Hopefully they can turn the ship around, as it sounds like it's mostly poor leadership and I've definitely been there at a job, which caused me to quit. GoG is the only other platform I buy from,...
Hopefully they can turn the ship around, as it sounds like it's mostly poor leadership and I've definitely been there at a job, which caused me to quit.
GoG is the only other platform I buy from, though not as extensively as Steam, so I'd be quite sad to see them go.
Additional Polish source: https://cdaction.pl/publicystyka/wielkie-zwolnienia-w-gog-u-pracownicy-naswietlaja-wewnetrzne-problemy-firmy-tylko-u-nas Looks like GoG is on its way to the grave. A...
This has happened already in the past with GOG still operating! Games have been a patch or more behind on the GOG version. Can't say I'm rooting for them to hurt but I'd better go buy some hard...
you buy a recent game on GoG, and it gets a patch, will you just be out of luck?
This has happened already in the past with GOG still operating! Games have been a patch or more behind on the GOG version.
Can't say I'm rooting for them to hurt but I'd better go buy some hard drives to offline all the installers I have through them.
There was a python script that could download your library automatically for you. I don't have the name of it at hand, it was on Github and I believe it would be updated so it likely works even if...
There was a python script that could download your library automatically for you. I don't have the name of it at hand, it was on Github and I believe it would be updated so it likely works even if they changed API or whatever.
I have downloaded my library this way a few years ago, I will probably update it, seeing this unfortunate news. GOG was considered a service for players/consumers rather than for big companies - meaning they do it with gamers on top of other priorities (except money, probably).
An the time when I used that, you input your credentials, select if you want Windows/Linux/Mac versions and when you start it it just batch downloads like 4 files at once until it downloads...
An the time when I used that, you input your credentials, select if you want Windows/Linux/Mac versions and when you start it it just batch downloads like 4 files at once until it downloads everything. When it downloads it tells you speed and size if I recal correctly, and likely also ETA. There maybe some kind of filter to download only something, but I used it to do everything.
If you run it say a month later, it can also find what got upated and download only updated files or updates.
If GOG stopped existing one morning, you would still have the installers to all the games you paid for. Also - Linux. Galaxy doesn't have native client.
If GOG stopped existing one morning, you would still have the installers to all the games you paid for. Also - Linux. Galaxy doesn't have native client.
Supposedly they are fine for now in terms of money. But this has an undertone that there's less games left for them to port. i.e. either all the "big" old games are done, or any remaining games...
As summed up by another former employee, “GOG has been acting well tactically from a financial perspective, but poorly strategically, and the current business model is likely running out of steam.”
Supposedly they are fine for now in terms of money. But this has an undertone that there's less games left for them to port. i.e. either all the "big" old games are done, or any remaining games worth porting have licensing that doesn't work out.
It's a philosophically tough issue. What happens to a business that more or less completed its mission to the very best of their ability?
I wonder what will happen to game support if they die? If you buy a recent game on GoG, and it gets a patch, will you just be out of luck?
basically, yes. Ethically speacking, you can backup your games, but devs can't easily support a platform that doesn't exist. You can release patches and tools separately, but that may have logistical issues for devs.
Now, technically speaking, I'm sure a scene similar to pirates will make sure you can update your GOG copies when other platforms get updates. But it won't be as convinient as just re-buying on another platform
Yes, I already got most of the classic games I wanted years ago and haven't bought much since. Of course it won't be an ever growing business model to sell old games, but maybe it could just have...
Yes, I already got most of the classic games I wanted years ago and haven't bought much since. Of course it won't be an ever growing business model to sell old games, but maybe it could just have been viable? The mantra of "if you are not growing, you are dying" is often ruining decent businesses where they end up slowly destroying themselves because they have to keep evolving and expanding into new markets.
well that's the thing with "retro". we fortunately have less lost media in the last few decades, but that means a shrinking business if that's what you deal in. I imagine the potential market to...
but maybe it could just have been viable? The mantra of "if you are not growing, you are dying" is often ruining decent businesses
well that's the thing with "retro". we fortunately have less lost media in the last few decades, but that means a shrinking business if that's what you deal in. I imagine the potential market to sell this growingly old games to isn't staying stable either. especially as newer generations get less and less comfortable with spending anything for a game upfront.
I don't see the decision as "if you're not growing you're dying" so much as "no good deed goes unpunished". Your reward for satisfying your customers is having less customers to sell to. if your current business market is shrinking, you need to either find new business or accept your current one is slowly running out. I don't see that changing much on the market end unless Valve somehow gets evisceraed in their lawsuit or Gabe somehow gets mega-cancelled (neither of which I think will happen. It may shift market share a bit, but it won't make Steam collapse).
I mean, not really anymore, though? At least for EU standards. They do cost a lot less than their USian counterparts, that's true, but they often cost more or less the same as their "western...
developers in Poland cost a lot less
I mean, not really anymore, though? At least for EU standards.
They do cost a lot less than their USian counterparts, that's true, but they often cost more or less the same as their "western European" counterparts for the most part, as long as you're at least mid-level or higher. It's the non-IT professions that cost you less & you can typically save money on as an employer (e.g. HR/Recruitment)
So in terms of "raw IT salaries" you aren't really saving that much by having an office in Poland rather than, say, the Netherlands. Taxation etc will of course be different, but that's another thing. The same developer that gets a gross salary of 1700 €/mo in Greece could easily negotiate for a gross salary of 15000 PLN/mo in Poland (≈3500€/mo), and 3500-4000 €/mo in Belgium or the Netherlands.
This hits me incredibly hard. I've been a fan of GoG since the beginning, and found it to be a welcome change from Steam (I still use Steam, but vastly prefer GoG.) I even bought BG3 from them two...
This hits me incredibly hard. I've been a fan of GoG since the beginning, and found it to be a welcome change from Steam (I still use Steam, but vastly prefer GoG.) I even bought BG3 from them two days ago!
Everything being DRM-free simply isn't enough of a draw to combat Steam's lower pricing, enormous library and social features. I really appreciate GOG Galaxy–when the integrations aren't broken at...
Everything being DRM-free simply isn't enough of a draw to combat Steam's lower pricing, enormous library and social features. I really appreciate GOG Galaxy–when the integrations aren't broken at least–but that still isn't enough to counter the network effect and Steam sales. Maybe if they could figure out a way to do more bundles, that would help.
Incidentally, why is everyone ITT writing it "GoG"? Even when it wasn't just GOG, it stood for "Good Old Games," which still wouldn't be written that way.
It's a shame, being a "good guy" isn't really enough to survive in the cut throat business world we live in. Especially when your main competitor is Steam which still has enough good will to...
It's a shame, being a "good guy" isn't really enough to survive in the cut throat business world we live in. Especially when your main competitor is Steam which still has enough good will to maintain its effective monopoly for a long long time.
The thing that Steam does well is taking care of both of its customers. For better or worse, big publishers will not put their games on platforms without decent DRM, and steams DRM is not only...
The thing that Steam does well is taking care of both of its customers.
For better or worse, big publishers will not put their games on platforms without decent DRM, and steams DRM is not only very good from a security standpoint, it's mostly unobtrusive to users.
A lot of what people miss about the steam phenomenon is that it's not just about the good deals and user experience. The reason why steam has the games it does is that they're pretty good to developers. They came into a market where the publishing, marketing, DRM, multiplayer servers, social features, and so on of all games had to be created from scratch. The barrier to entry made that indie games basically just didn't exist at that time. Steam allowed not only those developers to exist, but giant publishers to put their games on the platform and feel confident that they'd make money. GOG is awesome, but they just don't have that kind of developer support. It's not their fault that they don't, but from a game developers perspective, it doesn't matter so much.
It's a bit tough due to pricing parity rules from Valve. They are currently in court over this very issue, so competition can't easily offer lower prices without risking the devs losing a...
Maybe if they could figure out a way to do more bundles, that would help.
It's a bit tough due to pricing parity rules from Valve. They are currently in court over this very issue, so competition can't easily offer lower prices without risking the devs losing a relationship with the market leader.
A few days ago I tried buying a game on GOG to take advantage of the winter sale, but checkout appeared to be broken. So I sighed and bought it on steam. They're failing at the basics. GOG's...
A few days ago I tried buying a game on GOG to take advantage of the winter sale, but checkout appeared to be broken. So I sighed and bought it on steam.
They're failing at the basics.
GOG's mission to preserve old games and encourage DRM-free is really important and I want them to keep existing. I own quick count 78 games there, which on average are all very good ones, and have wanted to buy more only to find they weren't being sold there. But I've run into my fair share of annoyances that would make anyone sane not want to use their platform. They need to make sure things work the way they're supposed, and to put a LOT more effort into encouraging (or even contractually requiring) developers of new games to keep their games feature complete and up to date on the platform. GOG has seemed not exactly dead but stagnant for years now.
I haven't had issues with purchasing things from GOG before and I've got over 500 games on there. My main gripe is Linux support. 1.) my steam deck is my most used platform and 2.) how are you...
I haven't had issues with purchasing things from GOG before and I've got over 500 games on there.
My main gripe is Linux support. 1.) my steam deck is my most used platform and 2.) how are you gonna talk preservation if I have to use Windows to be guaranteed a working product?
Granted, I just beat Armed and Dangerous through Heroic on Linux so I can't say it doesn't work but I want a native client.
It's a very tough topic to talk about business wise, because essentially we're saying "we want you to support your direct competition, which is currently running entire races around you". It's a...
1.) my steam deck is my most used platform
It's a very tough topic to talk about business wise, because essentially we're saying "we want you to support your direct competition, which is currently running entire races around you".
It's a great enthusiast device, but ultimately still a niche one. some 3 million potential gamers and a 1% market share aren't necessarily going to turn their business around if the real issue truly is them running out of "easy" old games to bring to their store.
Gamers that have and spend money is a decent audience to chase. GOG doesn't make hardware and Cyberpunk 2077 is on Steam. Making it easier for me to buy on GOG vs Steam, when I already spend money...
Gamers that have and spend money is a decent audience to chase. GOG doesn't make hardware and Cyberpunk 2077 is on Steam. Making it easier for me to buy on GOG vs Steam, when I already spend money on the store anyway, by having better Linux integration makes me choose them over Steam more when spending.
you, perhaps. the 100's of millions of gamers, not so much. it's a difficult death spiral, and valve isn't really helping linux gaming in terms of adoption because you don't need to develop on...
you, perhaps. the 100's of millions of gamers, not so much. it's a difficult death spiral, and valve isn't really helping linux gaming in terms of adoption because you don't need to develop on linux anyway. if the phrasing was proper linux support and not "make it work on steam deck", there may be an inkling of a chance to do that.
And the financial market for PC gamers isn't like a mobile gamer in terms of spending. A huge gaming enthusiast may spend maybe a few thousand a year on hundreds of games. That's how much a whale in mobile would spend per month, consistently.
I can't agree with this take at all, assuming that you really mean that you don't think Valve are making gaming better on Linux (not just the steam deck). What Valve is doing is the only way to...
valve isn't really helping linux gaming in terms of adoption because you don't need to develop on linux anyway.
I can't agree with this take at all, assuming that you really mean that you don't think Valve are making gaming better on Linux (not just the steam deck). What Valve is doing is the only way to support gaming on Linux. Linux is a niche. Game developers are not going to target Linux, it makes zero economic sense. So making interop that is easy and friendly is the only strategy that stands a chance at working, and it's efficacy is fully on display today: I play tons of games on my Linux desktop that previously were out of reach without tinkering that I didn't have the time to invest or just didn't run full stop. I don't need a steam deck to run gamescope, or benefit from the people they have working on Mesa, vulkan, WINE etc.
"making gaming better on Linux" is a much more subjective take in my eye, especially if we accept "run a game in a windows environment on a Linux machine" as good enough compared to the...
assuming that you really mean that you don't think Valve are making gaming better on Linux (not just the steam deck)
"making gaming better on Linux" is a much more subjective take in my eye, especially if we accept "run a game in a windows environment on a Linux machine" as good enough compared to the alternative of less playable games overall.
"Game developers are not going to target Linux, it makes zero economic sense. " is more or less my exact point. Valve isn't encouraging that, so when people say "GOG can't compete because no linux platform" it seems to miss the forest for the trees. And while it's not maximizing consumer friendliness, I can empathize the idea of not wanting to directly support your competitor when people ask for Steam Deck support.
It's all be cool tech to invest in, but It won't help GOG's bottom line. Not even if every linux gamer switched from Valve to GOG overnight.
Yeah. It's sad because none of this is GOGs fault. They've done an absolutely stellar job with the resources they have. Comparing the amount of engineering talent, expertise, capital, and sheer...
Yeah. It's sad because none of this is GOGs fault. They've done an absolutely stellar job with the resources they have. Comparing the amount of engineering talent, expertise, capital, and sheer manpower that Valve has at their disposal to GOG would be like comparing a local indie band to Taylor Swift. They're not going to be able to put on a show like Taylor Swift no matter how talented they are. It's just not physically possible.
Unfortunately, that doesn't mean much to a consumer, especially in the digital space, where any unique, competitive technical selling point that GOG has, Steam can task a developer to replicate in a week, and probably with more polish and stability. The one unique selling point GOG does have; lack of DRM, is one that 1. most consumers don't care about, and 2. is the entire reason for Steam existing, and being able to attract all the big AAA that exist in that ecosystem, so unfortunately, it's not going to help GOG much.
It also would be much easier to cast this as a battle between the greedy, abusive, shady capitalists at Valve versus the benevolent, kind hearted souls at GOG at Valve if Valve actually were greedy and abusive.
From my standpoint, Valve has done a stellar job with steam. Yes, they're obscenely wealthy and are the obvious market leaders in their space, but they haven't really cranked the screws and started screwing over developers and customers in the familiar enshittification pattern; at least not yet. Steam has been going strong for over two decades at this point, and the platform has only gotten better, with great features like game recording, proton, and steam input being added over the years, while still taking an industry standard cut, and offering great discounts on games.
I'm old enough that I remember what the PC gaming landscape was like before steam, and they've almost single handedly made it far better, including being responsible for facilitating the thriving indie gaming scene that's synonymous with the platform now. Before valve came around, the indie scene was mostly modders with day jobs making mods for free because it was impossible to make a living doing it. Many of the people who would have been relegated to that are now able to make a living with their own studios making real games because they have a platform that they can actually sell their games on and get eyeballs on it.
As a result, it's hard to point fingers at Valve for much here. Still, competitions is always good and the potential of losing a platform that seems to be as devoted to openness and freedom as GOG is sad.
Yeah, pretty much. They don't have the same blueprint of corporate greed as the rest of the modern world, and the modern world has stopped even trying to hide such greed under the veneer of "It...
Yeah, pretty much. They don't have the same blueprint of corporate greed as the rest of the modern world, and the modern world has stopped even trying to hide such greed under the veneer of "It helps our customers (customer satisfaction has plummeted)".
Valve is a bit old school in that regard, funnily enough. But search a bit below the surface and you see similar moves. Very few will, though. Those who might might not even care and just doesn't want their convenience impacted. But ideally such regulations and measures are taken before it's too late, not afterwards when Gabe is dead and his protoge does a full heel turn on the goals and ideals.
At least the law is slowly catching up to Valve so best of luck there.
Have you made sure it's not your bank declining the transaction? Mine always declines any transaction from GOG, so I need to use my card through PayPal to get it to work properly. Aside from that,...
Have you made sure it's not your bank declining the transaction? Mine always declines any transaction from GOG, so I need to use my card through PayPal to get it to work properly.
Aside from that, I've never had an issue with them. Galaxy can suck up my CPU if I put my laptop to sleep and wake it up, but other than that, everything has always been perfectly functional and I own about 230 games on just GOG.
I had that issue with my local bank as well. The bank told me GoG purchasing operates out of Cypress which is a haven for a lot of scams and they weren't willing to allow any transaction unless I...
I had that issue with my local bank as well. The bank told me GoG purchasing operates out of Cypress which is a haven for a lot of scams and they weren't willing to allow any transaction unless I called in ahead of time.
I play a lot of small indie games whose developers may have chosen not to publish on GOG. They need to attract more of those developers. I'm pretty sure I was attempting to use paypal.
I play a lot of small indie games whose developers may have chosen not to publish on GOG. They need to attract more of those developers.
I really love the concept but I bought a couple games there awhile back that got updates really late so when I tried to play multiplayer they were always behind and incompatible. Ended up having...
I really love the concept but I bought a couple games there awhile back that got updates really late so when I tried to play multiplayer they were always behind and incompatible. Ended up having to buy them again on steam :(
"high turnover" is a weird way to phrase something when you laid off employees mere days ago. layoffs never just end at who is cut. People can read the writing on the wall and I've had several...
"high turnover" is a weird way to phrase something when you laid off employees mere days ago. layoffs never just end at who is cut. People can read the writing on the wall and I've had several co-workers jump ship anywhere from a few months to even days right before the announcement. And survivors are de-moralized as well. Some will get overworked and burn out. Some will see a sinking ship and take their chances jumping off instead of staying long term. It's just bad all around.
Apparently this turnover is partially caused by a recently promoted management. Hard to really say how it is on the inside as outsiders. People don't see happy either way.
GOG regularly adapts its structure to its strategy and ongoing projects, sometimes this means eliminating certain roles — as was the case recently
it's not too often I see all these flowery words spewed out, only to directly get to the point at the very end of it. I don't really have much comment here. It's just an interesting thing I wanted to note.
This would be a huge bummer for me. I buy most of my games from GOG these days, and I have about 300 games in my GOG library. I guess I'm going to have to figure out how to download and store the...
This would be a huge bummer for me. I buy most of my games from GOG these days, and I have about 300 games in my GOG library. I guess I'm going to have to figure out how to download and store the install files for all of those, something I've been putting off for years, but hey, it's worth saying that with GOG I at least have that option.
Someone else (very correctly) mentioned Steam's network effects and social capabilities as their steady advantage but the reason I love GOG is precisely that it doesn't have any of that. I use Heroic Launcher and I just buy my games, install my games, play the games, have my cloud saves, and it just works. I absolutely do not care about achievements and gaming for me specifically is the opposite of socializing, by design.
I like Steam a great deal, I'll never say a discouraging word about our lord Gaben, but if GOG goes away that would truly be a material loss, both for me personally and for the gaming community in general.
This isn't really a threat because I don't really represent a significant part of the market, but if things like GOG go away and more and more companies move to a service model, I really will just...
This isn't really a threat because I don't really represent a significant part of the market, but if things like GOG go away and more and more companies move to a service model, I really will just go full pirate again.
If I can't own my digital goods, I'm not renting them. I'll just take them.
I am fully sympathetic (ahoy matey) but I could never bring myself to pirate software due to the risk of malware. I’m a lot more willing to try my luck with untrusted media than actual black-box...
I am fully sympathetic (ahoy matey) but I could never bring myself to pirate software due to the risk of malware. I’m a lot more willing to try my luck with untrusted media than actual black-box executables.
That's fair. It kinda depends on what you want. For example, Nintendo makes it very hard (well, impossible) to buy old GBA games from them. You gotta subscribe. But getting safe GBA roms and...
That's fair. It kinda depends on what you want. For example, Nintendo makes it very hard (well, impossible) to buy old GBA games from them. You gotta subscribe. But getting safe GBA roms and running them on your phone is absolutely trivial. Once you have an emulator you like and a site you trust, it takes like 45 seconds.
And now you have the rom, forever. Pretty small file too. You can probably put every single GBA game you like in an USB stick.
Sure, ROMs are a different matter. Those are software, but their code is sandboxed to only run within an emulation environment. If you got a bad one it wouldn’t be able to escape that context; its...
Sure, ROMs are a different matter. Those are software, but their code is sandboxed to only run within an emulation environment. If you got a bad one it wouldn’t be able to escape that context; its nastiness would be limited to whatever game you’re trying to play. I was talking about modern PC games, if one of those is a trojan it could wreak havoc on your system. Best to just steer clear of that whole category, I say.
It’s such a good platform for retro games. They make sure they still work on modern computers, they give you a few goodies like original artwork… I really hope they don’t go away.
It’s such a good platform for retro games. They make sure they still work on modern computers, they give you a few goodies like original artwork… I really hope they don’t go away.
Hopefully they can turn the ship around, as it sounds like it's mostly poor leadership and I've definitely been there at a job, which caused me to quit.
GoG is the only other platform I buy from, though not as extensively as Steam, so I'd be quite sad to see them go.
Additional Polish source: https://cdaction.pl/publicystyka/wielkie-zwolnienia-w-gog-u-pracownicy-naswietlaja-wewnetrzne-problemy-firmy-tylko-u-nas
Looks like GoG is on its way to the grave. A little surprising given their competitive advantage on wages (developers in Poland cost a lot less).
I wonder what will happen to game support if they die? If you buy a recent game on GoG, and it gets a patch, will you just be out of luck?
This has happened already in the past with GOG still operating! Games have been a patch or more behind on the GOG version.
Can't say I'm rooting for them to hurt but I'd better go buy some hard drives to offline all the installers I have through them.
There was a python script that could download your library automatically for you. I don't have the name of it at hand, it was on Github and I believe it would be updated so it likely works even if they changed API or whatever.
I have downloaded my library this way a few years ago, I will probably update it, seeing this unfortunate news. GOG was considered a service for players/consumers rather than for big companies - meaning they do it with gamers on top of other priorities (except money, probably).
I'll have to look for that! Does it tell you the size before downloading if you recall?
An the time when I used that, you input your credentials, select if you want Windows/Linux/Mac versions and when you start it it just batch downloads like 4 files at once until it downloads everything. When it downloads it tells you speed and size if I recal correctly, and likely also ETA. There maybe some kind of filter to download only something, but I used it to do everything.
If you run it say a month later, it can also find what got upated and download only updated files or updates.
What's the advantage over just using GOG Galaxy? Is it just downloading installers but not installing the game itself?
If GOG stopped existing one morning, you would still have the installers to all the games you paid for. Also - Linux. Galaxy doesn't have native client.
Supposedly they are fine for now in terms of money. But this has an undertone that there's less games left for them to port. i.e. either all the "big" old games are done, or any remaining games worth porting have licensing that doesn't work out.
It's a philosophically tough issue. What happens to a business that more or less completed its mission to the very best of their ability?
basically, yes. Ethically speacking, you can backup your games, but devs can't easily support a platform that doesn't exist. You can release patches and tools separately, but that may have logistical issues for devs.
Now, technically speaking, I'm sure a scene similar to pirates will make sure you can update your GOG copies when other platforms get updates. But it won't be as convinient as just re-buying on another platform
Yes, I already got most of the classic games I wanted years ago and haven't bought much since. Of course it won't be an ever growing business model to sell old games, but maybe it could just have been viable? The mantra of "if you are not growing, you are dying" is often ruining decent businesses where they end up slowly destroying themselves because they have to keep evolving and expanding into new markets.
well that's the thing with "retro". we fortunately have less lost media in the last few decades, but that means a shrinking business if that's what you deal in. I imagine the potential market to sell this growingly old games to isn't staying stable either. especially as newer generations get less and less comfortable with spending anything for a game upfront.
I don't see the decision as "if you're not growing you're dying" so much as "no good deed goes unpunished". Your reward for satisfying your customers is having less customers to sell to. if your current business market is shrinking, you need to either find new business or accept your current one is slowly running out. I don't see that changing much on the market end unless Valve somehow gets evisceraed in their lawsuit or Gabe somehow gets mega-cancelled (neither of which I think will happen. It may shift market share a bit, but it won't make Steam collapse).
I mean, not really anymore, though? At least for EU standards.
They do cost a lot less than their USian counterparts, that's true, but they often cost more or less the same as their "western European" counterparts for the most part, as long as you're at least mid-level or higher. It's the non-IT professions that cost you less & you can typically save money on as an employer (e.g. HR/Recruitment)
So in terms of "raw IT salaries" you aren't really saving that much by having an office in Poland rather than, say, the Netherlands. Taxation etc will of course be different, but that's another thing. The same developer that gets a gross salary of 1700 €/mo in Greece could easily negotiate for a gross salary of 15000 PLN/mo in Poland (≈3500€/mo), and 3500-4000 €/mo in Belgium or the Netherlands.
This hits me incredibly hard. I've been a fan of GoG since the beginning, and found it to be a welcome change from Steam (I still use Steam, but vastly prefer GoG.) I even bought BG3 from them two days ago!
Everything being DRM-free simply isn't enough of a draw to combat Steam's lower pricing, enormous library and social features. I really appreciate GOG Galaxy–when the integrations aren't broken at least–but that still isn't enough to counter the network effect and Steam sales. Maybe if they could figure out a way to do more bundles, that would help.
Incidentally, why is everyone ITT writing it "GoG"? Even when it wasn't just GOG, it stood for "Good Old Games," which still wouldn't be written that way.
It's a shame, being a "good guy" isn't really enough to survive in the cut throat business world we live in. Especially when your main competitor is Steam which still has enough good will to maintain its effective monopoly for a long long time.
The thing that Steam does well is taking care of both of its customers.
For better or worse, big publishers will not put their games on platforms without decent DRM, and steams DRM is not only very good from a security standpoint, it's mostly unobtrusive to users.
A lot of what people miss about the steam phenomenon is that it's not just about the good deals and user experience. The reason why steam has the games it does is that they're pretty good to developers. They came into a market where the publishing, marketing, DRM, multiplayer servers, social features, and so on of all games had to be created from scratch. The barrier to entry made that indie games basically just didn't exist at that time. Steam allowed not only those developers to exist, but giant publishers to put their games on the platform and feel confident that they'd make money. GOG is awesome, but they just don't have that kind of developer support. It's not their fault that they don't, but from a game developers perspective, it doesn't matter so much.
It's a bit tough due to pricing parity rules from Valve. They are currently in court over this very issue, so competition can't easily offer lower prices without risking the devs losing a relationship with the market leader.
A few days ago I tried buying a game on GOG to take advantage of the winter sale, but checkout appeared to be broken. So I sighed and bought it on steam.
They're failing at the basics.
GOG's mission to preserve old games and encourage DRM-free is really important and I want them to keep existing. I own quick count 78 games there, which on average are all very good ones, and have wanted to buy more only to find they weren't being sold there. But I've run into my fair share of annoyances that would make anyone sane not want to use their platform. They need to make sure things work the way they're supposed, and to put a LOT more effort into encouraging (or even contractually requiring) developers of new games to keep their games feature complete and up to date on the platform. GOG has seemed not exactly dead but stagnant for years now.
I haven't had issues with purchasing things from GOG before and I've got over 500 games on there.
My main gripe is Linux support. 1.) my steam deck is my most used platform and 2.) how are you gonna talk preservation if I have to use Windows to be guaranteed a working product?
Granted, I just beat Armed and Dangerous through Heroic on Linux so I can't say it doesn't work but I want a native client.
It's a very tough topic to talk about business wise, because essentially we're saying "we want you to support your direct competition, which is currently running entire races around you".
It's a great enthusiast device, but ultimately still a niche one. some 3 million potential gamers and a 1% market share aren't necessarily going to turn their business around if the real issue truly is them running out of "easy" old games to bring to their store.
Gamers that have and spend money is a decent audience to chase. GOG doesn't make hardware and Cyberpunk 2077 is on Steam. Making it easier for me to buy on GOG vs Steam, when I already spend money on the store anyway, by having better Linux integration makes me choose them over Steam more when spending.
you, perhaps. the 100's of millions of gamers, not so much. it's a difficult death spiral, and valve isn't really helping linux gaming in terms of adoption because you don't need to develop on linux anyway. if the phrasing was proper linux support and not "make it work on steam deck", there may be an inkling of a chance to do that.
And the financial market for PC gamers isn't like a mobile gamer in terms of spending. A huge gaming enthusiast may spend maybe a few thousand a year on hundreds of games. That's how much a whale in mobile would spend per month, consistently.
I can't agree with this take at all, assuming that you really mean that you don't think Valve are making gaming better on Linux (not just the steam deck). What Valve is doing is the only way to support gaming on Linux. Linux is a niche. Game developers are not going to target Linux, it makes zero economic sense. So making interop that is easy and friendly is the only strategy that stands a chance at working, and it's efficacy is fully on display today: I play tons of games on my Linux desktop that previously were out of reach without tinkering that I didn't have the time to invest or just didn't run full stop. I don't need a steam deck to run gamescope, or benefit from the people they have working on Mesa, vulkan, WINE etc.
"making gaming better on Linux" is a much more subjective take in my eye, especially if we accept "run a game in a windows environment on a Linux machine" as good enough compared to the alternative of less playable games overall.
"Game developers are not going to target Linux, it makes zero economic sense. " is more or less my exact point. Valve isn't encouraging that, so when people say "GOG can't compete because no linux platform" it seems to miss the forest for the trees. And while it's not maximizing consumer friendliness, I can empathize the idea of not wanting to directly support your competitor when people ask for Steam Deck support.
It's all be cool tech to invest in, but It won't help GOG's bottom line. Not even if every linux gamer switched from Valve to GOG overnight.
That makes sense! Thanks for elaborating.
Yeah. It's sad because none of this is GOGs fault. They've done an absolutely stellar job with the resources they have. Comparing the amount of engineering talent, expertise, capital, and sheer manpower that Valve has at their disposal to GOG would be like comparing a local indie band to Taylor Swift. They're not going to be able to put on a show like Taylor Swift no matter how talented they are. It's just not physically possible.
Unfortunately, that doesn't mean much to a consumer, especially in the digital space, where any unique, competitive technical selling point that GOG has, Steam can task a developer to replicate in a week, and probably with more polish and stability. The one unique selling point GOG does have; lack of DRM, is one that 1. most consumers don't care about, and 2. is the entire reason for Steam existing, and being able to attract all the big AAA that exist in that ecosystem, so unfortunately, it's not going to help GOG much.
It also would be much easier to cast this as a battle between the greedy, abusive, shady capitalists at Valve versus the benevolent, kind hearted souls at GOG at Valve if Valve actually were greedy and abusive.
From my standpoint, Valve has done a stellar job with steam. Yes, they're obscenely wealthy and are the obvious market leaders in their space, but they haven't really cranked the screws and started screwing over developers and customers in the familiar enshittification pattern; at least not yet. Steam has been going strong for over two decades at this point, and the platform has only gotten better, with great features like game recording, proton, and steam input being added over the years, while still taking an industry standard cut, and offering great discounts on games.
I'm old enough that I remember what the PC gaming landscape was like before steam, and they've almost single handedly made it far better, including being responsible for facilitating the thriving indie gaming scene that's synonymous with the platform now. Before valve came around, the indie scene was mostly modders with day jobs making mods for free because it was impossible to make a living doing it. Many of the people who would have been relegated to that are now able to make a living with their own studios making real games because they have a platform that they can actually sell their games on and get eyeballs on it.
As a result, it's hard to point fingers at Valve for much here. Still, competitions is always good and the potential of losing a platform that seems to be as devoted to openness and freedom as GOG is sad.
Yeah, pretty much. They don't have the same blueprint of corporate greed as the rest of the modern world, and the modern world has stopped even trying to hide such greed under the veneer of "It helps our customers (customer satisfaction has plummeted)".
Valve is a bit old school in that regard, funnily enough. But search a bit below the surface and you see similar moves. Very few will, though. Those who might might not even care and just doesn't want their convenience impacted. But ideally such regulations and measures are taken before it's too late, not afterwards when Gabe is dead and his protoge does a full heel turn on the goals and ideals.
At least the law is slowly catching up to Valve so best of luck there.
Have you made sure it's not your bank declining the transaction? Mine always declines any transaction from GOG, so I need to use my card through PayPal to get it to work properly.
Aside from that, I've never had an issue with them. Galaxy can suck up my CPU if I put my laptop to sleep and wake it up, but other than that, everything has always been perfectly functional and I own about 230 games on just GOG.
I had that issue with my local bank as well. The bank told me GoG purchasing operates out of Cypress which is a haven for a lot of scams and they weren't willing to allow any transaction unless I called in ahead of time.
I play a lot of small indie games whose developers may have chosen not to publish on GOG. They need to attract more of those developers.
I'm pretty sure I was attempting to use paypal.
I really love the concept but I bought a couple games there awhile back that got updates really late so when I tried to play multiplayer they were always behind and incompatible. Ended up having to buy them again on steam :(
"high turnover" is a weird way to phrase something when you laid off employees mere days ago. layoffs never just end at who is cut. People can read the writing on the wall and I've had several co-workers jump ship anywhere from a few months to even days right before the announcement. And survivors are de-moralized as well. Some will get overworked and burn out. Some will see a sinking ship and take their chances jumping off instead of staying long term. It's just bad all around.
Apparently this turnover is partially caused by a recently promoted management. Hard to really say how it is on the inside as outsiders. People don't see happy either way.
it's not too often I see all these flowery words spewed out, only to directly get to the point at the very end of it. I don't really have much comment here. It's just an interesting thing I wanted to note.
This would be a huge bummer for me. I buy most of my games from GOG these days, and I have about 300 games in my GOG library. I guess I'm going to have to figure out how to download and store the install files for all of those, something I've been putting off for years, but hey, it's worth saying that with GOG I at least have that option.
Someone else (very correctly) mentioned Steam's network effects and social capabilities as their steady advantage but the reason I love GOG is precisely that it doesn't have any of that. I use Heroic Launcher and I just buy my games, install my games, play the games, have my cloud saves, and it just works. I absolutely do not care about achievements and gaming for me specifically is the opposite of socializing, by design.
I like Steam a great deal, I'll never say a discouraging word about our lord Gaben, but if GOG goes away that would truly be a material loss, both for me personally and for the gaming community in general.
This isn't really a threat because I don't really represent a significant part of the market, but if things like GOG go away and more and more companies move to a service model, I really will just go full pirate again.
If I can't own my digital goods, I'm not renting them. I'll just take them.
I am fully sympathetic (ahoy matey) but I could never bring myself to pirate software due to the risk of malware. I’m a lot more willing to try my luck with untrusted media than actual black-box executables.
That's fair. It kinda depends on what you want. For example, Nintendo makes it very hard (well, impossible) to buy old GBA games from them. You gotta subscribe. But getting safe GBA roms and running them on your phone is absolutely trivial. Once you have an emulator you like and a site you trust, it takes like 45 seconds.
And now you have the rom, forever. Pretty small file too. You can probably put every single GBA game you like in an USB stick.
Sure, ROMs are a different matter. Those are software, but their code is sandboxed to only run within an emulation environment. If you got a bad one it wouldn’t be able to escape that context; its nastiness would be limited to whatever game you’re trying to play. I was talking about modern PC games, if one of those is a trojan it could wreak havoc on your system. Best to just steer clear of that whole category, I say.
It’s such a good platform for retro games. They make sure they still work on modern computers, they give you a few goodies like original artwork… I really hope they don’t go away.
Oh I guess it’s time to download everything I have off them in case they actually do close off.
This will be taking a while…
Just have to point out "... running out of Steam"
I love unintentional puns.