goG.comSummer2017SalesAreHereAndAPassingCommentaryOnTheSlowBefuddlementOfAWhatUsedToBeANiceDigitalGameStore.

As the graphic suggests, there are many traps and dangers up ahead.

So the gog.com summer sale is here. You can read a blurb about it on their own outlet

Now, I'm not going to tell you what to play but I'd like to point out a few gems that are on sale. (At time of writing of course.)

• Dargon Dogma: Dark Arisen - about $12 but still seems like a good deal for something of this scope.
• Syberia 1 & 2 for a couple of bucks.
• Dungeon Keeper Gold and Dungeon Keeper 2 - 75% off
• Deponia for 99¢! Okay, it's only the first of the series. But it's a good place to get started.

You should take your time and browse though everything. Not sure if new items will go on sale each day but check the current sales and pace yourself.

Thus concludes the genial part of the article.

And now, a couple of things to gripe about.

I've been buying most of my PC games on gog.com for a while. Almost entirely because of their promise that they are DRM free, and to some extent that they have many of the older games I actually would want to play. Or perhaps, it would be more accurate to say, games I have already played and have fond memories of. Whence came the moniker Good Old Games.

However in recent times, they've started selling not just newer titles, but actually brand new titles at full price. That's all fine and dandy but it used to be everything was either $10 or $5 and it was fairly simple system. But now the prices have started to go above that, even for older titles. For example, Quake III is incomprehensibly listed at $15... Seems to me what if a game is nearing legal drinking age, it should probably sell at an inversely proportional cost. I can only guess that it's because of pressure by the game publishers that the prices are so all over the place. In the case of Quake III, it's Bethesda, who is quickly turning into another Electronic Arts.

So the prices aren't as fair as they should be.

Another recent trend that's been bugging me.. They currently claim to have 2000¹ or so titles available in their catalogue.

However, if you happen to browse through, you'll often see something like this:

This is a mere sampler.

I don't know if someone over at GoG still think this was clever marketing but it used to be, not too long ago, that if you bought a game on gog.com, you got all the bonuses included; wallpapers, sound tracks, manuals, even DLCs. And if additional DLCs for an already purchased title became available, they'd be available free of charge. It feels particularly stupid how they are multiplying editions, paid extras and episodic smorgasbord, just so they can inflate their profits slightly.

But again, I suspect that may be because game publishers and developers are getting greedier. And GoG.com is just falling prey to it's own success as a distributor.