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GOG is getting acquired by its original co-founder

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31–40 of 574 posts

Re: GOG is getting acquired by its original co-founder

#31

I always search GOG before Steam. It’s slightly less user friendly in the most minor ways and sometimes a bit more expensive. But getting DRM free games is worth every penny and extra few moments. Steam is really great for what it is but you’re not buying games you’re leasing them. Excited to hear GOG might get more focus and investment.

> you’re leasing them For the duration of your life, to be fair.

No, for the duration of whenever Steam decides to say "fuck you".

Re: GOG is getting acquired by its original co-founder

#32

I always search GOG before Steam. It’s slightly less user friendly in the most minor ways and sometimes a bit more expensive. But getting DRM free games is worth every penny and extra few moments. Steam is really great for what it is but you’re not buying games you’re leasing them. Excited to hear GOG might get more focus and investment.

Compared to Steam directly, yeah, sometimes a bit more expensive. But as soon as you go to sites selling steam keys (proper ones, not resellers), it's "almost always, a lot", as steam itself rarely has good prices. Now that might still be worth it, but it's relevant

Re: GOG is getting acquired by its original co-founder

#33
I've spent hundreds of hours on the GOG version of Heroes of Might and Magic 3. Every community recommends the GOG version over the Steam HD one. I didn't think how important GOG was to me, but now I'm going to find that patron program they're talking about. It would be great if in 30 years I can still play Master of Magic and that won't happen by itself.

Re: GOG is getting acquired by its original co-founder

#34
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Literally sitting with Lutris in front of me downloading a game from GOG right now. Can Heroic Games not handle it themselves like Lutris? Seems easy enough for other FOSS projects to do, I'd rather GOG continue focusing on ensuring the games run on modern hardware, and acquiring licenses to good old games, rather than now expanding the support for their already mediocre launcher.

Exactly, or open the protocol and let the community write it. Third option is to ensure the downloader runs under proton, which I think it does but haven’t tried.

Protocol is well documented already, GOG aren't really blocking community clients:

https://gogapidocs.readthedocs.io/en/latest/

The problem is mostly that their backend isn't wired for Linux builds so you can't use the APIs for native Linux versions.

Re: GOG is getting acquired by its original co-founder

#35
post #26
post #9

It is great because game preservation isn't what game industry shareholders usually interested. CD Project makes great games, but gaming industry is all-or-nothing. They already had colossal flop at their previous release. If another flop happens shutting down GOG is clearly would be on a table as a cost cutting measure.

What game was a colossal flop? Cyberpunk was released too early but they kept on delivering patches and then the players game. It's their highest earning title.

I also started playing it this year and the experience at least now has been fantastic

Re: GOG is getting acquired by its original co-founder

#36
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's fair to call Cyberpunk 2077 a colossal flop. It had an awful release, but the company stood behind it and fixed everything that needed fixing. Five years later it is now an acclaimed game that sold 35 million copies.

Yup, Cyberpunk 2077 has sold more copies in the same time frame than Witcher 3, which is routinely highlighted as one of the best and most successful games of all time. You have to give kudos to CD PROJEKT for not just abandoning the game after a bad launch (which is what every other major studio would have done in its place) but patiently fixing problems and constantly adding content over 5 years to get to the state…

> which is what every other major studio would have done in its place

Afaik CDPR doesn't make many games. If one flops, that might be the end of them. I don't see abandoning a game as a valid option for them from a financial perspective. Makes much more sense to fix the issues and sell more.

Re: GOG is getting acquired by its original co-founder

#37
post #19

From the FAQ: > Is GOG financially unstable? No. GOG is stable and has had a really encouraging year. In fact, we’ve seen more enthusiasm from gamers towards our mission than ever before. I'm really happy to hear this, as I always feared their hard stance on no-DRM would scare off publishers and developers, but seems that fear might have been overstated. This year I personally also started buying more games on GOG th…

I had the opposite takeaway. Companies with strong financial performance don't tend to use words like "encouraging". That is the language you get from companies that are in trouble and hoping for recovery. Talking about people's enthusiasm for their mission is just straight up dodging the question itself.

I guess I trust them that if they would be in trouble, they'd say so, not say "GOG is stable". But I've been wrong before, could be in this situation too, I guess I'm more hoping that they wouldn't lie to their users in their face like that.

Re: GOG is getting acquired by its original co-founder

#38

I always search GOG before Steam. It’s slightly less user friendly in the most minor ways and sometimes a bit more expensive. But getting DRM free games is worth every penny and extra few moments. Steam is really great for what it is but you’re not buying games you’re leasing them. Excited to hear GOG might get more focus and investment.

Compared to Steam directly, yeah, sometimes a bit more expensive. But as soon as you go to sites selling steam keys (proper ones, not resellers), it's "almost always, a lot", as steam itself rarely has good prices. Now that might still be worth it, but it's relevant

I’m just going to go ahead and plug is there any deal dot com.

You can sync up your Steam wishlist (it’s a little weird to setup but once you figured it out it works).

I almost never buy games directly from steam anymore, there’s almost always someone else with a discount on steam keys.

And sometimes GOG has the best deal!

Re: GOG is getting acquired by its original co-founder

#39

I always search GOG before Steam. It’s slightly less user friendly in the most minor ways and sometimes a bit more expensive. But getting DRM free games is worth every penny and extra few moments. Steam is really great for what it is but you’re not buying games you’re leasing them. Excited to hear GOG might get more focus and investment.

How is GOG functionally different from Steam? They're still just a middle man. For actual DRM-free software, both GOG and Steam are nothing more than a convenience layer. If they're anything more than that, the software simply isn't DRM-free.

Re: GOG is getting acquired by its original co-founder

#40
post #15

It seems these days every video game publisher wants its own storefront and game launcher. Weird that CD PROJEKT is instead giving up a very popular one.

I wish you could always go straight to the publisher, I don't want an extra middleman in the transaction. GOG is fine because after the transaction you can download the install media and they're out of the mix, but the Steam/Epic model is terrible, it needlessly turns an open platform into a closed one.

Agreed. I know Steam has done some good things for the industry, and people love them for it, but they are also single handedly responsible for turning PC gaming from "buy and own forever" to a revocable license model. GOG is probably the last place remaining where you can actually buy games.
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