Not the possible NDA thing no, but it does track on the hyper focus on Steam marketing thing.

I'm not saying I like or argree with it, but when it comes to marketing gumph, most pubslishers and devs simply ingore GOG, even if they're intending to release on GOG.

Not trying to justify why it happens, rather reason why it might.

I don't know if it by design or just happy coincidence, but devs having to play the algorithm and the effort required to do so does benefit Valve by having Devs focus on that system over inclusive marketing for GOG. Likely the later.
Yep, it really hurts GOG sales

You may be correct, but my time working in film advertising makes me think GOG's logo issues are more associated with Steam's contractual obligations or pressure / shenanigans than oversight.

Either way, it's a tough fight against a giant "industry standard."

Hmmm, very interesting thoughts regarding Steam. To me it was not obvious because i got zero interest nor vulnerability to all those infantile "goodies" provided with a Steam account. I think Steam is using many DRMs and the strongest DRM is truly their way of "community-bindings" including raising the gamers ego by rewards i always considered hilarous and useless. However, to the majority it could be even more important than the game.

I see some comparable stuff on the mobile-gaming market: The exactly same system is highly successul there: Increasing the peoples perception of "self worth" by handing out achievements and inviting them to be part of this "mighty group". It seems to be like a drug to the majority this sort of "mass-participation".

So, actually the whole matter is more of a "social game" than a "real game".

Still something i never ever could understand: I got zero archievements nor any other goodie, on purpose, and i am perfectly happy with. Just me and the game... this is my dream. If i want friends i try to search real friends... other friends are of low value to me. Those kind of friends i never ever can get truly close to them... they are just an illusion.

Good example is Fortnite: One of the most crappy PC ever sold was a "Fortnite-PC" but by buying it... you are part of the mighty "Fortnite-Community" and now you start to become "someone else", reason enough for buying it. Seriously... in my dreams i would never believe it but i can not deny the facts. Surely a human is not very rational, highly emotional: You could sell them the biggest junk but in term you "touch some demanded feelings"... you will win.

Even the game... excuse me... I do consider crap... but the success is exorbitant. I would rather go playing the newest giveaway from GoG, much more fun to me: Yeah, its Lorelai...

By coincidence, GOG has chosen to include the "GOG Kinky Bundle" on the homepage tonight. Let's imagine the marketing meeting:

"What calls to action are we putting on the trailers?"

"Wishlist now on Steam"

"We're releasing on GOG too, what about them?"

"We only need one PC store, and Steam covers that. Besides, sometimes GOG has dodgy stuff on the homepage."

"Like what?" *open the homepage and scrolls*

"Well, Senran Kagura's probably ripping clothes off young college students, let's see what's in Yggdrasil, oh heck there's the Kinky Bundle."

"Yeah so? Sex sells, Senran's on Nintendo, what's wrong with the Kinky Bundle?" *clicks*

"What's wrong with it is that the store curation has put an early-teens girl, in her underwear, as one of the big images for something called the 'Kinky Bundle'." *as the screen scrolls past Hunie Pop's decent art, and the next image scrolls into view, the room turns silent* "That game's on Steam too, but they hide it unless you're logged in and turn porn on in the filters."

"Er, right. 'Wishlist on Steam' it is then."

Obligatory disclaimer: said image depicts a university student over the age of 18, and nothing about calling it the "Kinky Bundle" implies that any sexual activity is depicted anywhere in any of the bundled games.

I doubt that they have to. As long as GOG is showing stuff like this to someone who hasn't changed the filter defaults, Steam just have to say "when you're adding calls to action to your marketing, you can trust us to have a reasonable homepage". They also have the benefit of being the largest store, if anyone complains about a link to Steam, you can just say "we have to link there, they're the biggest store".

Kai2 has said that their actions should be limited if (or because) they're a monopoly, which implies that they're doing something that they shouldn't be allowed to do. My question is for someone to say what X is; what does Kai2 want them to be prevented from doing?

Being a monopoly doesn't in and of itself break the antitrust rules, and there's a lot of things that a company can do that are still allowed, even when that company is a monopoly. Being a monopoly doesn't prevent a company from improving its products, even though that makes it harder for competitors to compete on quality or features.

In Microsoft's case, the antitrust included stuff such as making Windows misbehave if it detected that a competitor's product was involved. They also gave exclusive early access to new Windows features to their own application-writing teams, so that their competitors' applications couldn't use the same features until much later.

That's identified the monopoly, but what's X? What's Steam doing that breaks antitrust rules?

So before GOG had these NSFW specials and that deal with Kagura, publishers came to GOG more often? ... I think not.

Sometimes I see that stuff on Steam too, btw.

FFS

I've said 3 times already

STEAMWORKS!

You keep pointing a Microsoft tying the damsel of DR DOS to a rail way track, asking me to point out Valves act of villainy.

DR DOS was just 1 part of Microsofts anti trust actions, it wasn't a tipping point nor was the most significant.

Steamworks has the exact same effect on the PC gaming market as Microsofts API suite had on the commercial PC sector. It binds developers to your system (front and back end), it stifles competition but making it hard for devs to integrate and support that competition.

Yes the DR DOS thing was an underhanded act, but as an industry "event" its a sniper kill, Microsofts APIs was a WMD capable of disabling 1000 of companies.

Uncle Ben didn't say
"With great power come the ability to ignore the effect your actions have on those around you"

But while that is unfortunately true, and much of what is wrong with the world stems from that, humanity and its legal systems attempt (or pretend) to follow what Ben did say.

What happened with Microsoft, is their actions made other Great and powerful people nervous. It wasn't the likes of me, the developers pushing out code in the 90s, that had any effect on the trial happening, it was politicians, oligarchs and others of that ilk.

A large part of why Valve hasn't been pulled in for Anti-trust, is because it "just games" and nothing important, not a threat to anyone with power. Leaving it for consumer groups and their $50/h lawyers to take on Valve and its army of $500/h lawyers (note Valve once had a case dismissed claiming "Games might not be software" if you want to know the level of legal chicanery they're capable of)

Steam is not even good... it is just "fanservice" and the "bigger stick"; so naturally they simply have most of the big franchises, thats all. I dunno what is so "supreme" about them. It is still a store with a launcher and a lot of, to me, non needed goodies including "streaming services" i could get at countless other sources.

Steam is a "data hog", it got the trust from the majority so it will get most of the data and support, thats it. There is nothing "far beyond anything else", it is still just a shop with many features the majority is considering essential, me "unfortunately" not.

Actually it is even a huge work for the developers implementing all the "demanded" fanservice... yet they do it because it is affordable to them and it can be taken over to other platforms too, although if the market share is to small it might only be of idealistic nature becaue the revenue can be close to none.

I'm pretty sure GOG has nowhere close to 8% of the PC games market share.

I don't doubt the claims that D:OS games day one releases receive about 8% of the sales from GOG, but that certainly does not translate into "GOG has an 8% market share."

I suggest you keep the negativity and doubts for yourself, because if you can not clearly prove it, then it will be nothing more but assumptions... we got enough of this already in todays world: Truths based on endless assumptions.

It could even be true, this will not stop me from continuously supporting the stuff i do consider valuable.

The problem with Steam is... they can not go much higher, only down. So it is not truly the best investment, just "pretty secure" because it is difficult wipe someone out of a market who is already "the king"... still not impossible.

Actually i should care less about this entire economics... because the only lesson we got in the last few decades is: The economic is nothing stable and highly speculative. If someone got "true values", they may simply go their way... no matter the hardships. The economy might crash someday because it got abused way to much, it is considered highly volatile. The only stuff truly able to last is something like "trust" and "caring for each others"... still way more important than all the "number crunching".

Maybe, considering todays "mass sells", this is a thing that may be able to "overheat" someday, because at some point the gamers are flooded with games they barely play, resulting into the loss of appreciation and finally going back to "Its roots", the stuff you may have experienced from your childhood: It was a time with only few games but it truly was enjoyable. The human can be feeded with greed but, as a paradox, with inceased greed and feed the happiness might actually decrease. I think, the human heart is minimalistic in nature and for this to keep up the love you always will have to appreciate even the smallest stuff... including "the small shops", indeed.

It is not even a myth: I call it the "choice-paradox", with increased choice we fail to be able to make a choice and finally even losing appreciation. At this point, people may seek out for their happiness in "might", "greed", and "community" but i am not so sure if the game is still the first focus to them... so indeed, the same game actually is still having a higher value on Steam because it was never truly about the game, it was about "the whole environment".

I'm having problems finding it, but in an interview with Piotr Karwowski around the same time had a claim of a 15% share.

Personally the only way I square that against per game sales figures, is if GOG users on average spend more than Steam users. I can only speak for myself, but I definitely spend more on GOG than the average Steam user does on Steam.

I can only speak for myself. I pay in average for a game way more on GoG than on Steam. I do not moan about it, it is simply "the way it works". Hard to guess the numbers but i think in average it could be 2 times more because on Steam i generally NEVER buy a day one release at the full price (no day one release at all, Kuro no Kiseki was the only exception) and i always will look out for very cheap keys, which generally are a huge bargain (5-15 CHF in most cases), but on GoG i usually pay in the range of 15-30 CHF for many games and even many games at full price, above 50 CHF, (at day one, if there is a chance). I never use a GoG key because i lack the intention in order to "drop" the price to a minimum. I enjoy sales, but if the condition is great i may pay full price too (which is as good as never the case on Steam).

For example, DAY ONE: Darksiders III or The Legend of Heroes Series (always full price)...

The highest price i ever paid for a "digital game" was "YS Monstrum Nox Ultimate" on GoG: 95 CHF. Maybe someday there is a even higher price, but clearly not on Steam.

And most recent Steelrising, there is surely many more but hard to remember without checking it out. I do not really care for the price but a bad game is always to expensive, indeed.

So, numbers may not be the ultimate truth, the payment for each title will play a role too.

It is very usual that minoritys will have to pay more... because this is their only chance sustaining itself on a economy mainly driven "by the mass" and their wishes.

Spot on

Microsoft still has a giant API suites, and the C/C++ suite grew even during the time that they were under supervision for antitrust violations. An API suite isn't in and of itself an antitrust violation, even though it binds developers because they have to learn skills specific to that API.

Valve has been pulled in for antitrust, but it's been for specific actions. For example, setting up their DRM so that games bought in eastern EU countries (where incomes are generally lower) couldn't be activated elsewhere in the EU got them a €1.6m fine. https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_21_170

Can you provide a link to the "games might not be software" case? I can't find the exact quote, and those words match too many articles to sift through looking for an inexact match.

A small part of that power, a part of what lets people become good politicians and businesspeople, is the ability to understand the rules for writing a complaint. Just saying "Steamworks" three times and adding capitalisation on the third time isn't making a case for an anti-trust complaint, so again, what's the current action that they're violating trust with?

Well, everything is relative... warning, this is now a somewhat ironic view:

Compared to Apple, MS or Saudi Arabian Oil Company with a rating of over 2000 Billion each... the estimated value of Valve, the owner of Steam is still close to nothing with a estimated value of around 10-20 Billion. However, CDPR, the owner of GOG with a estimated value of around 2-3 Billion is still way lower than this.
https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/12108/umfrage/top-unternehmen-der-welt-nach-marktwert/

So you see... gaming is not really the thing the world as a whole is putting their biggest "trust" into it... in general, the world simply does not really care. They rather would use a Microsofty OS in order to excecute bureaucracy-work... which could be involving things like tracking taxes, lowering the taxes for the rich and increasing it for the poor... and of course energy... energy is like "life energy", without it... we are doomed, so it is capitalized the highest way possible.,

So the world does not really care about gamers in general, yet... it still is a important market share of all the economy going on, just not really critical as a whole.

So, if you truly want to become rich... do not become a Dev... those are in general "playful and idealistic people"... you may rather work as a "body healer" who still fails to heal most cancer... i mean pharma... oil-leecher or "bureaucracy-suppliers" such as on a spot for Microsofty or "biting the Apple" which is basically a company able to provide important advertisement, just do not use it on GoG please (this would be an unfair advantage) using their advanced graphical software and of course the required communication so everyone know whats going on and what to pay or life for. Those are the matters that are really inside "the worlds heads"... if we try to look far from above.

Still... fact is, as long as the in overal still minor-Steam platform is basically the "ruler of PC-games" and any other are barely able to scratch it... then i see a issue with the economy and competition in general. It may require some investigation and i hope we may become 2-3 somewhat competitive options, not only 1.

Besides, if we do consider "Tencent" a game-company then it would be the highest value of the ones with some similaritys. Although it does not work that easy because Tencent is to me a multi-company with many different branches, so it is difficult to say the exact value that comes from gaming. Additionally, they are not part of the PC-market... mainly mobile-market which is not the same because mainly different customers. However, it is clear how to become "rich" in todays economy... you simply need a high share involving many customers... this is indeed the case for Tencent as a behemoth inside the huge Chinese-mobile market.