I hope that gog does not close. But I think that in the medium term it will not be able to compete with platforms such as steam or epic. This is very sad because it is a non-drm platform.

Because this guy is a power hitter and 1st base is open.

dinosaurs vanished, empires have fallen, giant companies collapses

It is, and the push has been there for years. For the last few years, developers aimed at breaking into the Steam charts top 10, which is a thing that in itself apparently acts as a massive catalyst for more sales (because gamers seem to buy what's popular). To that end, countless schemes have been concocted to lure every single customer to Steam, away from other distributors, at least for the all important first week of sales. The most obvious one is, of course, to release on Gog later. Less obvious is to release on GOG later but tell everyone they'll still "consider" whether to sell their game on GOG even when deals have been struck already (so people don't wait for the GOG release). But of course not releasing on GOG at all is option number one, and it has become more attractive just now.

There surely is one, maybe even two developers who broke the ten million revenue mark on gog.com. But 50 million? There's one single developer who did that, and that developer owns gog.com. So if gog adjusted their policy accordingly, it would just be silly. They'd have to offer a better share at a much lower revenue treshhold, and that of course cuts their own flesh.

Read it as "power hitler" a spent 20 minutes trying to locate his base.

So much this.

It seems GOG's new "business strategy" is to chase the gamer butterflies who, ironically, will have no loyalty to the platform whatsoever. This is particularly evident in constant imitation of Steam, and turning the store page into some regurgitated "mobile" store.

GOG's early website was fantastic. Minimum hassle to access most pertinent information, easily-accessible "News" section that you could take quite far back, excellent placement for discount listing and sales announcements. Now, it's a clusterfuck just trying to find basic information on the site.

And to what effect? To lure in people who will as happily move from GOG to another platform at the drop of a hat?

Rethink their most recent moves and realize that it was their "customers first" approach that made GOG what it is today. Stop dicking around trying to immitate their direct competitor, and focus on what got them where they are in the first place.

Invest in not retarded microtransaction gimmick of Gwent, but proprietary compatibility solutions for games. Aggresively shop around for older titles to add to their catalogue - this combines with the previous point. If GOG could go to, say, EA, and tell them "we can release that old game of yours that won't even run on modern computers, and get you some extra money from it, without your having to invest anything," do you think EA's executives wouldn't at least think twice before refusing?

Get more indie titles in their catalogue. Try to get more large-studio titles, too, but I think it would be that much easier for GOG to achieve the first one.

Try not to immitate, but innovate. As an example, GOG has infrastructure sufficient, with little investment, to offer a Kickstarter alternative for game developers - but with own curation. If they couple that with a contractual obligation to release already-written code in case a project fails, that along would set them apart from Kickstarter itself. Since they get to pick the game they want to allow, and people "investing" in that project would at least get the unfinished game code IF it failed, chances are it would emerge as superior alternative to "no guarantees" Kickstarter.

Not to mention that GOG could easily add some financing-matching option (for X dollars a developer gets from the public GOG adds X from their own investment pool), perhaps offset by GOG getting larger share of sales on release.

This thing would also increase the number of titles released on GOG.

Just as an example of an idea they could leverage to distinguish themselves from the crowd.

Another would be focus on customer privacy. No third-party scripts or trackers either on the store page or within Galaxy (at least without user's direct opt-in), legal terms in privacy policy guaranteeing whatever analytics get gathered being used by GOG and only GOG, and destroyed within reasonable period of time, and the works.

It may not seem like a lot, but it's something GOG could point at and say "this is how we are different." And the group of people unhappy with how we're running head-first into some kind of dystopian surveillance sci-fi society is probably larger than most assume.

Another one - become the best place to get Linux games. Especially if GOG could somehow make it possible to buy a game once and be able to play it on any platform (the way older games have installers for Windows, Mac, and Linux). Considering where Microsoft is headed with Windows, I know I would love to have a meaningful alternative once my Windows 7 gaming computer becomes obsolete for whatever reason.

This is something only AAA publishers can afford.

Considering that they all seem to be headed toward own stores anyway (until they get hit by sales drop because not everybody will tolerate 6+ separate clients or store profiles to handle), so why even worry? GOG could easily focus on smaller releases - it won't pay as much, but if it helps GOG increase their market share it's a worthwhile investment.

They have to match profit shares others offer, at least to something close enough, for developers to even look their way. It's the way the market works.

And while at it, GOG should consider "bribing" smaller developers with better terms. Yes, it will cut into profitability, but at this point if they want to continue existing (and having own well-established distro platform for CDPR should alone be worth running GOG at "break-even" point), they have to realize they are in for a bumpy ride while all those new stores get sorted out.

You can't just react in the business world and expect to be successful.

At last that's my take on things. But since I don't have MBA from some "my parents were rich enough to get me a spot in this overpriced and elite " school, it probably doesn't count anyway :)

What about the FCKDRM initiative?

Pretty sure that's not how you garner positive attention. But I don't have a marketing degree, either, so what do I know. I'm sure somebody at GOG was properly compensated for such a brilliant idea.

It was replaced by the FCKWBDSGN initiative.

Speak for yourself. I'd just return to the old "DRM-less" piracy sites I used to visit before I discovered GOG :)

Legally, my dear karnak1. :)

But l suppose piracy is and will always be a factual option.

Fortunately, yes.
I still remember my horror, many years ago, when I discovered that CD games, besides a CD- key to install, required that you had to install a certain specific software to play.

I may have been a tad too deadpan; I have no idea what they were trying to accomplish with that.

No, I got that.

Just wanted to clarify my own lack of understanding of GOG's brilliance there :)