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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

#241

Post by [deleted] »

dmantis wrote: post #190
cogogo wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I grew up playing pirated games on the Apple II 35 years ago. The fact that many people pirate is not an opinion.

It doesn't prove that DRM free is not a viable business. I also grew up pirating, but I haven't been pirating games for more than 10 years now. A few bucks costs much less to me these days than a headache with finding a cracked version and installing potential malware on my computer. Not even talking about supporting the artists and developers. Gabe is right that piracy is a service problem. If you have proper easy i…

[deleted]

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

#242

Post by eviks »

afiori wrote: post #232
eviks wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think this contradicts anything? Heavy users hit a budget limit and continue consuming more via pirating. You really need something way better than some shoddy survey to counter the obvious fact that price matters

Yeah but if a pirate would have not paid the full price why care? It is by definition not a lost sale, the most likely outcome is just an increase by one the player count

Because the price isn't binary? Also, the total spend isn't fixed either, it depends on how easy it's to pirate. So it's by definition still lost revenue, even if later/at reduced price

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

#243

Post by scheeseman486 »

Gormo wrote: post #79
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 are tons of Linux games distributed on GOG, and not having to use a proprietary client is one of its great advantages. Not to downplay Valve's contributions (and I may well get a Steam Frame when they come out), but they mostly amount to porting their mandatory DRM-laden client to Linux, and maintaining a fork of Wine that integrates with that client. Ownership, control, and privacy are among the main reasons I…

You're fairly significantly downplaying their contributions. They have a substantial amount of FOSS developers under contract working on SDL, DXVK, VKD3D and there's over a dozen people on working on KDE on Valve's dime alone. Proton isn't a fork of Wine, it's a Codeweavers managed project funded by Valve that packages Wine, virtually everything useful ends up going upstream given Codeweavers are also the main contributors to Wine. AMDGPU, NVK, Valve funded. Valve have been funding FEX since it's conception.

That isn't even everything, just what I've been able to confirm either through interviews or conference talks where their involvement has come up. They've quietly been doing a lot for Linux.

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

#244

Post by Tarball10 »

afiori wrote: post #232
eviks wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think this contradicts anything? Heavy users hit a budget limit and continue consuming more via pirating. You really need something way better than some shoddy survey to counter the obvious fact that price matters

Yeah but if a pirate would have not paid the full price why care? It is by definition not a lost sale, the most likely outcome is just an increase by one the player count

Not paying full price is not a "lost sale". People unwilling to pay full price wait for a discount or price reduction. Look at how popular the seasonal Steam sales are. Pirating the game very likely means they never purchase it at any price, which _is_ a lost sale.

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

#245

Post by jonasdegendt »

doctorpangloss wrote: post #189
rantallion wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They don't because too many people pirate games to make that a viable business. This is what we've been told since time eternal but it seems more likely that those pirating are those that wouldn't be inclined to pay at all.

people are commenting in this HN thread like piracy hasn't been thought about, deeply, by many thousands of people for ages in the games industry. i could link to numerous people writing very wise things about it - the CEO of a certain competitor to GOG and Steam comes to mind, he basically wrote the Luther thesis on games piracy - but then i'd be downvoted.

I’m interested, please link!

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

#246

Post by jpetso »

citrusybread wrote: post #122
pipes wrote: post #112

Gog is great and I've been a member since probably 2010. The one feature that would encourage me to buy more of their games is a "install into steam" script with each game. It's a massive pain in the ass making my gog games run on my steam deck. I keep meaning to write a script to do this to ease that pain.

Have you tried using Heroic? I don't use it on the Steam Deck so maybe I'm missing something, but I use it on desktop linux all the time and it's been seamless for me.

The Steam client has to restart in order to pick up the newly added external titles, at least last time I tried. In gaming mode, restarting the client means restarting the system, which is ever so slightly annoying.

Apart from that though, it works just fine on the Steam Deck.

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

#247

Post by TulliusCicero »

Hammershaft wrote: post #168
georgeecollins wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The 30% cut is standard, and was so at retail even before Steam existed IIRC.

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

#248

Post by yunnpp »

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 was not aware of that launcher, thanks.

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

#249

Post by yunnpp »

pjmlp wrote: post #98
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…

I have it easier having Windows as main OS.

I suffer Windows at work, so I stay clear of it in my personal stuff.

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

#250

Post by andriamanitra »

Detrytus wrote: post #209
Ekaros wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think reality is that being game retailer is harsh market if you are anyone else but Valve with Steam. Selling copies redeemed on Steam is workable, but seeing that pretty much all big publishers are back on Steam should tell a lot of state of the market. And GOG has bigger mind share than actual market share.

Still, making only 32k PLN ($9k) profit on 137M PLN ($38M) revenue seems like a really badly operated business.

Profit is not an appropriate measure of how well a business is operated. I'm sure they have been prioritizing growth because the whole point of the platform is to introduce competition to Steam. Keeping the margins low (or even negative) is smart when the primary goal is not to make profit but to insure the parent company against monopolistic behavior.
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