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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

#161

Post by stavros »

andoando wrote: post #132
computerex wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People only pirate games because the publishers make it too painful to play games legally. I have pirated games that I own simply because it's easier to play. This pattern has been shown time and time again. When people pirate, it's usually due to a problem with the experience. People pay for convenience. Now a days a lot of people are pirating games because the quality of games has gone down the drain. Publishers ar…

No they don't. I am tired of this feel good nonsense. I pirated games because it was free and I did not want to pay $60. Just make your games a donation model if you really believe this. Or lets put up a version of Steam where all the games are free cracked copies of the game and see how it affects sales. People pay precisely because they dont want to deal with the hassle pf pirating

I can pirate games easily, but I buy them on Steam because it's more convenient. If it's too expensive for me, I just never play it (or wait for a deal). I can't be bothered dealing with the installers and the potential viruses and the hassle.

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

#162

Post by SXX »

kryptiskt wrote: post #153
SXX wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Not gonna protect EA the company here, but lots and lots of other games also flop on release because money.

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

#163

Post by VoxPelli »

eterm wrote: post #19
embedding-shape wrote: post #11

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.

This goes for publicly traded companies much more than privately owned ones.

GOG is now becoming private like Valve rather than publicly traded.

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

#164

Post by shmerl »

badsectoracula wrote: post #156
yunnpp wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 down…

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

Two major things:

* Backend Galaxy support for Linux builds

* Multiplayer, achievements, cloud saves, etc. i.e. proper integration with optional GOG services for Linux versions.

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

#165

Post by nh23423fefe »

andoando wrote: post #132
computerex wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People only pirate games because the publishers make it too painful to play games legally. I have pirated games that I own simply because it's easier to play. This pattern has been shown time and time again. When people pirate, it's usually due to a problem with the experience. People pay for convenience. Now a days a lot of people are pirating games because the quality of games has gone down the drain. Publishers ar…

No they don't. I am tired of this feel good nonsense. I pirated games because it was free and I did not want to pay $60. Just make your games a donation model if you really believe this. Or lets put up a version of Steam where all the games are free cracked copies of the game and see how it affects sales. People pay precisely because they dont want to deal with the hassle pf pirating

thieves lie to protect their self-image. i pirated because free games let me spend my money on stuff i couldn't steal like food at the mall.

i don't pirate anymore because i have a job now.

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

#166

Post by SXX »

gamesieve wrote: post #134
GaryBluto wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IIRC they fixed various bugs but they didn't fix the broken promises. The biggest problems with Cyberpunk were architectural, things that would basically require redesigning the game to match what was promised.

Online sentiment has drastically changed about how bad those broken promises were - a near-complete turnaround, similar to what happened with No Man's Sky. Basically from when the DLC was released, most people started feeling that they fulfilled the essence of everything that was promised.

IMO Cyberpunk is fundamentally not the game their marketing promissed. They marketed it as actually non-linear RPG and beyond very beginning of the game they just could't deliver on it.

After tons of patches and DLCs its just became a very very good game. Just not what was promissed.

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

#167

Post by tart-lemonade »

stodor89 wrote: post #104
paxys wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ever bought anything from MSN Music? Yahoo Music? Desura? Microsoft eBook Store? Walmart MP3s? Anything using Adobe Content Server? MusicNet? CinemaNow? UltraViolet? It is laughable to think that digital media "clearly works". Companies shut down and stores shutter all the time . In most cases there is no recourse for customers, because – surprise – you didn't actually own the rights to what you bought, just a revoca…

> "buy" Hozier's album > change countries > oh, you own this album for Bulgaria, but not for the US, so you can no longer play it

Region-locked physical media (and before explicit region locking, PAL vs NTSC vs SECAM vs variants like PAL-M) also have this problem to some extent.

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

#168

Post by Hammershaft »

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…

Steam uses outsized market power to take an enormous %30 cut so it also does major damage to the games industry.

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

#169

Post by andoando »

stavros wrote: post #161
andoando wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No they don't. I am tired of this feel good nonsense. I pirated games because it was free and I did not want to pay $60. Just make your games a donation model if you really believe this. Or lets put up a version of Steam where all the games are free cracked copies of the game and see how it affects sales. People pay precisely because they dont want to deal with the hassle pf pirating

I can pirate games easily, but I buy them on Steam because it's more convenient. If it's too expensive for me, I just never play it (or wait for a deal). I can't be bothered dealing with the installers and the potential viruses and the hassle.

>because it's more convenient

Yes, now imagine if we just removed the barrier to piracy completely. An easy to use client just like Steam, except all the games are free cracked copies.

There is no way thats not going to drop sales.

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

#170

Post by dundarious »

embedding-shape wrote: post #7
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.

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.

Heroic works perfectly, in a manner identical to Lutris (from a user perspective). I tested both several years ago and have been a happy Heroic user since.

However, neither support 2 key features of GOG Galaxy:

1. cloud saves

2. achievements

These are 2 of the most significant features of competitors like Steam, IMO, so missing them for GOG on Linux is unfortunate.

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