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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

#541

Post by 0xedd »

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…

[dead]

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

#542

Post by walletdrainer »

weezing wrote: post #498
walletdrainer wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Which services exactly do that? Because Steam or GOG for sure don't.

Steam has done that to me many times.

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

#543

Post by qq66 »

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…

The flip side of this is that the only games whose owners allow them to be fully sold in this way are those whose commercial value is >90% expired.

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

#544

Post by PoignardAzur »

pitched wrote: post #65
fooqux wrote: post #47

I used to love gog. I purchased a bunch of stuff back when they were talking a big game around supporting Linux with their Galaxy client. But while gog was talking, Valve was actually doing . Building an actual Linux client. Making multiplayer actually work. Not to mention all the work they've done with Proton and upstreamimg graphics drivers. I hope gog succeeds. I just value Linux gaming support over not having DRM…

It doesn’t look like GOG can afford to pay for that work. I think we all got very lucky that the success of the Steam Deck has put the incentives in the right place for Steam to be able to invest in Linux.

Saying "we're lucky" makes it sound like Valve's investment in Linux is a happy accident, but as you point out, the Steam Machine was announced in 2013, and back them gaming on Linux was seen as a pie in the sky dream.

Headlines at the time said things like "Valve’s Steam Machines look dead in the water", there was barely any market demand, and they probably lost a lot on the initial release.

The fact that they still doubled down and spent ten years funding the Linux ecosystem before it made them any money speaks of both a strategic incentive (they don't want Microsoft to hold a sword over their neck) and ideological vision (they want gaming to stay relatively open).

Saying "we all got very lucky that the success of the Steam Deck has put the incentives in the right place for Steam to be able to invest in Linux" is getting the causality backwards at the very least. Valve investing in Linux is what made the Steam Deck's success remotely possible, and it wasn't a sure shot.

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

#545

Post by tmtvl »

georgeecollins wrote: post #372
trinsic2 wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an opinion that "Most" people pirate games and it's also an opinion that pirating games translates directly to lost sales. As Gabe said and I agree with him piracy, if it's anything a service related problem. You don't need DRM to overcome that. You just need to make a good product and respect you audience. The people that pirate for the wrong reasons will do it anyway and you don't gain much from restricting co…

>> The people that pirate for the wrong reasons will do it anyway and you don't gain much from restricting copies. That is also an opinion. Also-- as an aside-- I am curious what you think the "right" reason is for piracy. DRM free games is not a new idea. They have always existed and people have tried different models with them like including advertising. Do you remember the Ford driving simulator? The skittles game…

> The skittles game.

Oh, Darkened Skye? Funny how it's just a fairly bland fantasy 3rd-person action-adventure game and then you get to spellcasting and it's skittles. Also, when I think of video game advertising, I think Cool Spot.

A 'right' reason for illicitly obtaining a video game would be if the game is unobtainable because of licensing shenanigans. Project Cars 2 has the best single player career mode of any existing circuit racing game and it being unavailable because the licenses to the cars (and maybe also the tracks?) expired is a shame.

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

#546

Post by yeputons »

rhamzeh wrote: post #392
yeputons wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can’t recall a time I’ve encountered an issue that was the fault of Valve versus a developer or publisher. Does it really matter if it's developer/publisher removing the game from Steam, not Valve? The end result is the same: one can't play.

AFAIK, even if the developer removes a game from Steam, if you bought it (or rather, a license for it), it remains in your account. E.g. I have Lord of the Rings: War in the North that is no longer available anywhere, yet I can still download install and play it on my devices through Steam (even on Linux, which it was not intended for) That of course doesn't help if the game does not have an offline component, e.g. I…

Huh, great to know, thank you. For some reason, I thought the game gets de-listed completely and no downloads are possible anymore.

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

#547

Post by kgwxd »

EA-3167 wrote: post #252
kgwxd wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once you pay who? Money going to the wrong people is far worse for "creators" in the long run than if you had just copied it. Every digital industry has proven the argument billions of times over. If you're going to bother feeling guilt, aim it at actual injustice.

You’re adding a lot of dimensions to the act of buying something than I care about. I’m not trying to fight injustice when I buy most things, I’m just following the realistic legal requirements to use the thing.

Oh, well then, depending on the content, you're almost certainly still "guilty" violating the license you purchased. Smoking my friends prescribed medical marijuana is still illegal in e.g. Florida.

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

#548

Post by burnt-resistor »

Not sure how to read this. But what I do notice is big publishers often put less effort and attention into GOG releases (fewer platforms, older releases, incomplete offerings), with the net effect of sabotaging the platform. It seems intentional in many cases rather than omission.

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

#549

Post by justsomehnguy »

wishfish wrote: post #427
SOLAR_FIELDS wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a valuable lesson I learned when I worked with someone, not at Elastic, but who had previously worked at Elastic. Elastic was one of the original companies who made FOSS but with enterprise licensing work well. We were discussing in a meeting at this place we worked how to design license checking into the product. What the guy said I found very insightful: he said that you don’t really need to spend a bunch o…

I did something that was almost the same. Used to work for an educational software company that almost solely sold to schools, universities, and government institutions. Sometimes to corporate learning centers. Every sale was on a per-seat basis. Every single customer we had wanted to be legal. Didn't want to exceed their seats or do anything which would violate their sales agreement. In the case of our government cl…

Finally a sane approach. And quite amusing it follows the first IT rule: don't solve the administrative problems with a technical means.

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

#550

Post by brigandish »

mikkupikku wrote: post #515
Aurornis wrote: post #506

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your friends can afford the type of gaming PC necessary to play those $60 titles, but they can’t afford to buy any games for said PC? And they can’t even wait for them to go on sale? They need to buy them right at launch, at their full $60 price? > Or reach out and take the thing which is free? It’s not free. It has a price.

You can play most games to some degree on hardware that's 10+ years old, but yes, hardware is usually something they've scrounged and saved for. And do tell, what is the practical price of pirating a game you couldn't afford anyway? Risk of a virus? Some abstract cost to society itself? Nobody cares.

If they scrounged and saved for the hardware why can't they do that for the software too?
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