I have been waiting for a game to go on sale. What I am worried about is if I purchase it and then right afterwards it goes on sale. I know gog has a 30 day return policy. Can you get the discount if it goes on sale within 30 days of purchase?

If you can refund for any reason in theory then I don't see why not, or support might just offer you credit or something. Even Steam will help you out if something goes on sale right after you bought it.

The Black Friday sale will likely occur next week and Winter sale should commence not too long afterwards. Before buying the game you want at full price why not wait till those big sales come around?

GOG doesn't have a policy like what you're asking for, but Support is often accommodating, and like StingingVevet said, these days you don't even need a reason for demanding a refund within the first 30 days anymore.

I'd still advise caution though. My impression from all the threads about this topic popping up is that Support is seriously overwhelmed ever since the introduction of the new refund policy and the start of the Covid pandemic. So currently they might not even reply for a week, then just send some copy/paste reply asking for patience etc., at least if you're unlucky. This could become very awkward, if you actually intend to buy the same game again during a time limited sale, a lot of unnecessary stress and frustration for all sides involved.

So my advice is, if you want to play the game right now and think the price is fair, buy and don't look back or sideways, just shrug it off if/when it goes on sale shortly after and tell yourself the devs deserve to eat too and you could afford to support them. If, on the other hand, you're unsure, would prefer to pay less and you already know that you will be annoyed if the game goes on sale shortly after, then wait a little longer. There are bound to be two bigger sales soon, before the year is over.

I guess it also depends on the game. Check isthereanydeal to see how often the game in question got discounted since its release and what was the highest discount so far (it's rather unlikely that it will be considerably cheaper in the next sale, especially if it's a very new or a very old release).

The game has not gone on sale since November of 2018. It does not go on sale very often but it is a bit overpriced. The game was released in 2016 and runs for $15. Unfortunately money is very tight and I have quite the backlog of games.

My experience so far was that most of my refunds went through quickly, but one or two took 2 weeks or so for some reason. My feeling is, that any special request, no matter how simple it seems, might be more challenging to them than you think, so I wouldn't count on getting them to just return the difference to the sale price, even when they give you no trouble about getting a refund.

However, if you literally need the money from the refund to buy the sale game, then it's perhaps a bit of a gamble if the refund goes through in time.

Sounds like you could wait a little longer. If it's not discounted during the Holiday sale, treat yourself to it on Christmas. ;)

Thank you for the reply. The reason I was asking is because I have the two weeks before christmas as vacation and as I'm stuck at home I'd love to give this game a play through.

I have really enjoyed Terraria and I think I'd really enjoy Starbound.

I think last year the Winter Sale started about two weeks before Christmas.

Patience wins. Almost everything gets a sale at some point of the year.
I have a decent number of games and not a single one of them was bought out of sale.
Actually the smallest sale i bought a game on is 50% and not a new game. I don't think i surpassed 15 euro for any game.

I make the best of my money because i am not too anxious to play any title that i just can't wait to buy.

Basically i buy whatever i find cheap. That allows my library to grow and make me have such a big backlog that i have no reason to feel too anxious to play anything with all the amount of unplaced games i have.

When they introduced this policy, I think it was actually asked (whether you can refund a game you bought full price if it goes on sale a day later). And IIRC, the answer was yes, that it is a valid reason for a refund.

But if I'm not mistaken, you don't even need to give a reason anymore, do you?

It should be like that, yes. And you should be able to get the full price back and buy again at the discount (if within 30 days of course).

What's the game?

Dunno, someone claimed they're asking to fill a questionnaire. I have no good reason to doubt the submitter.

https://www.reddit.com/r/gog/comments/jsdggl/gog_support_is_a_bureaucracy_nightmare/gbz91ez/

(As usual, anyone who expresses their frustration with GOG on their reddit gets downvoted hard.. what a roostervacuumer community)