Wish I could upvote you more.


Also. Friendly reminder than some of us want manual sorting back.

Too bad the color scheme went back to grey. Anyway, it's good the autoplay thing was removed from the front page; now it needs to disappear from here https://www.gog.com/games when it's shown as grid.

When I visit GOG I want to pretend that it's 1995 all over again with dial up internet and potato computers. They need to get back to their roots and start adding more and more old games to their catalog. I came from Steam to GOG and the only reason I came here are for the older games because they work more reliably here than Steam. If I want new games, I get them on Steam and if I want old games, I come to GOG. You'd be surprised how many folks do that very thing.

In other words, GOG was once a niche but it was an awesome niche because of the old game titles it has. It's once you start trying to become someone you're not that gets you into trouble. GOG isn't Steam and it never will be Steam. So it needs to stop acting like Steam and competing with Steam. GOG just needs to be itself and get back to the golden oldy games and party like it's 1999 and everything will be fine.

I feel like that's exactly what's wrong with GOG at this point. They're trying to compete with those big guys. And it just... doesn't work. For many reasons. For example, a lot of people see GOG like an easy way to steal games. I love to buy from GOG. Looking on my library alone gives me A LOT of delicious nostalgia. But even I have a lot of friends, who don't really feel that way. Instead, it's more like "Nah, I'll just go for torrents" for them. And there's nothing GOG can do about that. Because being DRM-free is, like, their main thing. They can't just say "We're DRM-free except for some games". As the result, selling something expensive here doesn't really work. When it's about some new and shiny titles, people would rather buy them from Steam. Because Steam has more people, better client, stuff like trading cards, profile levels, etc, etc, etc. Sure, GOG offers DRM-free. And DRM-free is always good, but, like I said, as long as the game isn't really cheap, there'll always be people who'll rather steal it without paying. The entire world is in crisis now, after all. Most of the people are trying to save and, unfortunately, piracy is a very common choice here. Technically, I'm not really against modern games here, on GOG. But I feel like they need to stick with some cheap indie games instead of expensive titles. Having the expensive games is good, but only as long as they don't expect for them to sell well here.

As for how to save GOG? Well... personally, I think that there's only one way to do that. To stick with what they do best. With the GOOD OLD GAMES. See, that's exactly why people come here. They buy the game from their past in Steam, then they discover that the freakin' thing wasn't updated for ages and doesn't work on modern systems anymore. Just because neither Valve, not publisher care. Then people get the refund from Steam and come to GOG. To buy a version that actually works. "Go to GOG and buy a version that works!" is a very common reply on Steam forums. And it's not the only reason. See, the old games are pretty cheap. Which heavily reduces the piracy problem. I mean, sure, you can still steal them, but come on! It's one thing to pirate the game that costs, like, $60, but most of the people in the right mind won't even bother to steal something that costs, like $5. Especially since GOG has a nice little client now and, like I said, it just feels good to have stuff in your library. Free profile backgrounds are great addition too. So, again, old games are perfect for GOG. DRM-free is OK with the cheap old games, having the working versions is always good, etc. How to save GOG? To keep adding a lot of the old titles. Tons of the old gems still aren't here. And many of those aren't even tricky Windows releases. How hard can it be to add more DOSBox games? I mean, come on, GOG! Give us Dune! Give us Wetlands! Give us Alien Odyssey! Give us Discworld! Give us Cavewars! We seriously need all those juicy DOS games. Just look at the community wishlist! All they need to do is to get the rights. And that's what they should focus on IMO. To be aggressive and to get as many old titles as they can. That and, of course, updating their existing releases. Because at this point a lot of games don't really work on modern OS (still can't make games like Interstate 82, Dark Reign and some others to work properly on Win 10, for example).

If they'll keep focusing on that, the other stores won't really be a big problem for them. I mean, who cares about Uplay, ORIGIN, Epic store and Battle.net? You go there only for a certain titles. Like, if you want Far Cry, you go to Uplay. You want the new Star Wars, you go to EA, etc. But you don't STAY there. Those are just for one, or two titles per year. Like, I bought StarCraft remaster from Blizzard a few days ago. But I'm pretty sure I won't buy anything else from Battle.net this year. GOG can't compete, sure. But it actually shouldn't. It should focus on being a thing on its own. To provide the unique service. If they'll understand that - they'll be good. If they won't... well... Let's just say that DRM-free Steam is a utopia and can't be achieved.

Agree with almost everything. Eventually, everything becomes old, some of these become even good and old and I would guess that one could find a niche of getting good old games to run. For the sake of argument, the number of good new games is finite too.

Adding newer games was the right thing. Neglecting their website and concentrating on Galaxy alone was a major mistake.

Well, with Microsoft's move to stick with Windows 10 forever, getting "old" games to run should become easier than ever. So that niche will disappear eventually.

Are they actually concentrating on Galaxy though? I don't think it has received any worthwhile updates in forever.

Hm, are you sure? Just because Windows is not changing the major version number, doesn't mean they change a lot under the cover. For GOG, compared to the website functionality which decreased over time, Galaxy looks rather good.

I mean, that's more due to bugs and such, less through the deprecation of features (from what I've seen so far). Fair enough, although that has only been a thing since the anniversary and Galaxy has/had autoplay as well. Though, obviously I can't really compare since I've not been here for that long.

Well, autoplaying videos on that HUGE thing at the top of the front page are still there…

I don't agree with some of you guys.

I want GOG to sell new games too and be an effective competitor to steam. But they shouldn't forget their roots*. It can be both.


* And give us back manual sorting. Yes, I'm a broken record.

Yeah, sorry man but this is bullshit. steam games are pirated the very second the get released. Often before the GOG version. Being DRM free changes nothing.

I actually supported bringing newer games to GOG, but I was foolish to believe that they would do it the way they handled the "good old games".

They were always provided with all expansions and updates, now GOG is full of DLC and games are not updated to latest versions. Just look at that latest on-going sale, there's more DLC than actual game titles!

Also back then the games had understandable prices. Now it's some weird rocket science where you can have three different versions with three different prices, the complete version price is not the same as the base game + upgrade price, buying an upgrade doesn't count as buying the complete version, the series discounts are hidden for some reason, and then there are all these different local price schemes, where some games with price differences may be compensated to GOG wallet and some others may not.

This doesn't take into account all kinds of compatibility problems that many users are reporting with the new design.

I don't often even bother to check GOG promos these days, as the whole thing is so far removed from the Good Old GOG, where everything was simple and you rarely, if ever, ended up being disappointed.

I guess the underlying problem is that GOG doesn't have a competitor, but GOG wants to compete.
They are the only 100% DRM-free store after DotEmu closed, but rather than being the king of their own small niche hill, they try to compete with players who are playing a completely different game.

There's a big difference between cracked .exe and DRM-free. Poor coding on hackers' side, the fact that every new update requires a new crack, etc. In other words, all that stuff that makes piracy so "fun". With GOG, pirates just get exactly the same thing with proper buyers and it's a huge difference IMO. Also, not all games get hacked right away. Depends on extra DRM. But even that isn't everything. See, there are many people around who usually don't like piracy. All those cracked .exes, the risk of getting your system infected, the hard time with updates... Totally not worth it, right? I mean, that's pretty much what kids are doing in school. No money, no job, a lot of free time to mess with pirated content... For teens and adults piracy usually not worth it. But when a new and expensive game gets DRM-free release... It may be just too tempting. I mean, you get the legit copy of the game with all the legit features out there. For free. It's only you and your honesty. And for some people it may be too hard to stay being honest when it's about easy money. So, personally, I consider DRM being a very important thing in our case.

Ahh, the seemingly never-ending winter sale already had me forget how awful the front page's design is.

On a more positive note: The game pages seem to have made some improvments recently and they're now almost bearable. Gog still proudly displays a user's number of games owned next to their reviews. I realise now that Steam does that too, but Steam is Steam and they can get away with blatant disregard for their user's privacy. Gog is small fries, so they can not. Make that shit toggle-able.

Win 10 changes every 6 months, and there's a high chance of something breaking when that happens.
Only one of this size maybe. Otherwise, Zoom and Fireflower come first to mind.
*sigh* This again? And anyway, there are no costs associated with a pirated copy, whether somebody gets it pirated or doesn't get it at all makes absolutely zero difference for developer, publisher, store or anyone else involved. And the money go around anyway too, so either the person couldn't afford that amount at all and not allowing them to play it like that just takes away something from them without making any other difference, or would take away money that this way are given to someone else. And besides, when it comes to such copies it just how it should be, you buy if you want to show support.

I can quote you 101% on this.

I was looking at the front page, and could not figure out what is on sale, what the sale is about, what is new, if something is new and everything else.

Is just a monument to bad design and carelessness.