Just a couple of quick points; as far as I can tell, GOG does not publish what games are available in the Pinatas. Customers have to pay money to discover that. Granted, you could wait for the tracker thread to get posted/update, however even if you do not pay that's still someone paying to find out what is available, with no knowledge of what they are buying when they spend the money.

People might be happier if GOG listed upfront what games were possible to get.

Also, with a physical machine you can generally get some idea of what is left and what has been claimed. Even with the tracker, all you know is that there was at one time a copy of a game available; you have no idea if the game is still available or not.

Sure, it's not like casino gambling, but it still is gambling.

At least in my country gambling is defined as a game where the most important factor is chance. And you can't deny pinata buying is based on chance only.

Also, it is designed in a way that majority of people get less worth games so some "lucky" people get games that are worth more. Like 80% of gamblers are donating wins to 20% of winners.

Also, in casino machines, usually your odds of winning arre not known for you beforehand. GOG also doesn't disclose what games are in the pool and if every game has eqaul drop chance. (they most likely do not)

Sales such as these are shady in my opinion and usually happen only in shad businesses like on G2A. com or Kinguin.

You can say that unlike gambling, you always get something in return. But it's not really that true. If let's say casino puts up a rule "every game wins!" and 99% of the prize would be coupons for 50ml of water, it doesnt' make it not gambling.

and yes, GOG sale will not ruin your life, just like buying a lottery ticket will not, but it's still gambling. And since internet gambling like buying loot crates in Free 2 play games is often targeted at children, it may be ruining somebody's allowance money :P

To sum up, it IS gambling, even though it's not casino-level gambling.

Yep, it's gambling for sure, thanx to OP for pointing this out.

While being not attracted by any gambling personally, I've bought 5 Piñatas just for fun. Here's my stats:
- I've got 5 games costing totally (using current sale prices) 10% less than 5 Piñatas
- According to my game collection policy overpay was even more - about 26%
- Only 1 game was wanted, 1 was questionable and 3 was not wanted at all

Not much fun I'd say. =)

UPDATE
...And of course no more gambling with GOG specifically.

I don't think there's anything genuinely wrong with Piñata sales - it's basically a digital equivalent of blind bags, and they have been knocking around for decades, because, unlike gambling, you actually ALWAYS get something for your money, even if it's just duplicate.

It would be rather nice of GOG to actually add a nice looking spreadsheet or just a list of what you may get and what are the actual chances of getting each item.
Also, if they would spend more time organizing easy infrastructure for users to trade duplicates between each other, they might even reduce the amount of duplicate refund tickets.

It's an illusion. You don't get anything of value if you get a duplicate.

Just like you don't get anything of value from lootcrate. Even if you can sell back skins you get, it's artificual value that exists only within the market.

Just like you won some chips you can exchange for real money.

You are misinterpreting of what I have just said.
Value is subjective, perceived by each individual differently. I was talking about that you receive goods (object, physical or digital) for money spent every time.
With gamble you have chance to get nothing and just lose the money.

This topic is full of interesting ideas. Someone even used "Volenti non fit iniuria" for defending it, probably not even knowing what it stands for in law. I hope one day s/he will learn more about it including drug usage or someone hurting their selves.

THIS IS GAMBLING. I don't think anyone was arguing against it. However - as someone who is against all kinds of gambling- this is the "soft" version of gambling where you can't really spend too much money and you can not lose. Sure, you can get a game that you would never buy or even a game you played before and hated but still you get something.

I won't be doing that tho. I own all the cheap games that were listed in the other topic so there is a high chance that I will get one of the expensive ones. I may just get one to state my curiosity about how it works but if it involves gambling, i am not in. I am not against it either.

You can have gamble games that give you a "return" with every game. Just because you don't lose money it doesn't mean you're not gambling. That shouldn't be part of a definition.

I wonder how people would react to Piñata sale, had the GOG team replaced Piñatas with a picture of Kinder Surprise or equivalent.
I mean, it's a chocolate egg with a mystery toy for kids inside that works in absolutely identical way - you never know what's in it and you may get as many duplicates as bad luck will provide with no chance of returning it back to the store.
They even cost roughly the same and yet nobody calls them "gambling" or questions the morality of selling it to the kids.

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In the case of Kinder eggs, you are paying for the chocolate, and the toy is considered an extra (they are not good enough to buy them on their own). At least that's how I saw it as a kid. Unless you consider that the emotion of smashing the virtual piñata is worth $3, I'd still say you are gambling on the game you get.

Ok, for the sake of purity of my argument, let's replace Kinder Egg with previously mentioned Blind Bag toys.
That has to be either gambling or paying for the bag itself by the stated above logic.

That was my favorite sale format. However, if they actually abandoned it, that means that, while the sale was popular on the forum, it did not translate into large sale numbers. Let's not forget that the vast majority of GOG buyers are not active forum users.

If this Pinatas event was like you buy a game, any game and you earn a Pinatas with it, then this would not be gambling.

I dislike the concept of mystery boxes, loot crates, and mystery software packs like this. These are pointless mysteries when there are better mysteries to peruse.

I'm really not all that keen on most practices of today's gaming landscape. Like I'd sooner pry all the NFC tags out of Amiibo and not even bother with the tatty figurines.