hedwards: ...bringing folks in via free stuff isn't something that works very well. The vast majority will get the freebie and then leave or stay as beggzars looking for handouts and generally posting dribble like this thread.
joppo: I gotta disagree, at least on the grounds that if it absolutely didn't work Gog wouldn't be doing it for all these years. Unless you have some insider knowledge of their retention statistics that no one here is privy of?
Oh yeah, I also have the personal reason that
it worked for me. I bought a truckload of games in the years since, yet the game I got back then is still unplayed.
The point isn't that it worked in no cases, just that the bulk of the people who come for free games don't convert to paying customers. This is a well-established principle of business and GOG would be extremely unusual if it wasn't the case. At best you get a bunch of people coming in and viewing the site. But, the conversion rate has to be high enough to put the total cost under the total expected profit from the additional views.
That's just how businesses operate. Without access to the internal data, that's really the proper assumption, not that the promos worked. The fact that they're repeating something doesn't mean that it's the right thing to do.
Also bear in mind that businesses aren't perfect and they regularly drive themselves out of business by adhering to superstitions for too long. Kodak just about ran itself out of business trying to kill the digital imaging technology that it invented in order to preserve it's film business. Now they're virtually gone apart from medical imaging.
joppo: I'm sorry, but do you have any source for this information or is it being pulled out of any dark unpleasant orifices?
richlind33: The overhead on digital "goods" is steep, ya know. lol
Only if you license from EA :-P