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GOG is getting acquired by its original co-founder

gog.com

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

#81

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.

Do you ever play online multiplayer HOMM3? Is it a thing nowadays?

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

#82
post #55

> Can I still download offline installers? Yes. This is the only line I was looking for. I stopped buying on Steam sometime ago because I realized I was just renting licenses. GOG is the only major storefront where I feel like I actually own the product. As long as offline installers remain a core tenet, I don't care who owns the company. That said, it helps that it's someone returning to their roots rather than a pr…

I also refuse to install their shop, Web powered "native" apps only the unavoidable ones.

I think the only value it adds is cloud saves. The UI is otherwise the worst way to explore your library or the store, crawls to death performance-wise and isn't even a good UX in principle.

For example, if you're on page X of a search, click on a game, and go back, guess where that takes you? Yup, page 0 baby, going to have to click next X times again (there is also only previous and next; you can't fast-jump.) There are many more examples like that, I have filed survey responses several times on issues like this.

The real goat would be if GOG Galaxy were available for Linux and integrated with Lutris/Proton so that you didn't have to worry about setup. Currently that relationship flows in the other direction, which I always found odd: Lutris integrates GOG (and Steam) games in its UI.

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

#83
post #49
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Which is basically never. They have no incentive to do that except for extreme circumstances, and they have all the leverage in the world over game publishers. Delisted games tend to stay in your library for redownload. I never understood the cynicism for digital media, it’s been multiple decades now and the model clearly works. Obviously I prefer zero DRM but it’s also not a hard line requirement for me personally.

You never know, Gaben is getting older. Who knows what the next CEO of Valve will do?

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

#84

> Can I still download offline installers? Yes. This is the only line I was looking for. I stopped buying on Steam sometime ago because I realized I was just renting licenses. GOG is the only major storefront where I feel like I actually own the product. As long as offline installers remain a core tenet, I don't care who owns the company. That said, it helps that it's someone returning to their roots rather than a pr…

Im pretty sure I read in the past GoG still sells you a license to a game in perpetuity, rather than ownership Of corse, practically there is little difference since they provide offline installers, so its much better to use GoG if you care about this.

The reason they also do this is because of copyright, the license allows games to forbid you from redistribution more copies

If Im wrong about this please let me know, I read some articles claiming this is the case but I am not sure if they truly were correct.

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

#85

Please release a Linux client or, even better, officially support and invest in developing Heroic Games Launcher so we can play our DRM free GOG games on a libre OS.

> Please release a Linux client

The whole point of GOG is that you don't need a "client" -- it's just a store.

If you want to use something other than a standard web browser to install your games, there are plenty of options, including projects like Lutris and lgogdownloader.

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

#86
Michał Kiciński (the co-founder mentioned in the article) also funded a Vipassana retreat in Poland. You can go there to meditate for around 10–21 days, it's completely free, and people from all over the EU attend. I know because someone I know goes there regularly.

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

#87
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure I understand your figures. What is "32 thousand PLN", surely their entire annual profit for all of 2024 was not literally 32K PLN (approx. 9K USD)? Is this measured in millions? And whatever they're measured in, surely 32K to 910K in the span of a year is considered excellent progress?

No it was actually just circa 9 thousand Euros from GOG.COM. And it seems there was period of having potential loss of million PLN as well in Q3 of 2024 I think. So it looks quite variable based on which products release. See: https://www.cdprojekt.com/en/wp-content/uploads-en/2025/11/c... Starting from page 28.

[deleted]

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

#88
post #49
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Which is basically never. They have no incentive to do that except for extreme circumstances, and they have all the leverage in the world over game publishers. Delisted games tend to stay in your library for redownload. I never understood the cynicism for digital media, it’s been multiple decades now and the model clearly works. Obviously I prefer zero DRM but it’s also not a hard line requirement for me personally.

Physical media rots too. I don't watch my DVD collection anymore because I don't have access to a working DVD player, but I've read that a lot of those discs don't play anymore because the publishers cheaped out on materials when they minted the discs.

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

#89
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Real stores sell steam keys because they are selling directly from the developers And how did these "real stores" get those Steam keys unless they bought them, maybe even directly from the developers? Or are you saying game developers hand out these keys for free to the store, then the store sends the developer money for each key they sell? I'm not sure that makes a lot of sense. What is an example of one such site…

Humble Bundle usually gives you Steam keys

Apart from times when they have run out and continue to sell...

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

#90

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.

You might be interested in VCMI, which is an open source engine for HoMM3.

https://vcmi.eu/

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