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GOG is getting acquired by its original co-founder

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

#151

Post by rvnx »

Mathnerd314 wrote: post #129
jamespo wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, paying nothing is very compelling for a lot of consumers, you can see this in many other areas of content as well.

Research from the University of Amsterdam’s IViR “Global Online Piracy Study” (survey of nearly 35,000 respondents across 13 countries) found that for each content type and country, 95% or more of pirates also consume content legally, and their median legal consumption is typically twice that of non‑pirating legal users.

Fun fact, this study was financed by YouTube to create a legal shield.

In 2017/2018, they were in the position where MPAA and RIAA were saying: "Piracy costs us billions; Google must pay" + they had European Parliament on their ass.

Google financed that 'independent' study to support the view "Piracy is not harmful and encourages legal spend".

So the credibility of "independent" studies, is something to consider very carefully.

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

#152

Post by legitster »

roxolotl wrote: post #12

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 not buying games you’re leasing them

Counterpoint, the cost of "owning" offline games is not zero and their lifetime is not infinite.

I have a stack of old games on CD (or older) and getting them to run on anything is a massive pain in the neck. (In fact, for nearly all that I care about I also have bought a Steam license in addition).

Ultimately, everything comes down to user experience. We can pat ourselves on the back for buying something forever, but experiences and the media they are stored on are both transitory.

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

#153

Post by kryptiskt »

SXX wrote: post #139
paxys wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Studious dont abandon failed releases because they are evil. Its just releases fail because they run out of money so there just nothing to burn to save them. CDPR just was lucky enough to make enough money of failed release to fix it. Most companies get no chance to do it.

EA is notorious for throwing games out there and abandoning them as soon as they don't turn out to be massive hits. That is a company that has plenty of resources to support the games and fix the bugs.

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

#154

Post by SXX »

georgeecollins wrote: post #91
Fiveplus wrote: post #23

> 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…

OK, but the model that Valve pioneered is the model that supports 90% of all commercial PC games made today, a higher percentage if you cut out MMOs and free to play games, which you certainly don't own. I love GoG and I have worked closely with a lot of people there on projects they are great. This announcement seems like good news. No one has to sell games on Steam. No one has to use a model where they "rent licens…

Valve and Steam dont force DRM on anyone either. Downloader client is ofc DRM in itself, but a lot of games run just fine without Steamworks.

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

#155

Post by sallveburrpi »

georgeecollins wrote: post #91
Fiveplus wrote: post #23

> 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…

OK, but the model that Valve pioneered is the model that supports 90% of all commercial PC games made today, a higher percentage if you cut out MMOs and free to play games, which you certainly don't own. I love GoG and I have worked closely with a lot of people there on projects they are great. This announcement seems like good news. No one has to sell games on Steam. No one has to use a model where they "rent licens…

How is GOG a viable business if everything gets pirated?

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

#156

Post by badsectoracula »

yunnpp wrote: post #82
pjmlp wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.) Ther…

> 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.

Heroic Launcher can download the game files for you and any dependencies, including Wine/Proton/etc. You basically install the launcher (can be available from your distro's repository), use your GOG login in the app and it shows your library. Then click install and it'll download the files locally and after that you play the game. The experience is more or less the same like in Steam, at least as far as downloading and playing games is concerned.

I normally download the offline installers and use them with UMU Launcher (which is Proton without Steam, mainly meant to be used as a backend for projects like Lutris, Heroic, etc but you can use it directly from the command-line) but i just tried Heroic Launcher and all i had to do was run it, enter my GOG login and after it downloaded my library info, i was able to download and play a game the same way as in Steam.

I'm not sure what official GOG Galaxy for Linux would add here TBH.

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

#157

Post by mindcandy »

buran77 wrote: post #127
oriolid wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not completely convinced. When I was a teenager I pirated games because I didn't have money (and games were incredibly expensive back in the day). The people who I copied them from did it to show off their collection and connections, or just because they were my friends.

For people who have no money to spare for games it really doesn't matter if games come with DRM or not. They wouldn't afford them anyway so "for free" is the only option that matters. For people who have money for games but don't want to pay, the presence of DRM matters very little. 99% of games are usually trivially cracked, especially if you are willing to wait for some days or weeks after launch (an important sale…

> especially if you are willing to wait for some days or weeks after launch (an important sales window for the publishers).

“Important” is an understatement. Even for long-term success stories, the first three or four months often accounts for half of a game’s revenue.

And, despite so many people theorizing that “pirates don’t have money and wouldn’t pay anyway”, in practice big publishers wait in dread of “Crack Day” because the moment the crackers release the DRMless version, the drop in sales is instant and dramatic.

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

#158

Post by shmerl »

Gormo wrote: post #85
cherryteastain wrote: post #4

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.

I think the issue with requests to "release the client" isn't as simple as "you can use an open source alternative".

Their Galaxy backend only handles Windows and macOS builds of games. Linux builds aren't included now. There are hacks around it like using access to individual files over HTTP through zip format for Linux installers as pseudo Galaxy (lgogdownloader supports that) but it's still just a hack.

Another piece is multiplayer integration that games can ship. That depends on their support too (authentication, matching and etc).

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

#159

Post by SXX »

pitched wrote: post #65
fooqux wrote: post #47

I used to love gog. I purchased a bunch of stuff back when they were talking a big game around supporting Linux with their Galaxy client. But while gog was talking, Valve was actually doing . Building an actual Linux client. Making multiplayer actually work. Not to mention all the work they've done with Proton and upstreamimg graphics drivers. I hope gog succeeds. I just value Linux gaming support over not having DRM…

It doesn’t look like GOG can afford to pay for that work. I think we all got very lucky that the success of the Steam Deck has put the incentives in the right place for Steam to be able to invest in Linux.

Valve started to invest in Linux and open source 10 years before releasing Steam Deck. They started hiring OSS developers back in 2012 and Deck released in 2022:

https://www.phoronix.com/review/valve_linux_dampfnudeln

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

#160

Post by dundarious »

its-summertime wrote: post #97
fooqux wrote: post #47

I used to love gog. I purchased a bunch of stuff back when they were talking a big game around supporting Linux with their Galaxy client. But while gog was talking, Valve was actually doing . Building an actual Linux client. Making multiplayer actually work. Not to mention all the work they've done with Proton and upstreamimg graphics drivers. I hope gog succeeds. I just value Linux gaming support over not having DRM…

There is only 1 Steam client for Linux, and there will only ever be one client, and that client has had basic issues (context menus being a completely new window that steals focus, comes to mind instantly) that have been unresolved year after year. For GOG, there are plenty of clients for Linux [1][2][3][4], And they are open source, I can go and talk to the people making these clients directly, I can give feedback,…

This is true, but there are pros and cons.

Pro 1: reduced lockin

Pro 2: open source options

Con 1: not all options are all that easy to use or feature complete, making the "choice" a mandatory QA/research task, rather than a way to exercise personal taste/freedom

Con 2: no galaxy-only features like achievements and save file cloud sync

(My personal testing led to choosing Heroic)

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