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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

#431

Post by musha68k »

rjzzleep wrote: post #394
shevy-java wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My hardcore gaming days are over, but I feel that the gaming industry has in general been abusing the hell out of gamers in the last some years. That also includes the hardware industry, trying to sell overpriced stuff. Granted, it is the gamer's fault for submitting to that mafia, and I am not directly affected nowadays myself (save for RAM prices going up thanks to the AI mafia milking us all), but I would be hugel…

As gamers nexus said, the hardware companies are now post consumer. They are building stuff with investments backstopped by taxpayer money, so if you choose to boycott now it will probably make things worse. People spent a lot of energy laughing at people that were warning that this would happent not too long ago.

For people who don't know GN:

https://youtu.be/cUrJVdF2me0?si=tlxLIufz8zah8xG6

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

#432

Post by cubefox »

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.

> Steam is really great for what it is but you’re not buying games you’re leasing them.

And you are not paying the large Valve tax (30%), so the publisher gets significantly more money from your purchase.

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

#433

Post by ajuc »

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…

> They don't because too many people pirate games to make that a viable business

I think mostly they don't because people already have steam installed, and creating a new account on some other website to buy 1 game is too much hassle.

See dwarf fortress that was free for decades, and got much more popular when it was released on steam (paid version).

Or see Vintage Story which is great, and should be much more popular, but it's only available on its own website.

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

#434

Post by ThrowawayR2 »

krige wrote: post #366
ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the cut can't be lower? The rush to defend Valve's monopoly is so weird since HN usually hates fat cat billionaires. Valve is raking in so much money as a middleman that Gabe Newell has ~$1 billion worth of yachts alone, in addition to the rest of his wealth, yet gamers want Valve to keep on bleeding them and game studios?

Ah yes the Tim Sweeney argument. Get a better service with a lower cut, sure. Why does nobody do that? They must be stupid.

It's more like the Year Of Linux On The Desktop argument. Why doesn't Linux just provide better features and TCO and unseat Windows? According to the parent poster, "They must be stupid."

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

#435

Post by squigz »

ManlyBread wrote: post #383
skrebbel wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just give them the files and pinky promise to delete them yourself?

It amazes me that people nowadays know so little about piracy that this is somehow touted as a solution.

GP wasn't being serious.

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

#436

Post by nottorp »

mindcandy wrote: post #332
fc417fc802 wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both you and GGP make concrete claims but fail to provide evidence. Can anyone cite published sales data or is this all mere conjecture? We've been exposed to what seems like FUD about piracy killing sales since approximately forever - you wouldn't dOwnLoAd a cAR - but seemingly zero actual evidence to date.

My source is first and second hand reports from management of game companies having worked in the industry for decades. But, they don’t make numbers like that public. The best public report I can find is https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S18759... which shows a median difference 20% of revenue for games where Denuvo is cracked “quickly” but also no significant difference if Denuvo survives for at…

> which shows a median difference 20% of revenue for games where Denuvo is cracked “quickly” but also no significant difference if Denuvo survives for at least 3 months.

So how did they measure the difference? They released one title with Denuvo then erased everyone's memories about it and released it again without?

Because if you compare different titles I don't know what you base that percentage on.

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

#437

Post by nottorp »

qubitcoder wrote: post #413
abustamam wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a lot of people pirate for a lot of different reasons. I don't pirate games anymore because I just play PS5. But I definitely did so as a teenager because I was broke, not because the experience of buying games was bad. Now I'll pirate if providers make it hard to do things right. I know I never "have" to pirate, but my wife once "bought" a movie on Amazon. A few years later, she was no longer able to access…

Or, just don’t play the game. I don’t mean to be flippant, but why waste time on software employing shoddy practices? Wordle and Apple’s mini crossword-minis are sufficiently stimulating and quick. My tolerance for software like that is very limited. It’s almost an immediate long-press and uninstall.

Why do you people even look at mobile games?

They're all free to play and their design is fundamentally affected by this. You end up either paying with time or with money.

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

#438

Post by nottorp »

Tarball10 wrote: post #239
afiori wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What has been proven many times is that people overwhelmingly choose the least effort/risk option. A free Steam full of certified pirates games with official games updates would obviously drop sales but this is moot as it will never exist.

Isn't that exactly what companies use as justification for DMCA and DRM protection? Without those, you'd have sites full of pirated game downloads easily found through search engines. DMCA takedowns force those sites into shady corners of the internet, making them harder to find and riskier for the average user. And (effective) DRM makes users have to wait for a crack which may take weeks or months. The result is tha…

> just log into Steam/Epic/PSN/eShop and spend $60 to play immediately

You spend $60 on games? I just add them to my wish list at launch and buy them when they're 30, 20...

I have more unplayed games than time anyway.

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

#439

Post by Macha »

codethief wrote: post #335

Never heard of gog.com before (not much of a gamer anymore these days) but it looks really cool! I wonder, though, how exactly do they handle the copyright and licensing topic? Do they negotiate terms separately with every copyright holder? Do they get access to the source code in order to preserve the games and make them fully offline-compatible?

> Do they negotiate terms separately with every copyright holder?

Yes

> Do they get access to the source code in order to preserve the games and make them fully offline-compatible?

Sometimes, sometimes their role is just packaging the game with a dosbox config too, or a developer provided drm free build

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

#440

Post by nottorp »

solatic wrote: post #364
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…

> They don't because too many people pirate games to make that a viable business Game piracy is fundamentally un-safe for players, since games are fundamentally executable code, where setup usually requires admin permissions, and pirate distributors are financially incentivized to add malware to turn the game system into part of someone's botnet. The only "safe" way to pirate is to do it on a dedicated machine, on a…

Most good quality pirate sites have a comments section and remove malware laden torrents.
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