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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

#461
post #412
post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Haha, we all Slavs keep telling that to ourselves, don't we? :P

To cite what might be deemed the lowest quality source possible: [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Europe

You'll find as many perspectives on what country belongs to East/West/North/South Europe as there are countries in Europe.

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

#462
post #93
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is basically never. They have no incentive to do that except for extreme circumstances, and they have all the leverage in the world over game publishers. Delisted games tend to stay in your library for redownload. I never understood the cynicism for digital media, it’s been multiple decades now and the model clearly works. Obviously I prefer zero DRM but it’s also not a hard line requirement for me personally.

All of this is based on the assumption that the way it was done is the way it will be done. Who will own and run Steam 30 years from now? Gabe Newell will be long-gone, his nepobaby next-CEO will be closing in on retirement if they don't check-out early to enjoy their vast wealth like Gabe has done. What does Steam look like 60 years from now? Adults using it today are mostly dead and all of their licenses revoked fo…

[deleted]

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

#463

I wish there was a general software equivalent of GOG that provided much older software with removed DRM.

What old software are you thinking about?

Although it would never happen, the old Office suites and Adobe products would be nice. Not for any silly "retro" or "nostalgia" value, but simply because much software from around the time of the millennium is still incredibly useful. I use Photoshop 6.0 for all my image manipulation tasks.

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

#464
post #93
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is basically never. They have no incentive to do that except for extreme circumstances, and they have all the leverage in the world over game publishers. Delisted games tend to stay in your library for redownload. I never understood the cynicism for digital media, it’s been multiple decades now and the model clearly works. Obviously I prefer zero DRM but it’s also not a hard line requirement for me personally.

All of this is based on the assumption that the way it was done is the way it will be done. Who will own and run Steam 30 years from now? Gabe Newell will be long-gone, his nepobaby next-CEO will be closing in on retirement if they don't check-out early to enjoy their vast wealth like Gabe has done. What does Steam look like 60 years from now? Adults using it today are mostly dead and all of their licenses revoked fo…

I don’t care because I’ll be dead.

Data-hoarding archivists don’t like to hear this, but this is how it’s worked for all of human history. It’s not practical to consume and remember all the media every person has ever published.

This is getting totally beside the issue of DRM.

What will happen is that the greatest games will be remembered if they’re lucky and the rest will be discarded by time, even if they are DRM-free and unencumbered by reaching public domain status.

Can you name your favorite silent movie? How about your second favorite? How about your 10th favorite?

What’s your favorite song from 1492?

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

#465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They don't because too many people pirate games to make that a viable business. This is an opinion, stated as if it’s fact. There are many factors contributing to the ongoing success of steam. Ease of access, a strong network effect, word of mouth from satisfied customers, a strong ecosystem of tools and a modding platform, willingness to work across many platforms and a variety of vendors including competitors, an…

All the factors you listed are a huge component of Steam’s success but are mainly for the benefit of consumers. Lack of offline installers is something that makes the vast majority of suppliers comfortable with putting their game on Steam. A platform ideally wants to capture as many consumers as possible but also needs to capture as many suppliers as possible to create a rich marketplace. Negotiating the balance of c…

Indeed — the only reason I personally still use steam is that a few of the games I want to play are not available in any other (legal) way.

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

#466
post #333
post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does Cost of sales include game developers cut? because that 143/103 fits their 30-70 split.

Suspicion is you're correct, and is it's probably something like payments or money to developers who have games on the GOG platform. However, the definition in the document is kind of self referential. "Cost of Sales" is 100% "Cost of goods for resale and materials sold" and "The Cost of goods for resale and materials sold represents mainly the cost of sales of goods for resale and materials sold via the GOG.COM plat…

all the numbers are in thousand units. So more like 1M games a quarter.

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

#468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

(Human) summary of this almost one hour long video essay? Seems like the typical "random tech influencer is trying to fuel the fire/drama of today" because of the clickbait title of "NVIDIA: WTF?", so unsure if it fits to be linked here in the first place.

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

#469
post #453
post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the new system allows multiple users to play the same game at the same time (unless the publisher explicitely opted out).

Does it? I thought only as many times as there are original licenses in the family. Or is this yet another mechanism?

If you want to play the same exact title, yes. But previous versions would kick you out from playing a shared game if the owner was playing any other title in their library, and they've recently removed that behaviout.

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

#470

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. This is an opinion, stated as if it’s fact. There are many factors contributing to the ongoing success of steam. Ease of access, a strong network effect, word of mouth from satisfied customers, a strong ecosystem of tools and a modding platform, willingness to work across many platforms and a variety of vendors including competitors, an…

I’ve followed a couple indie game developers over the years who started with lofty ideas about selling DRM free games. As soon as they add an online component of any type (e.g. a leaderboard for ranks or high scores) they’re blown away by the number of connections coming in because the number of people playing the game is so much higher than they would have expected from sales alone.

If you’re the kind of person who actually pays for games even when you could pirate them with a few minutes of searching, you probably don’t fully understand how widespread the problem is. Many people will simply not pay for something if there is an option to get it without paying by default.

The only developers who can afford to do DRM-free games are those with such a high volume of users that they’ve passed their target threshold for income and are okay with leaving money on the table. For every 1 person you see claiming they will only spend money on DRM-free games in comments on HN or Reddit, there are probably 100 to 1000 more who don’t care about the DRM status of the game, they just want to buy it and play for a while.

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