> 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…
GOG is getting acquired by its original co-founder
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Re: GOG is getting acquired by its original co-founder
#402From 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…
Re: GOG is getting acquired by its original co-founder
#403Earlier quoted context omitted.
Seriously, for cracking steam games, all it takes is to drop a single DLL inside the game's folder. It can't get simpler than that. Yes, that obviously only works for offline games, but yeah, cracking Steaam games is as easy as cracking any other game, maybe even easier
That is cracking, but one still has to download the files from somewhere before they can crack it. Finding legitimate files is still time consuming.
Re: GOG is getting acquired by its original co-founder
#404I 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.
Re: GOG is getting acquired by its original co-founder
#405Earlier quoted context omitted.
Seriously, for cracking steam games, all it takes is to drop a single DLL inside the game's folder. It can't get simpler than that. Yes, that obviously only works for offline games, but yeah, cracking Steaam games is as easy as cracking any other game, maybe even easier
That is cracking, but one still has to download the files from somewhere before they can crack it. Finding legitimate files is still time consuming.
You want to avoid shady websites for the game download, and shady websites for the crack download. You can do both of this with Steam
Re: GOG is getting acquired by its original co-founder
#406Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why would they care if you or I believe them or not?
I didn't say you or me, I said anyone . They need someone to believe them, otherwise no one will care when they complain about lost sales.
They just need law makers to support IP/DRM laws that allow them to continue to operate. (I made games for a while at a small studio; I understand some of the pressures that studios are under and don’t support piracy of games.)
And they can get that support without publicly releasing detailed time-series sales data.
Re: GOG is getting acquired by its original co-founder
#407Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you have a source for sales data when a crack becomes available? If so, that seems like definitive proof that piracy does affect sales.
When the Nintendo Switch became hackable, ie can play any game, Nintendo saw a massive decrease in sales in Spain. Btw people in Spain pirate the most games in Europe. The decrease was at least 40%. The idea that this is a service issue and piracy doesn’t affect sales is just PR speak. If the game is offline, it’ll be pirated a lot.
They have very high unemployment among young people, might be related.
Re: GOG is getting acquired by its original co-founder
#408I 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…
Re: GOG is getting acquired by its original co-founder
#409> 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,…
Just about every commercial software license says the software is licensed, not sold.
Of course the practical difference is in whether you can trust you'll be able to keep using the product indefinitely or have to rely on the publisher's goodwill.
(Also, whether the idea that a software product is only licensed and not sold is legally valid of course depends on the jurisdiction and legal interpretation. IIRC back in the day some people tried to argue that you couldn't resell a game or other piece of software you bought on physical media because the software was only licensed to you, not sold. That argument didn't necessarily fly.)
Re: GOG is getting acquired by its original co-founder
#410Earlier 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.