Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

GOG is getting acquired by its original co-founder

gog.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

291–300 of 574 posts

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

#291

Post by nutjob2 »

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…

Pretty much all games with any sort of substantial audience are pirated, regardless of DRM.

The fact that DRM negatively affects honest customers more than pirates still holds true.

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

#292

Post by croes »

cogogo wrote: post #176
ninth_ant wrote: post #138

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…

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

>The fact that many people pirate is not an opinion.

That's not the opinon part. That pirating is the reason a game business isn't viable is.

Would you have bought every game you pirated? How much money did you spend on gaming because you got hooked because you could play more games than you could afford otherwise?

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

#293

Post by guizadillas »

867-5309 wrote: post #204
guizadillas wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I usually trust anything a girl who is particularly fit repacks

good luck sourcing the (supposedly) malware-free release

the source is almost always the same forum, what's your point?

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

#294

Post by fc417fc802 »

bendangelo wrote: post #288
fwipsy wrote: post #210

Earlier 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.

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.

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

#295

Post by fc417fc802 »

NegativeLatency wrote: post #195
andrepd wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is teenagers or poor people or people from third world countries that pirate for financial reasons just would not buy those games regardless. I'm unconvinced that those pirates affect sales in the end to any meaningful degree.

Also teenagers grow up eventually having money to buy the games on their own. I’m a Diablo and StarCraft fan because of pirated games played during my childhood when I couldn’t convince my parents to let me buy them.

I was exactly the same! But then StarCraft 2 came out, I went out of my way to purchase the retail box, it had nothing more than a slip of paper with a CD key inside, I grudgingly went to download it and Blizzard demanded a bunch of PII from me. I regret the purchase.

Not making that mistake twice. I imagine this is one of the reasons that Steam is so successful. No surprises and near zero friction. Why risk going elsewhere as a consumer?

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

#296

Post by Brian_K_White »

bsimpson wrote: post #88
dangus wrote: 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.

Physical media rots too. I don't watch my DVD collection anymore because I don't have access to a working DVD player, but I've read that a lot of those discs don't play anymore because the publishers cheaped out on materials when they minted the discs.

This in not an equivalence.

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

#297

Post by lazylizard »

buran77 wrote: post #127
oriolid wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not completely convinced. When I was a teenager I pirated games because I didn't have money (and games were incredibly expensive back in the day). The people who I copied them from did it to show off their collection and connections, or just because they were my friends.

For people who have no money to spare for games it really doesn't matter if games come with DRM or not. They wouldn't afford them anyway so "for free" is the only option that matters. For people who have money for games but don't want to pay, the presence of DRM matters very little. 99% of games are usually trivially cracked, especially if you are willing to wait for some days or weeks after launch (an important sale…

when i was younger there were more games i wanted to play than i had money to pay for..and i pirated.

then i had some money and i bought more games than i had time to play.*

now i neither buy or play games.

*the point is that at this point, there is no point wasting time trying to pirate games. every humble bundle. every steam sale. u just click and its yours. you dont even have time to play. why waste time pirating?

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

#298

Post by Fire-Dragon-DoL »

skrebbel wrote: post #105
SirMaster wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>GOG is the only major storefront where I feel like I actually own the product. How do we re-sell our GOG games to someone else? If I own it I should be able to sell it again, right? Like I used to sell old console game disks after I was done with them.

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

Gog license doesn't allow reselling at all

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

#299

Post by fc417fc802 »

eviks wrote: post #240
danaris wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It contradicts the post it was replying to , which was saying, effectively, that people don't want to spend any money on stuff. I don't think it's required to be making some universal point when you clearly respond to the argument put forward in the post you reply to, do you?

No, you misunderstood the comment, it said that paying nothing is compelling, not that paying something was inconceivable or something; it was a response to a comment with a common misconception that pirating is only some "service problem"

I agree with your earlier comment (GGP) and feel like you're contradicting yourself here. "Too expensive" is either a service problem or at least directly adjacent to it. It's distinct from "well if I can get away with piracy then I'll do it". To say that free is a compelling price is to imply the latter as opposed to the former (at least imo).

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

#300

Post by IG_Semmelweiss »

walletdrainer wrote: post #175
stavros wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I’m fabulously wealthy and still mostly pirate things just because I can’t be bothered dealing with online credit card payments. Half the time I try to sign up for any of these services I get blocked for fraud because I’m in one country, my billing address in another and my bank in a third. Oh, and when something does work, it only works for a while until they lock the whole account with a bunch of paid content on it…

That is my experience with Adidas.com.

I've not had issues with Steam, though my Steam journey was early into online purchasing adventures

Post reply on HN