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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

#481

Post by immibis »

fc417fc802 wrote: post #295
NegativeLatency wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 el…

Steam requires the same bullshit. It's just that you only do it once, and it remembers your PII for your future purchases. In this way, centralised marketplaces have lower friction.

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

#482

Post by npodbielski »

embedding-shape wrote: post #11

From 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…

I am happy that deal with Amazon didn't hurt them. Doing business with such big corp is probably not good for anyone.

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

#483

Post by CYR1X »

embedding-shape wrote: post #468
musha68k wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

GN very much loves to fuel the fire lol. He usually does it by being More Correct Than You.

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

#484

Post by immibis »

user____name wrote: post #428
Hammershaft wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Steam uses outsized market power to take an enormous %30 cut so it also does major damage to the games industry.

On top of their very frequent predatory pricing sales. -90% who the hell can or wants to compete with that? But hey the gamers love it.

That's called market segmentation. The people who either ignore the game or pirate it when it's full price - well they're trying to at least get some money out of those people. That's how sales work in general.

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

#485

Post by npodbielski »

jeroenhd wrote: post #290
its-summertime wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is only 1 Steam client for Linux, and there will only ever be one client, and that client has had basic issues (context menus being a completely new window that steals focus, comes to mind instantly) that have been unresolved year after year. For GOG, there are plenty of clients for Linux [1][2][3][4], And they are open source, I can go and talk to the people making these clients directly, I can give feedback,…

It took me seven tries across two years to get Cyberpunk 2077 playing on Linux using either raw install files with or without Lutris/Bottles, GOG Galaxy in a wine env, or whatever Heroic Launcher offers. I'm glad it mostly works now, but i would've been better off buying it from Valve. The effort Valve put into making games Just Work is unparalleled. The minor UI issues (like context menus getting rendered in place a…

Did you try lutris?

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

#486

Post by embedding-shape »

CYR1X wrote: post #483
embedding-shape wrote: post #468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(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.

GN very much loves to fuel the fire lol. He usually does it by being More Correct Than You.

Yeah, that's kind of insufferable, and especially not something I'd like to receive dragged out over an hour. I prefer "More Correct Than You" HN comments over that, so I can read them in 30 seconds instead.

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

#487

Post by freehorse »

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…

Similar here. When I pirated I did not have the extra money to buy the games anyway, so I would not have bought them. I would also rent a bunch from a video game store, when this was actual a thing back then, which was much cheaper. And a couple that came with pc magazines. Not sure how that worked in the context of the video game industry, but anyway downloading a full game over these internet speeds was a pain.

Once I was more economically stable, I did not download pirated games anymore, and I even bought a bunch that I had played and really liked, even if I barely played them again.

I am not putting any moral stance on this, I was not entitled to play anything without money to pay, but my point is that for me a lack of option to pirate these games would not have implied me paying for them. Probably I would have done something else with my time.

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

#488

Post by wackget »

musha68k wrote: post #431
rjzzleep wrote: post #394

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

Link without Google tracking parameter (`si`): https://youtu.be/cUrJVdF2me0

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

#489

Post by yunnpp »

pjmlp wrote: post #418
yunnpp wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I used to think like that, but doing Linux installs since 1995's Summer eventually gets tiring, especially in gaming and graphics workstation laptops, thus it lives on VMa for me.

Just avoid Nvidia and you're good. Intel/AMD hardware works out of the box with Mesa.

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

#490

Post by ThatMedicIsASpy »

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #278
TulliusCicero wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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?

The cut lowers to 25% after $10mio and 20% after $50mio iirc.

I can defend steam and its (key) features I need/use (Controllers, Linux gaming, Linux improvements)

I cannot defend valves gambling casino. I also cannot say it's a monopoly.

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