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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

#531

Post by freehorse »

Aurornis wrote: post #527
freehorse wrote: post #523

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do not care about the moral judgements. If somebody cannot afford the game or doesn't want to pay, then they will most probably not buy it, whether they pirate or not. Sure, there is always money to squeeze, but 10% sounds overestimation, esp when the squeezing comes essentially to the expense and inconvenience of the people who actually buy the thing. Which is solely what I care about here. In any case, DRMs never…

> Sure, there is always money to squeeze, but 10% sounds overestimation, 10% was an example of a low-ball number. I estimate the number is much higher. > I do not care about the moral judgements. If you don’t care about moral judgments, why have this conversation at all? Nothing matters, do what you want, pirate everything you can get away with.

The discussion started about DRM/gog. As I said, what I care about is DRM in games. If I buy a game, I want to own it, not rent it. Same as with any software. This is not just moral, it is firstmost practical. If running a game is bound to have steam running, then not getting steam to run means I cannot run the game. This has actually been a real situation where I could install and play games from gog because I could download an offline installer, but not from steam.

I don't care about the morals of pirating in the abstract, because I don't think such an abstract morality makes sense and hence I am not gonna lecture people what they should do (they can decide themselves based on their situation). The argument that without some sort of abstract moral code one will just pirate everything makes no sense. I buy now the games I play because I am fortunate that I have the money to buy them, and because I want to support studios that I consider decent (so that they keep making decent games). Same with any other kind of art.

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

#532

Post by fc417fc802 »

immibis wrote: post #481
fc417fc802 wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Did Steam change something? I first opened the account to claim a game via license code. It only required a working email at the time.

Later I chose to provide my credit card for convenience. As far as I know I could have instead used gift cards or prepaid cards.

Regardless, there's also an issue of trust. I might choose to provide PII to a large central marketplace that has a good reputation but providing it to each individual producer seems highly questionable.

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

#533

Post by jeroenhd »

npodbielski wrote: post #485
jeroenhd wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Yes. One recipe at the time was broken, the other didn't work. At some point the game got updated and the existing tricks and workarounds to get the game running were no longer enough.

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

#534

Post by jeroenhd »

mordae wrote: post #493
jeroenhd wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

With Lutris it just worked.

Not when I tried it the first couple of times. At some point Proton (and then probably Wine?) got updated to fix the bug triggered by one of the game updates months before that and it has worked since.

I'm no stranger to messing with Wine to get Windows executables to work. Whatever the GOG release did different, it just didn't work once the intro logos were gone, even with the same Proton version that worked with the Steam version.

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

#535

Post by esrauch »

chii wrote: post #369
esrauch wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main claim here is that it is a defacto monopoly, and that there are not "plenty of other platforms", since none of those platforms actually have any reach. It results in most games smaller than Fortnight or Blizzard having literally no choice but to use steam regardless of policy or cut. Any time you have no choice it at least makes for a very warped market.

> since none of those platforms actually have any reach. so really, this is about getting reach, and that a 30% cut for said reach is too high. I am arguing that this price is a market price, for which it is justified by mere existence. If this price was too high, then these other platforms that you claim have no reach will get some reach, since the PC platform is not locked down (yet). Unlike in the model of apple's…

The fact that the fee is the same for Steam and Apple/Play Store seems suggestive to me the market is warped, given the latter ones are cases which are clearly monopolies where no alternative is technically possible.

Steam has a "most favored nation" clause which means people can't charge less on Steam than they do on Epic Store. And Epic Game Store cut is 0% on the first million and only 12% after that, but it can't actually end up charging less to customers if Steam maintains the most favored nation clause.

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

#536

Post by encrypted_bird »

dleslie wrote: post #345
roxolotl wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea 100% it’s not as easy to use. But as far as I’m aware Steam doesn’t provide any guarantee games will keep working and GOG actually has it as a mission statement that, as least those selected as “Good Old Games”, will[0]. Now of course that requires GOG to survive so it’s sorta the same thing like you’re saying. But I’d argue there is a material difference between “if you try hard you can run an original copy of D…

Not to disagree, but proton has made it quite easy to run games I've previously struggled with. The nice thing is that it works with any binary, not just those you've purchased. Yes, it's wine, but valve has done wonders for its performance and compatibility.

This.

And if it doesn't wanna work on Proton, GEProton might work. I've had a few games like that. (I usually default to the latter and use the former as a fallback.)

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

#538

Post by Fire-Dragon-DoL »

SirMaster wrote: post #537
Fire-Dragon-DoL wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gog license doesn't allow reselling at all

Then you don't really own it IMO.

I agree. It allows you yo backup your games, which to be fair you can do with Steam too and just play offline forever.

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

#539

Post by Spooky23 »

murrain wrote: post #331
Spooky23 wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish they had a way to transfer licenses. I have a huge steam library and my son is the biggest user. No big deal when he was 7 but now I just want to play my ancient games… and we kick each other out sometimes! And yeah.. it’s trivial to bypass, but I’d rather have a choice not to.

You can share a Steam library with your family. https://store.steampowered.com/promotion/familysharing

That’s awesome, thank you!

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

#540

Post by alexp2021 »

npodbielski wrote: post #479
NoahZuniga wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reinvested money isn't a cost, so the amount of reinvesting doesn't impact the profit number in their report.

In what country? Of course I do not operate business with milions of income, but investing in Poland is usually a cost. In example buying hardware or paying for servers is an invoice so it is cost of you doing business. Of course it depends on accounting and your taxing method. But yes, your profit in Poland is more or less money you got from clients minus money you paid to someone.

Investment/CAPEX goes to the Balance sheet, not P&L.
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