[HN Gopher] GOG is getting acquired by its original co-founder
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GOG is getting acquired by its original co-founder
Author : haunter
Score : 470 points
Date : 2025-12-29 16:43 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.gog.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.gog.com)
| bogzz wrote:
| It's so nice to have these little oases of ethical businesses in
| tech. A shame that it feels like the desert is only growing
| exponentially.
| A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 wrote:
| Does anyone know the backstory here? Is CDprojekt not the right
| owner anymore? I am clearly not following the ownership closely
| here ( but maybe I should have ).
| embedding-shape wrote:
| It's part of the FAQ at the bottom:
|
| > Why is CD PROJECT doing this?
|
| > Selling GOG fits CD PROJEKT's long-term strategy. CD PROJEKT
| wants to focus its full attention on creating top-quality RPGs
| and providing our fans with other forms of entertainment based
| on our brands. This deal lets CD PROJEKT keep that focus, while
| GOG gets stronger backing to pursue its own mission.
|
| > What is GOG's position in this?
|
| > To us at GOG, this feels like the best way to accelerate what
| is unique about GOG. Michal Kicinski is one of the people who
| created GOG around a simple idea: bring classic games back, and
| make sure that once you purchase a game, you have control over
| it forever. With him acquiring GOG, we keep long-term backing
| that is aligned with our values: freedom, independence,
| control, and making games stay playable over time.
| A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 wrote:
| Apologies, I accept FAQ exists, but I am simply asking if
| there is more to the story than corporate release.
| ls612 wrote:
| GOG isn't as good of a business as CDPR's development
| studios so it is getting spun off.
| cherryteastain wrote:
| Please release a Linux client or, even better, officially support
| and invest in developing Heroic Games Launcher so we can play our
| DRM free GOG games on a libre OS.
| A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 wrote:
| That and/or proper remote desktop implementation.
| embedding-shape wrote:
| Literally sitting with Lutris in front of me downloading a game
| from GOG right now. Can Heroic Games not handle it themselves
| like Lutris? Seems easy enough for other FOSS projects to do,
| I'd rather GOG continue focusing on ensuring the games run on
| modern hardware, and acquiring licenses to good old games,
| rather than now expanding the support for their already
| mediocre launcher.
| sitkack wrote:
| Exactly, or open the protocol and let the community write it.
|
| Third option is to ensure the downloader runs under proton,
| which I think it does but haven't tried.
| shmerl wrote:
| Protocol is well documented already, GOG aren't really
| blocking community clients:
|
| https://gogapidocs.readthedocs.io/en/latest/
|
| The problem is mostly that their backend isn't wired for
| Linux builds so you can't use the APIs for native Linux
| versions.
| dundarious wrote:
| Heroic works perfectly, in a manner identical to Lutris (from
| a user perspective). I tested both several years ago and have
| been a happy Heroic user since.
|
| However, neither support 2 key features of GOG Galaxy:
|
| 1. cloud saves
|
| 2. achievements
|
| These are 2 of the most significant features of competitors
| like Steam, IMO, so missing them for GOG on Linux is
| unfortunate.
| izacus wrote:
| That's simply not true at all, Heroic Launcher supports
| both cloud saves and achievements. I've been using them for
| a long time on Deck now.
|
| Please don't lie :/
| dundarious wrote:
| I was mixing up the fact that "Linux native games do not
| support GOG's Cloud Saves feature" (direct quote from the
| app itself), with a general lack of support. Given it
| says "Use the Windows version instead", I am quite wrong,
| it clearly does support them for Windows games.
|
| If you think that's a "lie", consult a dictionary.
|
| As for whether my general point stands, I think it's a
| reasonable inference that if GOG Galaxy supported Linux,
| it would support Linux games and cloud saves for those
| games, and only then would Heroic and the like be able to
| implement such a feature. I could be wrong, as it depends
| on details I don't know, and I'm just making an educated
| guess.
| dundarious wrote:
| I just installed a GOG Windows game in Heroic, and the
| Settings state "This game does not support Cloud Saves"
| even though my account has cloud saves clearly visible
| for that same game on the GOG website.
|
| Given I'm using Heroic from AUR on a supported OS, and
| installed with default settings, I consider this cloud
| save support to be less than stellar, but that's a
| separate matter, I'm not trying to turn this thread into
| a support issue.
| shmerl wrote:
| I use lgogdownloader, but yeah they should improve their Linux
| support. At the very least the immediate benefit would be
| Galaxy protocol support for their Linux builds.
| Gormo wrote:
| > Please release a Linux client
|
| The whole point of GOG is that you don't _need_ a "client" --
| it's just a store.
|
| If you want to use something other than a standard web browser
| to install your games, there are plenty of options, including
| projects like Lutris and lgogdownloader.
| shmerl wrote:
| I think the issue with requests to "release the client" isn't
| as simple as "you can use an open source alternative".
|
| Their Galaxy backend only handles Windows and macOS builds of
| games. Linux builds aren't included now. There are hacks
| around it like using access to individual files over HTTP
| through zip format for Linux installers as pseudo Galaxy
| (lgogdownloader supports that) but it's still just a hack.
|
| Another piece is multiplayer integration that games can ship.
| That depends on their support too (authentication, matching
| and etc).
| golyi wrote:
| Awesome news really, I've bought countless games from GOG (more
| than Steam I think at this point) and it's a company I'll always
| support. Great business decision.
| brachkow wrote:
| It is great because game preservation isn't what game industry
| shareholders usually interested.
|
| CD Project makes great games, but gaming industry is all-or-
| nothing. They already had colossal flop at their previous
| release. If another flop happens shutting down GOG is clearly
| would be on a table as a cost cutting measure.
| nicolaslem wrote:
| I don't think it's fair to call Cyberpunk 2077 a colossal flop.
| It had an awful release, but the company stood behind it and
| fixed everything that needed fixing. Five years later it is now
| an acclaimed game that sold 35 million copies.
| paxys wrote:
| Yup, Cyberpunk 2077 has sold more copies in the same time
| frame than Witcher 3, which is routinely highlighted as one
| of the best and most successful games of all time.
|
| You have to give kudos to CD PROJEKT for not just abandoning
| the game after a bad launch (which is what every other major
| studio would have done in its place) but patiently fixing
| problems and constantly adding content _over 5 years_ to get
| to the state it is in today. And the game has no online
| requirement, no multiplayer, no microtransactions. Just one
| paid expansion which added a ton of new content. Rare to see
| this behavior in the industry today.
| mashlol wrote:
| > which is what every other major studio would have done in
| its place
|
| Afaik CDPR doesn't make many games. If one flops, that
| might be the end of them. I don't see abandoning a game as
| a valid option for them from a financial perspective. Makes
| much more sense to fix the issues and sell more.
| Aeolun wrote:
| I think it's more related to their reputation? People
| will buy the next one if they trust CDPR will fix
| anything wrong with it even if it flops.
|
| Kinda how you trust paradox strategy titles to get
| several years of updates and expansions.
| SXX wrote:
| Studious dont abandon failed releases because they are
| evil. Its just releases fail because they run out of money
| so there just nothing to burn to save them.
|
| CDPR just was lucky enough to make enough money of failed
| release to fix it. Most companies get no chance to do it.
| kryptiskt wrote:
| EA is notorious for throwing games out there and
| abandoning them as soon as they don't turn out to be
| massive hits. That is a company that has plenty of
| resources to support the games and fix the bugs.
| SXX wrote:
| Not gonna protect EA the company here, but lots and lots
| of other games also flop on release because money.
| mikepurvis wrote:
| Definite kudos to them for that, though notably it's down to
| 65% off now, so presumably many of those copies were for not-
| full-retail price.
|
| And the Switch 2 port likely cost considerable engineering
| effort and underperformed as well.
| aeyes wrote:
| What game was a colossal flop? Cyberpunk was released too early
| but they kept on delivering patches and then the players game.
| It's their highest earning title.
| jama211 wrote:
| I also started playing it this year and the experience at
| least now has been fantastic
| GaryBluto wrote:
| IIRC they fixed various bugs but they didn't fix the broken
| promises. The biggest problems with Cyberpunk were
| architectural, things that would basically require
| redesigning the game to match what was promised.
| gamesieve wrote:
| Online sentiment has drastically changed about how bad
| those broken promises were - a near-complete turnaround,
| similar to what happened with No Man's Sky. Basically from
| when the DLC was released, most people started feeling that
| they fulfilled the essence of everything that was promised.
| SXX wrote:
| IMO Cyberpunk is fundamentally not the game their
| marketing promissed. They marketed it as actually non-
| linear RPG and beyond very beginning of the game they
| just could't deliver on it.
|
| After tons of patches and DLCs its just became a very
| very good game. Just not what was promissed.
| prmoustache wrote:
| Those kinds of promises only engage a small niche of
| nolife who follow news about upcoming games.
|
| Most customers only hear about a game when it is released
| and reviewed and/or recommended by a friend and will
| never have heard about them.
| SXX wrote:
| Yet those niche nolife hardcore fans is exactly what
| makes or breaks games. If 10,000 unhappy hardcore fans
| will go around pouring shit on your game and company then
| you likely never get 1,000,000 players who could've
| potentially liked it.
|
| Nolife hardcore fans will also be the the first to buy
| your game, review it and tell everyone if they did not
| liked it.
|
| CDPR got huge amount of trust after Witcher 3 and they
| mostly had to start over after CP2077 release.
|
| EA can survive if 4/10 of their games flops completely,
| but company like CDPR will likely just end there.
| tester756 wrote:
| >CD Project makes great games, but gaming industry is all-or-
| nothing. They already had colossal flop at their previous
| release. If another flop happens shutting down GOG is clearly
| would be on a table as a cost cutting measure.
|
| Cyberpunk was really successful from $$ standpoint and
| continues to generate huge revenue even today.
| embedding-shape wrote:
| 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 than Steam, even
| when they were available on Stream. Prior to 2025 I almost
| exclusively used Steam unless it wasn't available there, but now
| GOG is #1 :)
|
| Glad it's moving in even better directions, thank you Team GOG!
| eterm wrote:
| I had the opposite takeaway.
|
| Companies with strong financial performance don't tend to use
| words like "encouraging". That is the language you get from
| companies that are in trouble and hoping for recovery.
|
| Talking about people's enthusiasm for their mission is just
| straight up dodging the question itself.
| Ekaros wrote:
| If I read their income statement from Q3 correctly it is
| comparatively not doing great.
|
| 01.01.2025 to 30.09.2025 net profit 910 thousand PLN I think.
|
| 01.01.2024 to 30.09.2024 net profit 32 thousand PLN.
|
| With "from 1 January to 30 September 2025: 4.2365 PLN/EUR and
| from 1 January to 30 September 2024:4.3022 PLN/EUR."
|
| It is not that much. So splitting it off probably make sense
| for the CD Projekt.
| apetresc wrote:
| I'm not sure I understand your figures. What is "32
| thousand PLN", surely their entire annual profit for all of
| 2024 was not literally 32K PLN (approx. 9K USD)? Is this
| measured in millions? And whatever they're measured in,
| surely 32K to 910K in the span of a year is considered
| excellent progress?
| Ekaros wrote:
| No it was actually just circa 9 thousand Euros from
| GOG.COM. And it seems there was period of having
| potential loss of million PLN as well in Q3 of 2024 I
| think. So it looks quite variable based on which products
| release.
|
| See: https://www.cdprojekt.com/en/wp-content/uploads-
| en/2025/11/c...
|
| Starting from page 28.
| bcye wrote:
| Maybe they are just heavily reinvesting?
| Ekaros wrote:
| I think reality is that being game retailer is harsh
| market if you are anyone else but Valve with Steam.
| Selling copies redeemed on Steam is workable, but seeing
| that pretty much all big publishers are back on Steam
| should tell a lot of state of the market. And GOG has
| bigger mind share than actual market share.
| Detrytus wrote:
| Still, making only 32k PLN ($9k) profit on 137M PLN
| ($38M) revenue seems like a really badly operated
| business.
| andriamanitra wrote:
| Profit is not an appropriate measure of how well a
| business is operated. I'm sure they have been
| prioritizing growth because the whole point of the
| platform is to introduce competition to Steam. Keeping
| the margins low (or even negative) is smart when the
| primary goal is not to make profit but to insure the
| parent company against monopolistic behavior.
| embedding-shape wrote:
| https://www.cdprojekt.com/en/investors/result-
| center/q3-2025... [has a bunch of files at the bottom too,
| for more data]
|
| > Consolidated net earnings during the reporting period
| stood at 193 million PLN - 2.5 times more than during the
| corresponding period of the previous year, which results in
| a net profitability of 55%.
|
| Maybe I don't understand "profits above all" sufficiently
| well as some of my peers, but that seems Good Enough to me.
| Ekaros wrote:
| Overall CD Projekt is doing well, but cut associated to
| GOG.COM is paltry as shown above.
| izacus wrote:
| No company with an ounce of brain and a good accountant
| reports profit in eastern Europe :)
| JLO64 wrote:
| Polska is in Central Europe tho
| izacus wrote:
| Haha, we all Slavs keep telling that to ourselves, don't
| we? :P
| rvba wrote:
| Is this taken from some LLM?
|
| The first two numbers perhaps make sense, the 4,3022 looks
| like EUR/ PLN exghange rate..
| embedding-shape wrote:
| I guess I trust them that if they would be in trouble, they'd
| say so, not say "GOG is stable". But I've been wrong before,
| could be in this situation too, I guess I'm more hoping that
| they wouldn't lie to their users in their face like that.
| deafpolygon wrote:
| I had the same takeaway -- in fact, I think it's CD Projekt
| who hopes to distance themselves from GOG.
| VoxPelli wrote:
| This goes for publicly traded companies much more than
| privately owned ones.
|
| GOG is now becoming private like Valve rather than publicly
| traded.
| rasz wrote:
| >>a really encouraging year
|
| This years DOScember was really huge. Tons of streamers and
| viewers on Twitch for example, retro gaming is picking up steam
| (/s).
| roxolotl wrote:
| I always search GOG before Steam. It's slightly less user
| friendly in the most minor ways and sometimes a bit more
| expensive. But getting DRM free games is worth every penny and
| extra few moments. Steam is really great for what it is but
| you're not buying games you're leasing them. Excited to hear GOG
| might get more focus and investment.
| SecretDreams wrote:
| > you're leasing them
|
| For the duration of your life, to be fair.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| For the duration of the businesses' life.
| Thegn wrote:
| For the duration of gaben's life, to be fair. Beyond that
| there be dragons.
| paxys wrote:
| No, for the duration of whenever Steam decides to say "fuck
| you".
| mariusor wrote:
| Which is the same as what can happen to GOG if you don't
| have the files backed up. And if you do happen to have them
| backed up, is there such a large difference between having
| the installer vs the full game installation stored?
| paxys wrote:
| Yes there is a difference. Steam sells you a license that
| can be revoked at any time. The games have DRM, and rely
| on cloud servers to authenticate you. If you turn your
| internet off they will all stop working after a certain
| period, even if fully downloaded. And if Steam or the DRM
| owner goes out of business you will end up with nothing.
|
| If you buy and download something from GOG, it is yours.
| You can still play it in the next millenium as long as
| you have suitable hardware or an emulator.
| candiddevmike wrote:
| Not all steam games have DRM
| badsectoracula wrote:
| This is true but you don't know ahead of time before you
| buy a game, you have to gamble on it being the case or
| not (i've found that while some lists exist in places
| like pcgamingwiki, they tend to be both _very_ incomplete
| and often wrong).
|
| Usually indie games tend to be DRM-free though, so if an
| indie game isn't available on GOG or Zoom Platform
| (another DRM-free store), i end up buying on Steam.
| mariusor wrote:
| > The games have DRM, and rely on cloud servers to
| authenticate you.
|
| That is not true as a global rule. Game developers can
| release fully independent versions of their games even on
| steam.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| They can. Do they? Statistically?
| mariusor wrote:
| If I am a person interested in this specific thing
| (backing up my games) I would for sure check. Wouldn't
| you?
| dangus wrote:
| 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.
| paxys wrote:
| Ever bought anything from MSN Music? Yahoo Music? Desura?
| Microsoft eBook Store? Walmart MP3s? Anything using Adobe
| Content Server? MusicNet? CinemaNow? UltraViolet?
|
| It is laughable to think that digital media "clearly
| works". Companies shut down and stores shutter _all the
| time_. In most cases there is no recourse for customers,
| because - surprise - you didn 't actually own the rights
| to what you bought, just a revocable license. You have to
| be pretty young and/or naive to think that this can't
| eventually happen to Steam as well.
|
| And even if you fully trust Steam to stick around and
| keep its word, digital licensing means you can still get
| screwed. For example - if the publisher's license to in-
| game music expires, the game will automatically be
| updated to remove all the tracks (e.g. GTA Vice City and
| San Andreas). For larger issues and conflicts the game
| might be removed entirely (e.g. Spec Ops: The Line). Or
| the publisher might decide to just switch off the DRM
| servers, even for single player games (e.g. The Crew).
| Outside of gaming there are countless examples of
| publishers "upgrading" music tracks you own to different
| versions or censoring/altering content of books you own.
|
| The only recourse to all this is to buy and store DRM-
| free versions of your media.
| stodor89 wrote:
| > "buy" Hozier's album
|
| > change countries
|
| > oh, you own this album for Bulgaria, but not for the
| US, so you can no longer play it
| tart-lemonade wrote:
| Region-locked physical media (and before explicit region
| locking, PAL vs NTSC vs SECAM vs variants like PAL-M)
| also have this problem to some extent.
| oarsinsync wrote:
| Yes and no. I took my physical media with me along with
| my player, and all was fine.
|
| I took my digital media with me along with my computer,
| and all was not fine.
| satvikpendem wrote:
| You never know, Gaben is getting older. Who knows what
| the next CEO of Valve will do?
| SXX wrote:
| At least with Valve we can hope its gonna be okay for 4
| reasons:
|
| 1. Even though Gabe is formally CEO he from his own words
| was barelly controllibg company for years. He spend more
| time on his other projects.
|
| 2. Flat structure and and a small team. I know few people
| who has worked at Valve and while there are some
| downsides company of ~400 employees with a lot of
| internal power play is just more resilient than normal
| corporation. Many of people on the team are just rich
| enough already and they dont need to go and cash out.
|
| 3. From what is publicly known Valve is family owned
| basically since Gabe own major part of company. And while
| a lot of people would hate example of e.g Ubisoft its
| good example how family controlled business often sink
| before selling out.
|
| 4. It would be just hard to sell Valve and remove control
| from the team without destroying both company and gaming
| community goodwill.
|
| Yet I fully agree that Valve just like other company can
| be sold off just for userbase and run to the ground.
|
| Valve just have better chance to stay customer friendly
| than your overall VC/PE/BlackRock owned corporation with
| 10,000 employees and 50 for-hire top managers / board
| directors.
| bsimpson wrote:
| 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.
| benoau wrote:
| 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 forever, the games removed from circulation gone
| forever because nobody can ever have a license to use
| them again. They might be onto their 4th, 5th or 6th CEO
| by then, half a century removed from Gabe and any
| expectations we have around the ways he did things.
|
| There's a lot of room for improvement securing some sort
| of legacy for Steam.
| fernie wrote:
| I can assure you that offline installer you got today
| from GOG will not work on Windows 20 or whatever OS will
| be the dominant for PC in 30 or 60 years time.
| prmoustache wrote:
| Most C64, MSX, Apple,Amiga, Atari ST and Dos games can
| still be played on all majors operating systems.
|
| In fact I used "most" but I can't name one that couldn't
| be played.
| benoau wrote:
| If anything it will be easier than ever to run those
| games, the platforms you mention can be run in a web
| browser these days with nothing at all to install or
| configure or download.
| cropcirclbureau wrote:
| Are you willing to put monies on that?
| oarsinsync wrote:
| > I can assure you that offline installer you got today
| from GOG will not work on Windows 20
|
| Given the lengths the Windows development team has gone
| to, to preserve backward compatibility, to the point that
| there was individual-game-specific workarounds codified
| in Windows, makes this claim the same as the GP's, that
| Steam will change 30-60 years from now.
|
| The cynic in me thinks you're both right, mind.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| If it works on WINE today, I would expect it to work on
| WINE tomorrow. Worst case, you can probably just install
| an older WINE on a newer OS to ensure it.
| wewtyflakes wrote:
| It would presumably work in a virtualized environment.
| andoando wrote:
| I mean I don't really give a shit. Im buying a game to
| play it now, maybe next year.
|
| Besides you only need Steam if the publisher chooses to
| use Steam DRM. There's clearly an incentive for it, don't
| think its purely Steam's fault.
|
| If that's the model the publisher offers, that's the
| model you have. Its your choice to participate in it or
| not.
| this_user wrote:
| > What does Steam look like 60 years from now?
|
| Does it matter? You are treating this like these games
| are some valuable collector's items, when they really are
| just toys you play once and then never touch again for
| the most part.
|
| But let's assume you had physical copies of all of these
| games you own on Steam. Once you are gone, there is a >
| 90% chance that whoever inherits it, will throw it away,
| just like Millenials now are throwing away all this junk
| they are inheriting that Boomers used to collect.
|
| The point is, Steam is good enough for all practical
| purposes, which is to acquire and play games in the now.
| benoau wrote:
| My library includes games I played with my father and
| games I played with my own children. Given the option my
| children would certainly revisit their favourite titles
| with their own children one day, or for their own
| nostalgic memories.
|
| One thing you are missing with your logic is that "throw
| it out" is probably more like "give to charity", the
| unwanted goods are not necessarily being _destroyed_ and
| may be redistributed to people who do value them. If my
| kids didn 't want my Steam account I'm sure there's
| others who would, and preservation groups and museums
| that would probably take it.
| prmoustache wrote:
| They can't control the licenses rights for some assets
| like music that can expire and become undistributable.
| You may not know it until you install them on a new
| computer n years from now.
| ThrowawayR2 wrote:
| There have been several earlier generation game consoles
| that have had their online stores closed already.
| Semaphor wrote:
| Compared to Steam directly, yeah, sometimes a bit more
| expensive. But as soon as you go to sites selling steam keys
| (proper ones, not resellers), it's "almost always, a lot", as
| steam itself rarely has good prices. Now that might still be
| worth it, but it's relevant
| dangus wrote:
| I'm just going to go ahead and plug is there any deal dot
| com.
|
| You can sync up your Steam wishlist (it's a little weird to
| setup but once you figured it out it works).
|
| I almost never buy games directly from steam anymore, there's
| almost always someone else with a discount on steam keys.
|
| And sometimes GOG has the best deal!
| Semaphor wrote:
| I love ITAD! If you use a search engine like kagi or duck
| duck go supporting bangs, you can use !itad to search
| there.
| embedding-shape wrote:
| > But as soon as you go to sites selling steam keys (proper
| ones, not resellers),
|
| What is a company/individual if not a reseller if they're
| selling Steam keys? You cannot sell Steam keys without being
| Steam or the developer itself, and not be called a
| "reseller". Or what sites are you referring to here, stuff
| like Humble Bundle where you get Steam keys with the bundles?
| Semaphor wrote:
| Resellers sell something they bought. Or that's the idea.
| The sites are marketplaces, sometimes having people sell
| keys from different countries, sometimes stolen credit card
| keys. There are several game devs saying they'd prefer
| people pirating over using those sites.
|
| Real stores sell steam keys because they are selling
| directly from the developers. Steam is actually nice (or
| preempting monopoly talk, depending on your view) in that
| it allows that (I think there are limits, but IIRC rather
| generous)
| embedding-shape wrote:
| > Real stores sell steam keys because they are selling
| directly from the developers
|
| And how did these "real stores" get those Steam keys
| unless they bought them, maybe even directly from the
| developers? Or are you saying game developers hand out
| these keys for free to the store, then the store sends
| the developer money for each key they sell? I'm not sure
| that makes a lot of sense.
|
| What is an example of one such site selling Steam keys
| who you wouldn't consider a reseller?
| Lammy wrote:
| Humble Bundle usually gives you Steam keys
| Ekaros wrote:
| Apart from times when they have run out and continue to
| sell...
| Semaphor wrote:
| Normal store: fanatical.com
|
| Key reseller: https://www.loaded.com
|
| You really don't need to be so combatative.
| flumpcakes wrote:
| I cannot see a difference, what is the difference between
| a "normal store" and a "key reseller"?
| Semaphor wrote:
| Google it. As friendly as you are, I have no interest it
| helping you. Not even to explain myself.
| kgwxd wrote:
| How is GOG functionally different from Steam? They're still
| just a middle man. For actual DRM-free software, both GOG and
| Steam are nothing more than a convenience layer. If they're
| anything more than that, the software simply isn't DRM-free.
| Gormo wrote:
| Not sure what you're trying to say here. The distinction is
| pretty clear: GOG distributes standalone installers without
| any DRM, and Steam does not.
| kgwxd wrote:
| What does the installer matter for DRM-free software? For
| software with other forms of DRM built-in anyway, who cares
| if the installer has it?
| yeputons wrote:
| Correct, but GOG provides games without _any_ DRM, both
| in the installer and in the game itself.
| phatfish wrote:
| The whole reason for GOG existing was they strip dead DRM
| from old games so the work again without "warez scene"
| cracks; and fix all the OS/driver incompatibilities along
| the way.
|
| As far as I know all the games you can buy on GOG will be
| completely DRM free.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Same but I strangely miss the social aspect of achievements on
| Steam. I prefer GOG but wish the achievements synced.
| prmoustache wrote:
| You are the first person I hear that seems to care about
| that.
| gs17 wrote:
| I care about it a little, not comparing with friends, but I
| do like the "X% of players" stats.
| legitster wrote:
| > you're not buying games you're leasing them
|
| Counterpoint, the cost of "owning" offline games is not zero
| and their lifetime is not infinite.
|
| I have a stack of old games on CD (or older) and getting them
| to run on anything is a massive pain in the neck. (In fact, for
| nearly all that I care about I also have bought a Steam license
| in addition).
|
| Ultimately, everything comes down to user experience. We can
| pat ourselves on the back for buying something forever, but
| experiences and the media they are stored on are both
| transitory.
| roxolotl wrote:
| 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 Doom" and "if
| business X decided so you can never access those things
| again".
|
| 0: https://www.gog.com/en/gog-preservation-program
| thomascountz wrote:
| In case I'm not the only one who didn't know what GOG stood for:
| "GOG stands for freedom, independence, and genuine control."
|
| But actually, it stands (stood?) for Good Old Games. :)
| kej wrote:
| It was "good old games", then they announced that good old
| games was going away and after everyone panic-downloaded their
| whole collection they announced that they weren't going
| anywhere but they were just going to be GOG without it standing
| for anything.
| throwawaymobule wrote:
| That was after they had new releases for a while.
| ragall wrote:
| Denoting a translation is not the only thing that "stands for"
| stands for.
| on_the_train wrote:
| No, it literally doesn't stand for good old games. Not for a
| very long time.
| metadope wrote:
| I stand agog as I breathlessly await the next exciting element
| of this discussion.
| phendrenad2 wrote:
| I'm waiting for MAGOG so the Biblical End Times can begin.
| paxys wrote:
| It seems these days every video game publisher wants its own
| storefront and game launcher. Weird that CD PROJEKT is instead
| giving up a very popular one.
| add-sub-mul-div wrote:
| I wish you could always go straight to the publisher, I don't
| want an extra middleman in the transaction. GOG is fine because
| after the transaction you can download the install media and
| they're out of the mix, but the Steam/Epic model is terrible,
| it needlessly turns an open platform into a closed one.
| paxys wrote:
| Agreed. I know Steam has done some good things for the
| industry, and people love them for it, but they are also
| single handedly responsible for turning PC gaming from "buy
| and own forever" to a revocable license model. GOG is
| probably the last place remaining where you can actually buy
| games.
| shmerl wrote:
| I think it's good. CDPR essentially can be increasingly driven by
| shareholders. If they are making GOG private now, they can pursue
| their own vision without being pressured.
| crest wrote:
| It's nice that it should be a non-event for users.
| Fiveplus wrote:
| > 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
| private equity firm looking to strip-mine the assets.
| pjmlp wrote:
| I also refuse to install their shop, Web powered "native" apps
| only the unavoidable ones.
| yunnpp wrote:
| I think the only value it adds is cloud saves. The UI is
| otherwise the worst way to explore your library or the store,
| crawls to death performance-wise and isn't even a good UX in
| principle.
|
| For example, if you're on page X of a search, click on a
| game, and go back, guess where that takes you? Yup, page 0
| baby, going to have to click next X times again (there is
| also only previous and next; you can't fast-jump.) There are
| many more examples like that, I have filed survey responses
| several times on issues like this.
|
| The real goat would be if GOG Galaxy were available for Linux
| and integrated with Lutris/Proton so that you didn't have to
| worry about setup. Currently that relationship flows in the
| other direction, which I always found odd: Lutris integrates
| GOG (and Steam) games in its UI.
| pjmlp wrote:
| I have it easier having Windows as main OS.
| yunnpp wrote:
| I suffer Windows at work, so I stay clear of it in my
| personal stuff.
| badsectoracula wrote:
| > The real goat would be if GOG Galaxy were available for
| Linux and integrated with Lutris/Proton so that you didn't
| have to worry about setup.
|
| Heroic Launcher can download the game files for you and any
| dependencies, including Wine/Proton/etc. You basically
| install the launcher (can be available from your distro's
| repository), use your GOG login in the app and it shows
| your library. Then click install and it'll download the
| files locally and after that you play the game. The
| experience is more or less the same like in Steam, at least
| as far as downloading and playing games is concerned.
|
| I normally download the offline installers and use them
| with UMU Launcher (which is Proton without Steam, mainly
| meant to be used as a backend for projects like Lutris,
| Heroic, etc but you can use it directly from the command-
| line) but i just tried Heroic Launcher and all i had to do
| was run it, enter my GOG login and after it downloaded my
| library info, i was able to download and play a game the
| same way as in Steam.
|
| I'm not sure what official GOG Galaxy for Linux would add
| here TBH.
| shmerl wrote:
| _> I 'm not sure what official GOG Galaxy for Linux would
| add here TBH._
|
| Two major things:
|
| * Backend Galaxy support for Linux builds
|
| * Multiplayer, achievements, cloud saves, etc. i.e.
| proper integration with optional GOG services for Linux
| versions.
| yunnpp wrote:
| I was not aware of that launcher, thanks.
| daedrdev wrote:
| Im pretty sure I read in the past GoG still sells you a license
| to a game in perpetuity, rather than ownership Of corse,
| practically there is little difference since they provide
| offline installers, so its much better to use GoG if you care
| about this.
|
| The reason they also do this is because of copyright, the
| license allows games to forbid you from redistribution more
| copies
|
| If Im wrong about this please let me know, I read some articles
| claiming this is the case but I am not sure if they truly were
| correct.
| SirMaster wrote:
| >practically there is little difference since they provide
| offline installers
|
| Well it makes it hard or impossible to sell your copy of the
| game to someone else after you are done with it like we used
| to be able to do with console game discs and cartridges?
|
| Seems like a pretty big and practical difference to me.
| daedrdev wrote:
| Yes but if you set up a website to do this they could sue,
| which I think is reasonable as many if not most people
| would be happy to both sell and keep a copy
| SirMaster wrote:
| But it was so much simpler when you had the disc. Whoever
| had the disc had access to the copy and it could be sold
| and resold as many times as people wanted.
|
| I don't think people are so against DRM, because a disc
| like that was essentially a form of DRM. They are against
| an online DRM scheme which could change in the future. I
| know there were sone disc DRM that could like revoke the
| disc license, but let's go back before that was a thing
| to like the Xbox/360 and PS1/2/3 era style.
| rvnx wrote:
| You can also buy boxed things and have the problem. For
| example FL Studio, you buy the boxed edition 300 USD, and
| all you get is a serial number. Once it's linked to an
| account, it's over (and it's actually the only way).
|
| If legislators want to do something good, they could force
| platforms to allow transfer of games between accounts.
| knollimar wrote:
| Doesn't this fly in the face of Vernor vs Autodesk and
| other lwgal precedent? Not that they can't change this,
| but legislators have a vested interest in protecting
| software rights
| 3uruiueijjj wrote:
| Lots of (most?) Steam games don't have real DRM and you can
| run them just fine without the Steam client. So if you want
| to, you can usually download the game and then back up the
| files yourself.
|
| GOG giving you a standalone installer saves you some effort
| compared to that, but in neither case do you really "own" the
| game.
| georgeecollins wrote:
| 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 licenses". They could sell you everything DRM
| free. They don't because too many people pirate games to make
| that a viable business.
| rantallion wrote:
| > They don't because too many people pirate games to make
| that a viable business.
|
| This is what we've been told since time eternal but it seems
| more likely that those pirating are those that wouldn't be
| inclined to pay at all.
| doctorpangloss wrote:
| people are commenting in this HN thread like piracy hasn't
| been thought about, deeply, by many thousands of people for
| ages in the games industry. i could link to numerous people
| writing very wise things about it - the CEO of a certain
| competitor to GOG and Steam comes to mind, he basically
| wrote the Luther thesis on games piracy - but then i'd be
| downvoted.
| jonasdegendt wrote:
| I'm interested, please link!
| Telaneo wrote:
| > They don't because too many people pirate games to make
| that a viable business.
|
| Given how many games on Steam are sold either DRM free (you
| can just transfer the files over to another PC and they just
| work) or functionally DRM free (Steam's DRM is trivially
| bypassed, so one step removed from DRM free), this doesn't
| really scan. Other than games with Denuvo and multiplayer
| games, DRM is a non-issue for actual pirates.
|
| It seems a lot more likely to me that the people in charge
| will have a fit at the idea of releasing the games DRM free,
| but don't actually care to know anything about the details.
| So long as the DRM checkbox is ticked, and they don't know
| about the fact that Steam's DRM is trivially bypassed,
| everybody mostly gets what they want.
| HeavyStorm wrote:
| Also, many such games are on gog DRM free, and certainly
| pirates don't care where they get their games.
| hhh wrote:
| Yes they do. When I used to pirate a lot of games because
| I was broke I was gleefully happy to see a GOG release.
|
| The scene exists for a reason, it is a very trust based
| ecosystem.
| guizadillas wrote:
| Yeah I usually trust anything a girl who is particularly
| fit repacks
| 867-5309 wrote:
| good luck sourcing the (supposedly) malware-free release
| Kim_Bruning wrote:
| > They don't because too many people pirate games to make
| that a viable business.
|
| You're saying this about Steam, the 'Piracy is a service
| problem' company.
| computerex wrote:
| People only pirate games because the publishers make it too
| painful to play games legally. I have pirated games that I
| own simply because it's easier to play. This pattern has been
| shown time and time again. When people pirate, it's usually
| due to a problem with the experience. People pay for
| convenience.
|
| Now a days a lot of people are pirating games because the
| quality of games has gone down the drain. Publishers are
| releasing unfinished games and pricing them at record high.
| Consumers are pissed at the lack of value.
| oriolid wrote:
| 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.
| badsectoracula wrote:
| > I'm not completely convinced. When I was a teenager I
| pirated games because I didn't have money
|
| Yes, but if it was impossible to pirate, you'd still have
| no money to buy the games, so in the grand scheme of
| things nothing would change.
| buran77 wrote:
| 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 sales window for the publishers).
|
| For people who have money for games and are willing to
| pay, DRM turns out to be maybe an inconvenience, but
| definitely a guarantee that they don't actually own the
| game. The game can be taken away or even just modified in
| a way that invalidates the reason people paid in the
| first place.
| mindcandy wrote:
| > especially if you are willing to wait for some days or
| weeks after launch (an important sales window for the
| publishers).
|
| "Important" is an understatement. Even for long-term
| success stories, the first three or four months often
| accounts for half of a game's revenue.
|
| And, despite so many people theorizing that "pirates
| don't have money and wouldn't pay anyway", in practice
| big publishers wait in dread of "Crack Day" because the
| moment the crackers release the DRMless version, the drop
| in sales is instant and dramatic.
| fwipsy wrote:
| 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.
| andrepd wrote:
| 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.
| nurettin wrote:
| When I was a kid, piracy was the norm. If your friend had
| a game you liked, you would just grab the tape, go home,
| insert into the recorder and make a copy. I didn't know
| about buying games or what I did was bad until well into
| the 90s.
| technothrasher wrote:
| > I didn't know about buying games or what I did was bad
| until well into the 90s.
|
| Really? When we were pirating games off each other as
| teenagers in the early 80s, we absolutely knew we were
| getting games for free that the publishers wanted us to
| pay for.
| NegativeLatency wrote:
| 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.
| Ygg2 wrote:
| As a broke ass teenager, yeah I didn't pay for them. Now
| as big money adult I bought them almost 1.5 times over.
| Once on GoG and sometimes on Steam.
| jamespo wrote:
| No, paying nothing is very compelling for a lot of
| consumers, you can see this in many other areas of content
| as well.
| Mathnerd314 wrote:
| Research from the University of Amsterdam's IViR "Global
| Online Piracy Study" (survey of nearly 35,000 respondents
| across 13 countries) found that for each content type and
| country, 95% or more of pirates also consume content
| legally, and their median legal consumption is typically
| twice that of non-pirating legal users.
| rvnx wrote:
| Fun fact, this study was financed by YouTube to create a
| legal shield.
|
| In 2017/2018, they were in the position where MPAA and
| RIAA were saying: "Piracy costs us billions; Google must
| pay" + they had European Parliament on their ass.
|
| Google financed that 'independent' study to support the
| view "Piracy is not harmful and encourages legal spend".
|
| So the credibility of "independent" studies, is something
| to consider very carefully.
| fn-mote wrote:
| My real world observations agree with the direction of
| the study, so I don't entirely dismiss it as fake based
| on its funding source.
|
| I am cautious about the conclusion, though. It seems
| clear there is a spectrum from "unscrupulously pirate
| everything" to "consume legitimately after pirated
| discovery", and quantification is necessary.
| eviks wrote:
| Why do you think this contradicts anything? Heavy users
| hit a budget limit and continue consuming more via
| pirating.
|
| You really need something way better than some shoddy
| survey to counter the obvious fact that price matters
| afiori wrote:
| Yeah but if a pirate would have not paid the full price
| why care? It is by definition not a lost sale, the most
| likely outcome is just an increase by one the player
| count
| eviks wrote:
| Because the price isn't binary? Also, the total spend
| isn't fixed either, it depends on how easy it's to
| pirate. So it's by definition still lost revenue, even if
| later/at reduced price
| Tarball10 wrote:
| Not paying full price is not a "lost sale". People
| unwilling to pay full price wait for a discount or price
| reduction. Look at how popular the seasonal Steam sales
| are. Pirating the game very likely means they never
| purchase it at any price, which _is_ a lost sale.
| hsjdndvvbv wrote:
| There is more to this RE: perceived value of respective
| sides.
|
| Edit: missed a word
| danaris wrote:
| 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?
| eviks wrote:
| 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"
| rvnx wrote:
| Before it was really expensive and difficult to get
| access to movies or music. Then came Netflix or Spotify.
| So money is the primary discriminator now, not access.
| And users without money would not bring revenue anyway
| andoando wrote:
| No they don't. I am tired of this feel good nonsense. I
| pirated games because it was free and I did not want to pay
| $60.
|
| Just make your games a donation model if you really believe
| this. Or lets put up a version of Steam where all the games
| are free cracked copies of the game and see how it affects
| sales.
|
| People pay precisely because they dont want to deal with
| the hassle pf pirating
| stavros wrote:
| 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.
| andoando wrote:
| >because it's more convenient
|
| Yes, now imagine if we just removed the barrier to piracy
| completely. An easy to use client just like Steam, except
| all the games are free cracked copies.
|
| There is no way thats not going to drop sales.
| afiori wrote:
| What has been proven many times is that people
| overwhelmingly choose the least effort/risk option.
|
| A free Steam full of certified pirates games with
| official games updates would obviously drop sales but
| this is moot as it will never exist.
| Tarball10 wrote:
| Isn't that exactly what companies use as justification
| for DMCA and DRM protection?
|
| Without those, you'd have sites full of pirated game
| downloads easily found through search engines. DMCA
| takedowns force those sites into shady corners of the
| internet, making them harder to find and riskier for the
| average user. And (effective) DRM makes users have to
| wait for a crack which may take weeks or months.
|
| The result is that it's easier for the average person to
| just log into Steam/Epic/PSN/eShop and spend $60 to play
| immediately.
| walletdrainer wrote:
| I'm fabulously wealthy and still mostly pirate things
| just because I can't be bothered dealing with online
| credit card payments.
|
| Half the time I try to sign up for any of these services
| I get blocked for fraud because I'm in one country, my
| billing address in another and my bank in a third. Oh,
| and when something does work, it only works for a while
| until they lock the whole account with a bunch of paid
| content on it.
| pfisch wrote:
| You really can't though, not if the games have an online
| component or you want the game to be patched/updated as
| frequently as it would be on steam.
|
| Almost all games these days are basically like a work in
| progress, so if you pirate them then the game doesn't
| stay up to date.
|
| Pirating games is just really inconvenient compared to
| tv/movies/music.
| nh23423fefe wrote:
| thieves lie to protect their self-image. i pirated
| because free games let me spend my money on stuff i
| couldn't steal like food at the mall.
|
| i don't pirate anymore because i have a job now.
| danielbln wrote:
| Copyright infringement is not stealing, and it's not a
| given that a sale would have happened at all - even if
| the llicit copy was unavailable.
| afiori wrote:
| If someone pirates 100 60$ games it does not mean that
| had piracy been impossible they would have spent 6000$ on
| those games
| Tarball10 wrote:
| They might spend $600 on 10 of those games, though. It's
| not all-or-nothing.
| nightski wrote:
| They might still spend $600 on 10 more games though. Or
| spend it on a subset of the games they pirated because
| they want to support the developer. Who knows.
| basisword wrote:
| >> I have pirated games that I own simply because it's
| easier to play.
|
| Can you share some examples of instances where the legal
| route is too difficult? I haven't felt this way in a long
| time. What are the changes necessary for you to purchase?
| afiori wrote:
| The main reason that Russia had a fame for pirating a lot
| of software was that a lot of publishers either skipped
| it as a market or did shitty localisations and pirates
| offered a far better service.
| crtasm wrote:
| They say they own the game so presumably did purchase it.
|
| Not having to deal with Ubisoft/similar game launchers
| frequently forgetting my login, nagging to update itself,
| etc. is one reason I might choose to run a cracked copy.
| yeputons wrote:
| One does not have a debit/credit card at all (e.g.
| they're young, or don't have enough documents, or are an
| immigrant from a sanctioned country).
|
| Alternatively, the card is rejected because "fraud
| prevention", see e.g.
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46424584
|
| Or the game is not available in my "account's region",
| which is chosen arbitrarily based on God knows what.
| ninth_ant wrote:
| > 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, and more.
|
| Boiling this down to one factor of "too many people pirate"
| is dramatic oversimplification.
| cogogo wrote:
| I grew up playing pirated games on the Apple II 35 years
| ago. The fact that many people pirate is not an opinion.
| ekianjo wrote:
| Piracy is much less endemic nowadays.
| Ygg2 wrote:
| Yeah, because rather than pirating from cracxxxed.warez I
| can buy the game on Steam/GoG sale for $1.4.
| CDRdude wrote:
| "Many people pirate" is a different statement than "too
| many people pirate games to make that a viable business".
| dmantis wrote:
| 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 installers, easy buying, easy refunds
| and you are from a middle class and higher - it doesn't
| make sense to download random executables from the
| internet. And if you have low-income, you won't buy stuff
| regardless of DRM and just wait someone to crack it.
| djtango wrote:
| Yeah this - people who grew up gaming in the 80s and 90s
| now have significant disposable income and are time poor.
| A game that offers tens or hundreds of hours of
| entertainment is seriously cost effective when a movie
| ticket costs half a videogame or a round of drinks.
|
| Malware is potentially very expensive if you have any
| capital (tradfi or defi) that is anywhere near your
| gaming rig. Even a brokerage of 5 figures isn't worth
| touching something that could have malware.
|
| Most the games young players play are all service
| oriented games anyway
| Sayrus wrote:
| People pirate Steam Games anyway. Stating that people
| pirate too much to make it viable is purely opinion and
| not based on numbers. Sure, for AAA games you get 2 to 3
| months without a cracked version, but this stops
| afterward. For non-AAA games, the steam version is
| usually crackable from day-1.
| nalekberov wrote:
| Games are cracked at day one, sometimes hours after.
| Apparently DRM is not a solution here. If pirates know
| that, people at Valve certainly do.
| KronisLV wrote:
| > They could sell you everything DRM free. They don't because
| too many people pirate games to make that a viable business.
|
| Depends on the game and DRM. Nowadays I buy all of my games
| (a little bit safer than running who knows what on my PC),
| but when I didn't have a job or money I used to pirate a lot
| - most DRM protected games would eventually be cracked and
| made available regardless. If an uncrackable DRM was in
| place, I wouldn't buy the game - I just wouldn't play it.
| Depending on the mindset, the same logic applies to someone
| with money, they might never be a customer regardless of
| whether it can or cannot be pirated, especially for games
| that never go on big discounts and sales. I say that as
| someone who by now owns about ~1000 games in total legally
| (though mostly smaller indie titles acquired over a lot of
| years and sales).
|
| The good online stores at least make the act of purchasing
| and installing games equally if not more convenient than
| pirating them - something all of those streaming companies
| that crank up their subscription prices and want to introduce
| ads would also do well to remember. I like Steam the best
| because it's a convenient experience, the Workshop mod
| support is nice, as well as Proton on Linux and even being
| able to run some games on my Mac, just download and run. I
| think the last games I pirated were to check if they'd run
| well on my VR headset, because I didn't want to spend a few
| hours tweaking graphics settings and messing around just to
| be denied a refund - in the end they didn't run well, so I
| didn't play or buy them, oh well.
|
| Also, despite me _somewhat_ doubting the efficacy of DRM
| (maybe it 's good to have around the release time to motivate
| legit sales, but it's not like it's gonna solve piracy), it
| better at least be implemented well - otherwise you either
| get performance issues, or crap that also happens with gaming
| on Linux with anti-cheat, where you cannot even give the
| companies money because they can't be bothered to support
| your platform. Even worse when games depend on a server
| component for something that you don't actually need for
| playing the game on your own, fuck that. It's like the big
| corpos sometimes add Denuvo to their games and then are
| surprised why people are review bombing them.
| SXX wrote:
| Valve and Steam dont force DRM on anyone either. Downloader
| client is ofc DRM in itself, but a lot of games run just fine
| without Steamworks.
| sallveburrpi wrote:
| How is GOG a viable business if everything gets pirated?
| Kim_Bruning wrote:
| This is a really old question and a really old solution.
|
| It turns out that piracy is actually a service problem.
| Services like Steam and GOG provide a decent enough service
| that piracy becomes less common.
| ThrowawayR2 wrote:
| Many games on GOG are at the tail end of their sales cycle
| (i.e. were released on Steam long ago) trying to eke out a
| few more sales, are from small indies for whom any
| attention at all is good attention, or are very
| old^H^H^Hclassic games that garner purchases for
| nostalgia's sake by older gamers that can afford more
| discretionary spending.
| delaminator wrote:
| And many aren't.
|
| I bought Factorio early access on Gog, and Timberborn,
| and Loop-Hero.
| Hammershaft wrote:
| Steam uses outsized market power to take an enormous %30 cut
| so it also does major damage to the games industry.
| SXX wrote:
| This. As game developer this is a huge problem since
| outside of top 1% industry is shit poor and platforms
| squeeze it badly.
|
| Unfortunely needs of game developers and customers are not
| exactly align. Valve is good steward of their outsized
| market share when it's comes to gamers interests.
|
| Epic Games tried to shake market with "gamers dont matter"
| policy (no reviews, no community, worse services) and low
| fees and failed miserably.
|
| As game developer I'd love to see platform fee of 10%, but
| as gamer I dont want to buy my games and give power to
| Tencent, Microsoft or Google.
|
| I could only dream that customer-first platform not owned
| by VC / PE money like GOG could compete with Steam.
| Unfortunately unlikely to happen.
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| The 30% cut is standard, and was so at retail even before
| Steam existed IIRC.
| EA-3167 wrote:
| Piracy is widespread, that's undeniable. The question that
| industry groups and lawmakers love to avoid or lie about
| however is how much of that piracy represents lost sales, and
| how much represents people in the third world finding a way
| to participate with all of the people who can afford it. I
| pirated a lot as a kid because I had no money, there were no
| lost sales there. As an adult I don't pirate at all, because
| I have money, because it's inconvenient now compared to
| legitimate access.
|
| So I'm perfectly prepared to believe that Steam is a good
| option (I personally love it), and frankly if the worst
| happens and the games I pay for go away on Steam... there are
| options. Once I pay for something I no longer feel any guilt
| about seeking a backup for example, and neither should you,
| even if the industry groups count that as a full-sale price
| theft.
| kgwxd wrote:
| 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.
| EA-3167 wrote:
| 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.
| SirMaster wrote:
| >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.
| skrebbel wrote:
| Just give them the files and pinky promise to delete them
| yourself?
| eviks wrote:
| The same way you sell your disks: find a buyer, send them the
| game files, they send you the money
| transcriptase wrote:
| People said the same thing when Steam launched, yet my profile
| sits there with a badge saying 20+ years and I can't recall a
| time I've encountered an issue that was the fault of Valve
| versus a developer or publisher.
|
| At this point the games I "own" on physical media like CDs have
| theoretically started to degrade before the threat of Valve
| revoking my ability to install or play has come to pass.
| buzzerbetrayed wrote:
| Correct. And if steam ever retracts anything, I'll pirate the
| game then with a clean conscience.
| kaoD wrote:
| The problem is what will happen when Gabe Newell passes away.
|
| My GOG installers will never degrade though.
| transcriptase wrote:
| I'll be very surprised if during all the time he spends
| doing nothing and winning, he hasn't planned ahead for his
| company not becoming the very thing he hates and sets it
| apart.
|
| I'd put a controlling interest in a trust with ironclad
| instructions to have Valve do the opposite of Ubisoft/EA.
| That would buy it another half-century at least.
| bayindirh wrote:
| This is because of Gabe and Valve itself, and it's not a
| universal constant. I have quite a few licensed software
| where I have the license, but installing the software is
| impossible.
|
| This is why I still keep a copy of the software I bought, and
| religiously backup that trove. Because someday that S3 bucket
| or SendOwl link or company server will go down.
|
| Sometimes, a company will raise prices, so the publisher will
| have to kill the old links. C64Audio had to switch to
| BandCamp and invalidate SendOwl links because of that price
| hike.
|
| I'm still bitter about not being able to reset my Test Drive
| Unlimited install count online just because I have updated my
| computer and _transferred_ the whole Windows installation to
| the new system back in the day.
|
| There are not many ways to battle the entropy of the
| universe.
| yeputons wrote:
| > 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.
| eatsyourtacos wrote:
| Literally the last thing on the internet you can complain about
| is Steam. PC gaming would be the biggest cluster fuck in the
| world- if not fairly dead / super niche.
|
| You would need to install 12 front-ends like Steam that would
| be hot trash and have a handful of games and be the most
| miserable shit ever. You wouldn't have sales, reasonable game
| prices, or family library sharing (this would be absurd to any
| other company).
|
| Steam is a prime example of when a monopoly ends up to be the
| best for the consumer.
| phatfish wrote:
| Well, you don't "stop using Steam" unless you don't care
| about playing most games released in the last 10-15 years.
| But the premise is solid, given that GOG has no DRM. Steam
| did get DRM "right" though.
|
| My problem with Steam are the casino tactics Valve inject
| into their own games and the platform. That is an entire
| gaming industry problem however. At least Valve do some good
| things with the dirty money.
| Noumenon72 wrote:
| I've spent hundreds of hours on the GOG version of Heroes of
| Might and Magic 3. Every community recommends the GOG version
| over the Steam HD one. I didn't think how important GOG was to
| me, but now I'm going to find that patron program they're talking
| about. It would be great if in 30 years I can still play Master
| of Magic and that won't happen by itself.
| sevensor wrote:
| > Master of Magic
|
| I picked up a bargain bin CD ROM of this game in 1996 and it
| works under dosbox as well as it ever did. Which is to say
| mostly ok but sometimes hilariously crashy. I think what needs
| to happen for us to spend another 30 years crafting overpowered
| plate mail is for there to continue being good emulators for
| the mid 90s DOS environment.
| ByThyGrace wrote:
| Do you ever play online multiplayer HOMM3? Is it a thing
| nowadays?
| rascul wrote:
| You might be interested in VCMI, which is an open source engine
| for HoMM3.
|
| https://vcmi.eu/
| sergiotapia wrote:
| I can't remember but there have been two games where the "it's
| your game, offline installer" promise was broken on Gog. Have
| they since come out to restate that promise?
|
| I always felt a bit sad that before I could just KNOW that it'll
| work that's gog! but since that time I always have to double
| check and by that point why not just use steam?
| dmbche wrote:
| Can't find anything about those broken promises at a glance
| its-summertime wrote:
| Gwent comes to mind as an undownloadable game, which must be
| run from the first-party launcher, it is a free game (not
| counting in-game spending) which is always-online, so
| practically the antithesis of GOG
|
| GOG and CD PROJEKT splitting up should ensure this is not
| going to happen in the future as much.
| SXX wrote:
| It was HITMAN released on GOG with always online DRM and
| removed after backlash. They obviously refunded to everyone.
|
| https://www.gog.com/en/news/release_hitman_game_of_the_year_.
| ..
|
| https://www.gog.com/forum/general/release_hitman_game_of_the.
| ..
| sergiotapia wrote:
| Yes that was the one! They ultimately just removed the game
| right? I can't find it. They cannot cede an inch otherwise
| the game store is pointless. I'm glad it's gone.
| TheCraiggers wrote:
| 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's kinda a idealist vs realist stance for me.
| pitched wrote:
| 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.
| SXX wrote:
| Valve started to invest in Linux and open source 10 years
| before releasing Steam Deck. They started hiring OSS
| developers back in 2012 and Deck released in 2022:
|
| https://www.phoronix.com/review/valve_linux_dampfnudeln
| TechSquidTV wrote:
| The unfortunate or fortunate reality of network effects also
| means Steam is usually best suited to preserve content that
| might otherwise be lost. Both in terms of literally holding the
| data for longer than the general public (including workshop
| files), but also by keeping communities active and alive.
| Gormo wrote:
| There are tons of Linux games distributed on GOG, and _not_
| having to use a proprietary client is one of its great
| advantages. Not to downplay Valve 's contributions (and I may
| well get a Steam Frame when they come out), but they mostly
| amount to porting their _mandatory_ DRM-laden client to Linux,
| and maintaining a fork of Wine that integrates with that
| client.
|
| Ownership, control, and privacy are among the main reasons I
| use Linux, and are likewise huge advantages that GOG has over
| Steam.
| sanskritical wrote:
| Official Linux releases are almost never maintained. I have
| the same game on Steam and GOG, but the GOG version no longer
| works. Neither does the Steam version, except if I switch to
| the Windows version with Proton. Then it works flawlessly
| (usually faster and better than the Linux version ever did.)
| TheCraiggers wrote:
| Sadly I've had the same experience. I've had to rebuy a
| couple games on steam because the older gog version wasn't
| version compatible with my friend's clients. That really
| burned my bottom.
| sanskritical wrote:
| Yes, it is so bad that I will no longer buy a game for
| its Linux release. Almost every single Linux game I have
| outside of actual Valve titles no longer works. I don't
| want to hear that they have a Linux release. I want to
| hear that they have a Windows release that works with
| Proton. Windows is the only ABI that I can expect to
| reliably run on Linux.
| scheeseman486 wrote:
| You're fairly significantly downplaying their contributions.
| They have a substantial amount of FOSS developers under
| contract working on SDL, DXVK, VKD3D and there's over a dozen
| people on working on KDE on Valve's dime alone. Proton isn't
| a fork of Wine, it's a Codeweavers managed project funded by
| Valve that packages Wine, virtually everything useful ends up
| going upstream given Codeweavers are also the main
| contributors to Wine. AMDGPU, NVK, Valve funded. Valve have
| been funding FEX since it's conception.
|
| That isn't even everything, just what I've been able to
| confirm either through interviews or conference talks where
| their involvement has come up. They've quietly been doing a
| _lot_ for Linux.
| tracerbulletx wrote:
| I think it's perfectly realistic to think there is a
| substantial risk of losing library content you've bought on
| Valve in the next 20 years. Don't know what the odds are, but
| they're greater than zero.
| TheCraiggers wrote:
| I personally think that, between the two, gog is far more
| likely to disappear than steam.
|
| I'm happy both exist. I've nothing against gog (except maybe
| for their broken promises around Linux support, but I do
| understand changing market forces) and like I said, I hope
| they succeed. They've got a good mission.
| its-summertime wrote:
| 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, I can make
| changes to make these clients better (and to a small degree, I
| already have).
|
| [1]: https://sharkwouter.github.io/minigalaxy/
|
| [2]: https://sites.google.com/site/gogdownloader/
|
| [3]: https://heroicgameslauncher.com/
|
| [4]: https://www.hyperplay.xyz/
| dundarious wrote:
| This is true, but there are pros and cons.
|
| Pro 1: reduced lockin
|
| Pro 2: open source options
|
| Con 1: not all options are all that easy to use or feature
| complete, making the "choice" a mandatory QA/research task,
| rather than a way to exercise personal taste/freedom
|
| Con 2: no galaxy-only features like achievements and save
| file cloud sync
|
| (My personal testing led to choosing Heroic)
| GaryBluto wrote:
| I wish there was a general software equivalent of GOG that
| provided much older software with removed DRM.
| haunter wrote:
| This a hundred time
| its-summertime wrote:
| What old software are you thinking about?
| frenzcan wrote:
| GOP
| super256 wrote:
| I bought from GOG once, and downloaded their launcher. Then, I
| started the game, played for maybe an hour, put my PC to sleep
| and went to bed. Then, the next next day, I resumed my PC from
| sleep, closed the game, and because I didn't like it, decided a
| few days later to request a refund.
|
| The game had 26 hours or so logged, because Galaxy has a poor way
| to log hours. Apparently the interval between game start and game
| end is the time you played the game.
|
| The support declined my refund request, I tried to explain that I
| didn't even get the achievements of after the tutorial and that I
| could impossibly have played that many hours because I was simply
| not on my PC.
|
| The gist is: If you buy a game from GOG which you might won't
| like: NEVER download galaxy, only the offline installers! I
| didn't do that because it was too convenient to download their
| launcher, as the offline installer of the game I played (Baldurs
| Gate 3) was split into many, many files, which I would have to
| download one by one and install them all by hand.
|
| Still sour to this day that I have not gotten my 50EUR back.
| Steam never had such issues for me, and even if you can at least
| ask their support to escalate the ticket so someone from L2/L3 or
| even engineering looks at your ticket.
| d-lisp wrote:
| You do put your PC to sleep without closing your programs !?
| 101008 wrote:
| First time I heard about GOG. Is like Steam but you download the
| .exe installer (or wahtever format it is) from the game you
| purchase? Like Kazaa/Ares but paid? I love it to be honest, and I
| think that's how it should be, but how do creators (and GOG)
| fight piracy? What's preventing me from buying, getting the
| offline installer and then sharing it later?
|
| If I am wrong and GOG is something completely different, then
| let's build something like this together! (a marketplace of
| offline installers!)
| skotobaza wrote:
| > What's preventing me from buying, getting the offline
| installer and then sharing it later?
|
| Nothing. People already do that. GOG does not fight against
| this, to my knowledge they believe that people will willingly
| pay for good games. It worked with Witcher 3 10 years ago as an
| example.
| 101008 wrote:
| I love this, to be honest. Glad to learn that this is how the
| operate!
| kgwxd wrote:
| I bought a lot of stuff from GOG a long time ago, but the only
| thing I've use them for in the past 5 years is claiming Prime
| Gaming rewards on Twitch. I don't think I've even downloaded a
| single one of them. I'm curious if that agreement with Amazon
| might have hurt GOG. Did it cost them some money when people like
| me to claim all those games without ever converting to a paying
| customer?
| closingreunion wrote:
| For self-hosting nerds, I can recommend looking at Gamevault
| (https://gamevau.lt)
|
| Passionate people working on creating a self-hosted game library.
| They deserve attention and support!
| lossolo wrote:
| Michal Kicinski (the co-founder mentioned in the article) also
| funded a Vipassana retreat in Poland. You can go there to
| meditate for around 10-21 days, it's completely free, and people
| from all over the EU attend. I know because someone I know goes
| there regularly.
| amelius wrote:
| For anyone else wondering what GOG is:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GOG.com
| nirv wrote:
| > he believes GOG's approach is more relevant than ever: no lock-
| in, no forced platforms, sense of ownership
|
| I really hope that we'll be freed from the forced Windows
| platform. Sure, you can download and install GOG games today
| using a third-party client, but it'll never be as good as
| official support. There's also the issue of syncing saved games
| and achievements, not to mention the additional friction for less
| tech-savvy users.
| badsectoracula wrote:
| TBH Heroic Launcher isn't particularly hard to get. Just
| download and run the AppImage file from their site, login to
| your GOG account and it'll download any dependencies
| automatically.
|
| It isn't any harder to use Heroic Launcher than it is to use
| Steam and some distros have both in their repositories.
| doctorpangloss wrote:
| it's really hard to say. the games industry is huge. it is
| significantly more diverse than video, where people have been
| making the same arguments and have gotten absolutely zero
| traction, so it's hard to say there is a lot of demand for what
| he is saying.
|
| there is space for the specific thesis he is talking about, but
| it isn't necessarily the biggest opportunity in, whatever
| niche, which is to say, the line is probably going to keep
| trending down.
| Telaneo wrote:
| The more things change, the more they stay the same?
|
| I rarely use GOG, but they're doing good work, so it's nice to
| know they'll be sticking around. I wouldn't have it any other
| way.
| pipes wrote:
| Gog is great and I've been a member since probably 2010.
|
| The one feature that would encourage me to buy more of their
| games is a "install into steam" script with each game. It's a
| massive pain in the ass making my gog games run on my steam deck.
|
| I keep meaning to write a script to do this to ease that pain.
| citrusybread wrote:
| Have you tried using Heroic? I don't use it on the Steam Deck
| so maybe I'm missing something, but I use it on desktop linux
| all the time and it's been seamless for me.
| jpetso wrote:
| The Steam client has to restart in order to pick up the newly
| added external titles, at least last time I tried. In gaming
| mode, restarting the client means restarting the system,
| which is ever so slightly annoying.
|
| Apart from that though, it works just fine on the Steam Deck.
| pipes wrote:
| Lutris and when that fails, manually doing it myself.
|
| One big annoyance is that to browse community controller
| configs you need to change the name of the game to it's steam
| numeric id (which can be found in the URL for the equivalent
| game on steam website).
|
| I'll try heroic.
|
| I try to buy gog versions but sometimes I just think "when
| will I get time to configure this, I could just buy the steam
| version"
| gamesieve wrote:
| I suspect this has been in a vague planning stage for the last
| few years, as various integrations between GOG and CD PROJEKT RED
| were slowly dismantled over that time (I particularly recall a
| GWENT account migration away from GOG).
|
| Also, I guess this is as good a place as any to plug my GOG game
| discovery service and price tracker: https://gamesieve.com/ -
| basically a more full-featured way to explore GOG's catalog.
| Ekaros wrote:
| https://www.cdprojekt.com/en/investors/regulatory-announceme...
|
| >Pursuant to the Purchase Agreement, on 31 December 2025 Michal
| Kicinski will acquire from the Company 2715 shares in GOG, i.e.
| 100% of the shares in GOG representing 100% of the votes at the
| shareholders' meeting of GOG, for a price of PLN 90,695,440.00
|
| >In accordance with the arrangements of the parties to the
| Transaction, prior to the execution of the Purchase Agreement, an
| amount of PLN 44,200,000.00 (forty-four million two hundred
| thousand zlotys 00/100) was paid out to the Company as
| distribution of due - as the Company was thus the sole
| shareholder of GOG - profits of GOG from previous years.
|
| 90 million PLN being ~21,5 million euros. Seems like some money
| was also held there.
| stego-tech wrote:
| I am wary of the long-term prospects of GOG, but then again, I've
| _always_ been wary of that since they launched - and they
| consistently prove me wrong.
|
| GOG remains my first choice when I go looking for PC titles. I
| think it should be everyone's first choice, if I'm honest, even
| if Steam currently operates in a relatively consumer-friendly
| way. Having those offline patches and installers is a freedom you
| just cannot match on Steam or any other platform, and they're
| highly relevant to households like mine where game sharing is
| being cracked down upon by major publishers (looking at you,
| Nintendo).
|
| Keep on keepin' on, GOG. I'm rootin' for ya.
| charlieyu1 wrote:
| At least it's not another Chinese firm
| sngz wrote:
| does this mean we will finally get more games on it instead of
| sitting on the dreamlist for years with no change?
| trvz wrote:
| I started building up my digital game library on Steam.
|
| I then gradually switched to GOG, sometimes buying things again
| (it's not that bad with the identical deep discounts for most
| games on all platforms), because of the better DRM situation and
| because I like to be in relationships with public companies, so
| that I can buy their shares.
|
| When GOG messed up their cloud saves functionality (reduced the
| granted storage to the point where I had to delete old saves -
| sure, I'll never need them, but I still want [someone else] to
| keep them), I switched back to Steam.
|
| When I got tired of sitting at a desk to play I ended up
| switching to the Switch.
|
| Switch 1 games running on the Switch 2 have bad resolution, the
| Steam Machine is interesting, and hopefully there'll be a lighter
| Steam Deck - I might end up at Steam again.
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