later were set to be discounted till Sunday, October 2nd, 1 PM UTC.

They should absolutely stick to one store-wide sale at a time and synchronize other discounts with the following rules:

1. Unless you want to join an upcoming sale, your current discounts must expire before the sale starts.
2. If you join a store-wide sale, you're in until the end.
3. If you are releasing a new game during an ongoing sale and want to offer a "welcome discount" you have to join the ongoing sale until the end or
4. If you want to offer the discount for a longer time than the current sale, you can but the duration must adhere to rule no. 1. i.e. end before the next sale or join the next sale as well.

That way the customer can be sure that any discounts they currently see are good at least until the end of the current sale. And GOG wouldn't have to implement a guaranteed-to-break discount timer...

I was thinking that too for some time. I think it's not necessary to have multiple sales (weekly, midweek, weekend, etc.), with 50-100 games each, falling one upon the other. In my opinion, just ONE sale, with about 500 games, per week, will suffice. And in the next week, different games.

I'm generally not a fan of the "sale-ification", but I would (grudgingly) allow for the minor sales in their current form to continue. Those at least you can navigate because they are reliably scheduled. And if I'm not mistaken, they "stack" (meaning they start at different points but end at the same time). Which is what I want as a general rule.

The main issue are the themed sales (summer sale, holiday same, anniversary sale, can't-be-bothered-to-invent-a-theme sale) with games dropping in and out of the sale seemingly at random. That's annoying and anti-consumer.

Once GOG has a sales banner at the top, all discounts should last at least until the end of that sale. Dropping in, yes — dropping out, no.

Save money and set it aside for games so that it's ready when something you want goes on sale. Also, some people seem to wait until the last minute or it's too late to buy what they want. Those people need to make better plans.

looking at previous years, in about two weeks 24 or 25th October there will be massive sale for Halloween...
edit: 3000+ titles

If you follow the Anniversary Sale thread, you will find the same discussion in fact with Clownski replying about trying to fix the situation.

If you follow the Warner Bros Interactive thread / sale page Shadow of War and it's dlc left the sale prior to the end of the sale.

While this has happened once-in-awhile in the past, it is now becoming almost ubiquitous with GOG sales.

Many here don't care much about fair and clear pricing -- and that's their prerogative -- but IMO the lack of clear pricing is the first step toward taking advantage of the customer (and consumer laws in many countries agree). It's not about saving money or limited resources, it's about fairness in pricing.

With this being said...

... a few years ago GOG made good (to me) on a pricing mistake they made. So I'm not going to say they are unwilling or incapable of making pricing mistakes "right" for the customer, but the growing number of pricing issues since then have shown to me that they're moving -- for some reason(s) -- in the wrong direction with sales' pricing.

Even with that strategy some people are on a really tight budget and will have not have enough money to buy all their picks. Since some games don't join the sale until later they will want to wait until the last day when they can be certain all discounts are in to decide which game(s) to buy from their wishlist. But with things as they are now, they can't because some games also drop out again before the end of the sale.

Say you have two games on your wishlist and the budget for one of them at sales price. One of the games is your first pick by a wide margin. Your second pick goes on sale in GOG's summer sale. What do? Your first pick might join the sale later, so you would want to wait. But your first pick might not join the sale and your second pick might drop out early, so you would want to buy. But your first pick might join the sale after all and then you've already blown your budget on pick two.

See the dilemma?

Figure out what you want the most and save accordingly. Repeat until you have everything, no matter how long it takes.

They are. The point you choose to ignore is that GOG makes it unnecessarily hard for them to make informed choices.

If you have a list of ten games and your third and fifth most wanted are on sale, you buy the one that's more important to you. If you have the money for both, even better. How informed do you have to be?

Why is it such a problem for you that people want GOG to be more customer friendly?