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GOG is losing money and refocusing on ‘handpicked selection of games’

Nikodemos

Member
They do offer some of the better extras for games (especially older ones, like manuals, cluebooks, MIDI soundtracks, older DOS versions etc.)

GOG Connect was definitely self-sabotage. A unified library is a good idea, but not if you're one of the competing storefronts. It just gives free visibility/marketing to the competition.

No regional pricing is a controversial decision. On the one hand, it cuts off potential marketshare. On the other, not everybody has the funds or time to implement the multiple tiers of IP validation, to prevent people from the US (for ex) using VPNs to buy stuff at Turkish prices. EDIT: unless I'm mistaken, GOG used to have regional prices circa 4 years ago, but the infrastructure was costly, and the rate of VPN purchase was high.

Also, a curated storefront sounds good in theory, but in practice, as Holammer Holammer said, if (several) devs get repeatedly rejected, it will cause them to stop bothering. Which is bad, since title-scouting is expensive and time-consuming.
 
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darkangel-212559

Dreamcast Love
That includes Valve then. And you can be certain that the game would never make it to consoles either.
I think it's disgusting how those devs got treated. And for all the Western values of democracy and freedom it sure as shit doesn't matter when China money has a say.

Regardless I just am very bitter as GOG did have the balls to sell it for about 24 hours before big Daddy china came and fucked them in the ass. It's not something we should forgive GOG for. BTW it is a brillant game, well worth tracking down if you can find it.
 
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Alexios

Cores, shaders and BIOS oh my!
I mean, gog was made, did well & grew as Steam dominated as they have since the beginning (even though competitors like Stardock have always been coming and going, mostly going and for good reason). If any storefront had an impact on this and other smaller sellers then it must be a newer development like say, EGS taking all their visibility away, which by the way could be inferred from both statements in this very article and their previous huge news, where they said they'd stop providing customers their fair price package program in a futile attempt to lower the 30% cut they used to take (though I dunno if that actually went anywhere, it's clear where pressure for it came from), since Steam has just maintained business as usual so if they're the cause gog would have never been viable. It's also worth remembering gog shifted away from the good old games it thrived on, maybe they should have capitalized on that and if they then found they've exhausted the classic PC library (which they haven't mind) they could have moved to console & arcade libraries (outside first party stuff I suppose, unless they managed some sweet deals, which isn't impossible) and offering roms & isos with emulators (much like they do DOSBox and ScummVM based releases, this is a field with potential given many people get the classic collections just to access games legitimately in order to then run them in their own emulators of choice) rather than try and be just another store without (but at times with and other debacles) DRM and largely the same games as everywhere else, but far from all, or getting their own client going, or stop charging in $, or whatever else people never wanted from them. Oh well, good luck again, maybe they'll find a way.

Edit: TL;DR, Steam evil, Steam users evil, save us based Timmy as the shills claim in here even though many had seen the writing on the wall and predicted smaller stores like this would be affected the most by EGS bad business practices they cannot compete against without their own Fortnite...
so you suggest they should have "shifted away" from one licencing hell to an even worse one

lol

they've never stopped adding old games, so it's not like people adamant to only buy old games on there were suddenly worse off
I feel like they could've done more to improve the out-of-the-box experience, since many games are just sold semi-broken, but they are probably too understaffed for this and there would've been very little gain.
Dude, they even made an actual PR deal out of gog no longer meaning good old games so get out of here with that they still did it crap, they didn't do a fraction of it and even stopped doing custom patch jobs leaving it instead up to companies like Nightdive that naturally took their work to other platforms as well. They moved away from it because they thought they can be another Steam and go for the big money, especially after using suddenly huge games like The Witcher as gateways, to bring a client and achievements and all sorts of crap nobody cared about so that bubble burst as soon as they had a set back like Cyberpunk 2077, demand for lower fees and heavier competition with freebies thanks to EGS. And yeah, every old PC, console and arcade game is a Powerslave with weird licences or has a licence like Marvel or DC or whatever, there aren't thousands of classics that they'd simply work with the original still active company or whoever inherited their IP a la Sega, Capcom, Namco, Taito, SNK, Konami and hundreds of others same as they worked with any company to publish new games, yet in a way that means they have an original custom product at the end - again, their own portable emulator configuration deal similar to the DOSBox and ScummVM releases, including material like manuals and arcade flyers and art as they do for the PC classics - rather than something the company then takes as is to also release on Steam and elsewhere (since when these companies do self publish their old games they tend to do it their own way in some collection or attempt at a port from a studio like Code Mystics, with varied results, and not in the simple and effective and great way Nintendo did it for Virtual Console (which for Nintendo was puny pennies they couldn't care to continue the service for in future systems but for a small publisher would be a nice living, as gog had before their delusions of grandeur that Timmy put a nice abrupt stop to even after hailing them as an example better than Steam when they did the cross client).
 
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Filben

Member
I mean, they deviated from their previous and early product policy and haven't been trying to be niche anymore but tried to compete, at least on some level, with the big players and had acquired more advanced tech and research (GOG Galaxy) and therefore staff as well. That's gonna cost.

So it's probably wise to get back to what you wanted in the first place. Offer oldies with a few gimmicks and make them available for digital purchase.

Personally, I don't visit GOG to buy modern games I can get on other platforms. Sure, I own games "more" here than on other platforms but that means I would need to download them and back them up manually and provide a whole hard disk drive for that purpose. And when the "digital apocalypse" comes upon us and servers shut down, this HDD still could die. Nothing lasts forever. And in case servers won't shut down, I'm fine with using platforms that doesn't offer installation files to keep account independent.
 
I think it's disgusting how those devs got treated. And for all the Western values of democracy and freedom it sure as shit doesn't matter when China money has a say.

Regardless I just am very bitter as GOG did have the balls to sell it for about 24 hours before big Daddy china came and fucked them in the ass. It's not something we should forgive GOG for. BTW it is a brillant game, well worth tracking down if you can find it.
According to your logic, the devs themselves don't have the balls either:
 

Nikodemos

Member
to bring a client and achievements and all sorts of crap nobody cared about
The Galaxy client itself was a solid idea. Installing games prior to it was clunky as fuck, and patching on the go was literally impossible. You had to manually download a patch, like in 2005 (or redownload the installer, if the dev didn't provide a separate patch). Installing DLC was equally clunky. The social stuff was pointless, though, just as their foray into films (?!?) was.
 
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Alexios

Cores, shaders and BIOS oh my!
The Galaxy client itself was a solid idea. Installing games prior to it was clunky as fuck, and patching on the go was literally impossible. You had to manually download a patch, like in 2005 (or redownload the installer, if the dev didn't provide a separate patch). Installing DLC was equally clunky. The social stuff was pointless, though, just as their foray into films (?!?) was.
I still use the installers, that's how the games are truly DRM-free after all, not by needing a service running to acquire and install the games through (though it annoys me they add [gog.com] crap at some paths/start menu stuff, that also happens with the client installs). Patches weren't needed so often when they focused on oldies instead of newer games and they could still include them by default in the main installer and only have the patch download for people who had installed it before with an older setup. It's the same installer as any program you may acquire, you run it and it just works, nothing clunky about it. And actually I liked their forums for specific purposes a la Steam forums like tweaking/mod guides for the oldies and it's weird newer client versions despite being so bloated otherwise actually removed them from the interface so you had to visit the site again.
 
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Laptop1991

Member
One of the main reason's is they don't sell enough good new games, they are mostly old titles that people have already played and owned years ago, CDPR don't make enough new games to go on there and the big AAA publishers won't support drm free, you can't just blame piracy, i've hardly ever bought off GOG as either the games wern't on there or it was cheaper elsewhere like CP 2077.
 

Nikodemos

Member
Patches weren't needed so often when they focused on oldies instead of newer games and they could still include them by default in the main installer and only have the patch download for people who had installed it before with an older setup.
There's a very simple fundamental issue with old games, that they did eventually smack into. At some point, you run out of them. And the ones still unported are locked in some insane licensing Mexican stand-off. It's why we don't have Soldiers of Anarchy, or Magic & Mayhem (and its pseudo-sequel), or that Microprose-published Starship Troopers game, or Silent Hunter: Commander Edition (the enhanced first one), or the famous No One Lives Forever series, on any digital platform.
By gatekeeping yourself to only old games, you eventually run out of fresh stuff to sell, and I don't think I need pointing out that's a bad thing.

It's the same installer as any program you may acquire, you run it and it just works, nothing clunky about it.
But it is clunky. You're not installing some 200 MB text processor. The installer for the first Divinity: Original Sin EE is 10 GB (or thereabouts). The first Pillars of Eternity has 5 (five) different installers (base game, White March 1 and 2, plus a couple small packs), totalling over 11 GB. In order to install them via package, you need over twice the game's size in free space (the package itself, the actual installation, plus spare change for some de-archiving). Plus the time spent running the installer(s), after having spent time downloading them in the first place. That's inefficient and time-wasting.

it's weird newer client versions despite being so bloated otherwise actually removed them from the interface so you had to visit the site again.
Valid criticism, and I suspect a notable reason why their forums are lackluster, apart from a couple threads per game. Ease of discovery is king.
 
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Alexios

Cores, shaders and BIOS oh my!
There's a very simple fundamental issue with old games, that they did eventually run into. At some point, you run out of them. And the ones still unported are locked in some insane licensing Mexican stand-off. It's why we don't have Soldiers of Anarchy, or Magic & Mayhem (and its pseudo-sequel), or that Microprose-published Starship Troopers game, on any digital platform.
By gatekeeping yourself to only old games, you eventually run out of fresh stuff to sell, and I don't think I need pointing out that's a bad thing.


But it is clunky. You're not installing some 200 MB text processor. The installer for the first Divinity: Original Sin EE is 10 GB (or thereabouts). The first Pillars of Eternity has 5 (five) different installers (base game, White March 1 and 2, plus a couple small packs), totalling over 11 GB. In order to install them via package, you need over twice the game's size in free space (the package itself, the actual installation, plus spare change for some de-archiving). Plus the time spent running the installer(s). That's inefficient and time-wasting.


Valid criticism, and I suspect a notable reason why their forums are lackluster, apart from a couple threads per game. Ease of discovery is king.
Yes, those are new games they sadly thought they should be publishing. You don't run out of old games, newer games become old eventually, you aren't stuck to the 90s forever and unless they're gaas shit which wouldn't fit as DRM free anyway then their patches will be set in stone by the time they are published as good old games. And I already said how they could expand their library with old games in a different way instead of try and fail to be another Steam, not that they ever even came close to running out of PC oldies as you imply, that's quite far from the truth when their full catalogue is still so limited, they're missing thousands upon thousands. And if they did things so right with the lack of forums on the client the only valid criticism why do they need to backpedal and downsize again, when they could have just stayed small with a positive outlook to begin with.
 
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Braag

Member
Fuck GOG they bowed down to China and removed that Taiwan horror game off their store front. Fucking China cock sucking scum bags. Any company that works with a disgusting Govement such as China should not be supported.
So basically every American company then. Not saying bowing down to China is right but it seems like money has won that battle.

As for GoG, it's a pretty good storefront but they should maybe try making the whole "keep your entire gaming library in GoG" thing work better cause that attracted a lot of people to use it.
 

Nikodemos

Member
Yes, those are new games they sadly thought they should be publishing. You don't run out of old games, newer games become old eventually, you aren't stuck to the 90s forever and unless they're gaas shit which wouldn't fit as DRM free anyway then their patches will be set in stone by the time they are published as good old games.
Except very few people would bother buying them (except at steep discounts) unless they somehow missed them the first time around, because they already own them on some other client. Selling "old games" only really works for titles that were initially launched before the digital platform age, or who somehow happened to receive a subpar porting on other platforms which was never updated (ex. VTMB).
 
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Maiden Voyage

Gold™ Member
I wonder how much money it cost them to come out with GOG Galaxy. I always thought that was incongruous with their approach as most of the old games they've made available were prior to Steam even being a thing. The client is cool but it just seemed an odd fit for the rest of the service.
 
Something on GOG that can’t be found elsewhere and one should get now before the culling?

I picked up Stranglehold on there the other week, as far as I know its not available elsewhere on PC. They recently dropped a bunch of classic Star Trek games that don't seem to be on any other storefront either. There's probably a lot more if you're interested in stuff pre-2008ish
 
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Irobot82

Member
The "no steam no buy" crew strikes again.
GOG was never the in the no steam no buy lexicon.

GOG was the cool place you could get old games that didn't exist in digital store fronts. With small updates/emulators to get them running on modern machines. I own all the Ultima's, Classic Fallouts, all the old Infinity Engine games pre beam dog updates. Good Old Game. That's what they should have continued to focus on.
 

Bragr

Banned
GOG was never the in the no steam no buy lexicon.

GOG was the cool place you could get old games that didn't exist in digital store fronts. With small updates/emulators to get them running on modern machines. I own all the Ultima's, Classic Fallouts, all the old Infinity Engine games pre beam dog updates. Good Old Game. That's what they should have continued to focus on.
If they had continued to focus on that, they would be gone by now. Nowhere near enough REAL FUCKING PLAYERS to keep them afloat financially.
 

Irobot82

Member
If they had continued to focus on that, they would be gone by now. Nowhere near enough REAL FUCKING PLAYERS to keep them afloat financially.
I don't think that's true. If they continued to focus on that, they would have stayed a small niche store with a nice curration of classic games. A lot less expensive than every indie game, some big games, all drm free.
 

Doczu

Member
The moment they started selling (fairly) new games and totally new indies they became just another store with some extra old games.

They should re-fpcus on those old games, try harder to get some of them on the store and forget adding every damn game on it.
They don't need to be big, and there is no way in hell they can get big and hold the position.
 

Interfectum

Member
Steam fanboys the scourge of PC gaming.
bitch slap GIF
 

brian0057

Banned
The moment they started selling (fairly) new games and totally new indies they became just another store with some extra old games.

They should re-fpcus on those old games, try harder to get some of them on the store and forget adding every damn game on it.
They don't need to be big, and there is no way in hell they can get big and hold the position.
This.
GOG's bread and butter was taking old and obscure games that didn't work on modern hardware, update them to be playable, and sell them with a bunch of goodies.
But CD Project hits it big with The Witcher 3 and suddenly they think they can go after the market leader and not suffer in the process.

At least Epic has Unreal and Fortnite to soften the blow of EGS losing money.
 
I am part of the crowd that appreciates what GOG DID for games that were abandoned, rare, or impossible to run on modern systems. I could care less about most things that are available for purchase outside of these. They should be going back to the originally conceived model, which was bringing classics to modern audiences. There's a ton of old games that people have clamored for that have yet to hit their store.
 
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Guilty_AI

Member
I don't really understand what handpicked mean in this context. Wasn't the store already curated? Does that mean they'll be receiving less games? Thats pretty sad if so. I'm all for having more games there. Other possibility based on the words they used is that they'll focus less on the online service part of things like the launcher.


I am part of the crowd that appreciates what GOG DID for games that were abandoned, rare, or impossible to run on modern systems. I could care less about most things that are available for purchase outside of these. They should be going back to the originally conceived model, which was bringing classics to modern audiences. There's a ton of old games that people have clamored for that have yet to hit their store.
Aren't they still doing this though? They recently added Blood Omen, a game that i personally wanted but could only pirate since it wasn't available to sell nowhere. Also a whole bunch of Star Trek games. Those aren't even available on steam.
 

Kenpachii

Member
Thats what happens with you offer games with full ownership.
People would distribute the games to other people.

That will also mean that people won't buy it on other platforms. Including steam. So its not really gogs problem.

The reason why gog is tanking is because its trash i said it for years now, and they do nothing to adress it.

GOG Galaxy

GOG Galaxy is trash, i have divinity 2 on steam and want to launch the game, gog galaxy for some reason starts up and i see a big play button on my screen ?????????.
so i press play guess what happens? nothing.

I uninstall there trash client and now it works again.

First experience with gog galaxy, never again.

Then the GOG experience is trash itself.

Retro games:


I Bought 10 retro games in a week, booted 5 of them up non of them worked. Go to the forums they say well just refund or try these 30 things out, yea no interesting in fixing my own games that i pay money for.

I am not here to buy a game to get a refund or fix my own games , i am here to play the game. me having to go to a forum to even get the game to run = bad and then when u see them openly say refund, because they can't be bothered to look at it = bad.

New windows revisions on top of it come out and markets move forwards, which the game emulators or whatever they got going over there "dosbox" isn't taking into account which kills compatibility and zero updates on this are provided.

After game number 5, i refunded them all never touched it again.

Meanwhile, modded versions of the original disc provide you a better experience that fans create on websites that are completely legal to download as u need the original game yourself. Somehow gog can't seem to do this.

Oke so lets try out a newer game shall we? divinity 2

- Can't play with my buddy that has it on steam
- Steam has all the mods, gog does not so less content same money.
- No online activity in multiplayer section, steam has activity lots of it.
- Had to redownload the entire game in order to patch the game, and on steam it was a small update and its done and u can keep on playing ( so data cap people or slow internet people = gg )
- No way to downgrade after patch was applied as they remove the older builds even while the newer build is bricked and not tested by gog itself
- Forcing gog galaxy for patches, good luck with that.

Refunded and bought on steam.

DRM controversy

Recent controversy about gog pushing games that require DRM is also not helping them as the few people that are left are probably super anti drm.

In short

GOG was for people that wanted to own games and store them on there harddrive so they never lose it again, after 20 years of digital stores on PC at this point nobody cares anymore as people are completely used towards platforms like steam now, and use there servers as there digital harddrive.

Lack of any meaningful new content.

As its just old games that at some point people just have and sales obviously will dissapear, new games are barely found in any quantity not found on steam for example. why splinter your platform. I can buy for example a game that i am eye balling for 15 bucks on gog or 30 on steam. i wait for a discount on steam. just to not have to deal with there shit client.
 
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Fbh

Member
A shame. I buy from GOG whenever a game I want is available on it but you could always see this coming.
Most people don't really care about DRM so they'll opt for the convenience of Steam, and most publishers won't support a DRM free store out of fear of piracy and the general idea of people having more ownership over the games they buy.

In 20 years when Steam is owned by Tencent and we won't even be able to buy games anymore as everything moves to a subscription model it will be nice to remember we once had a better option.

Cyberpunk and Witcher 3 should have been GoG PC exclusive.

That doesn't really work. As shown by the EPIC games store, most PC players would just wait for an eventual Steam version.
They tried making Thronebreaker GOG exclusive and quickly had to back down as no one bough it.
 
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jshackles

Gentlemen, we can rebuild it. We have the capability to make the world's first enhanced store. Steam will be that store. Better than it was before.
I'll admit that I've bought less games on GOG after the Hitman fiasco, that really soured me.

GOG Galaxy is a great client, but it needs a TON of work. They got the basic functionality in place then like... gave up on it. I think the last update was in July and it was basically a bugfix build. As someone who has developed plugins for GOG Galaxy and gotten ZERO support from GOG, this is pretty disappointing.
 

Nikodemos

Member
But CD Project hits it big with The Witcher 3 and suddenly they think they can go after the market leader and not suffer in the process.

I remember reading some rumors, circa 2016, after TW3's success, about CDPR starting talks to buy NightDive and/or DotEMU.

They tried making Thronebreaker GOG exclusive and quickly had to back down as no one bough it.

Regarding Thronebreaker, more specifically its backbone, Gwent was another expensive failure. The lure of being an alternative to Hearthstone was extremely strong, though, and a lot of big names ran face-first into a wall.

As a recap of their more notable misses to-date:

- Gwent: expensive failure. Spent a bunch of money and dev time, only to fizzle.
- Indie film initiative: failure. Though I don't think it was that expensive.
- Social stuff: pointless failure. Only a small number of people actually bother with the social stuff on Steam anyway. And folks who have bought some of the... spicier titles might even want to actively avoid Steam social bits.
- Unified library: not a failure, but actively counterproductive. Never allow your competition free visibility.

GOG Galaxy is a great client, but it needs a TON of work. They got the basic functionality in place then like... gave up on it. I think the last update was in July and it was basically a bugfix build. As someone who has developed plugins for GOG Galaxy and gotten ZERO support from GOG, this is pretty disappointing.

Galaxy needs some more work, true. One of the things which annoys the fuck out of me is Galaxy popping up the game's browser window just after launching a title, right prior to the game actually loading. Silent cloud sync, it does not have it.
 
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IntentionalPun

Ask me about my wife's perfect butthole
The PC storefront "industry" is just screwed because of how embeded people are in Steam.

It took far too long for anyone but Microsoft (whose store has been terrible since day 1) and publishers (who only offer their own games, not 3rd party) to try to compete.

Steam is great, installs/updates generally work flawlessly, has built in cloud saves most games use these days, and... first and foremost.. has close to 2 decades worth of releases on it, and the same timespan of people's game libraries.
 

CitizenZ

Banned
Another store who thought reducing that 30% cut was what everyone wanted. i cant think of any other way to destroy your business(or life) than using social media as a major influence in deciding your future.
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
I'm new to Steam and GOG (got maybe 20 cheapo games split across them). Never had an issue downloading or installing any of them. The only issue I've had is a couple times crashing, and the first game I bought (Talisman Origins) something corrupted my save where it'd freeze every time I tried to progress in that scenario. Reload crash. Reload crash. So I restarted the scenario and it worked going forward. That was a shitty design because that game only gives one save progress file per user.

Only main issue I have with both platforms is it seems every time I launch them it takes a while. And every week it seems there's an update making it launch longer.
 

Hugare

Member
GOG seems cool, but I'm so deep into Steam, having a huge library from being a member since 2004, that juggling between different stores to play games would become such a nuisance
 
And yet they are still being punished for it. Regardless of what happened with the dev it's still a case of really bad censorship.
You're sidestepping the point. Why condemn GOG and not RCG as well?

They sure as hell didn't stick it to the Pooh and say: "While we were unaware of the poster, we stand by its message and the actions of that one dev.".

Or is this a case of "RCG is still being punished so imma punish GOG too."?

Think about what you're being angry at GOG for yea?
 

IntentionalPun

Ask me about my wife's perfect butthole
I already said it in another thread and I will say it again, AND I WILL NOT BE SWAYED FROM THIS OPINION

if a game is available on Steam and GOG, and you choose to buy on Steam... sincerely FUCK YOU :)
-The People That Care

17 years as a Steam user and I haven't lost access to a single purchased game.

*shrug*

I care about an install/update system that is easy and never failed me, and I also enjoy having cloud saves go with me provided by Valve's free-to-devs APIs. Steamworks is also rad too, use it a lot.
 

Holammer

Member
17 years as a Steam user and I haven't lost access to a single purchased game.

*shrug*

I care about an install/update system that is easy and never failed me, and I also enjoy having cloud saves go with me provided by Valve's free-to-devs APIs. Steamworks is also rad too, use it a lot.
Happened once for me, Overfall keys were revoked by the developer for an alleged scam that happened 2018. TL:DR; former "publisher" screwed them over.
Steam popped up a message when it happened (should've saved a screenshot), but Fanatical issued new keys quickly.
 

RiccochetJ

Gold Member
GOG is my CRPG store. It started when I got all the old classics and now it feels weird to separate the new releases from that specific library.
 

Javthusiast

Banned
Almost like consumers grew accustomed to not care about drm free ownership when it comes to digital media. And also prefer to stick to the big services.

Like me.
 
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