Jigsy1: I guess this means less Japanese games; which is literally the only thing I care about.
Especially the upcoming Trails games. ;_;
alexandros050: The trails games will be here ...There are even coming soon pages already available...
Not if the store shuts down before that. Reverie isn't even scheduled to release until sometime in 2023, so that's a ways off and a lot can happen during that time. Personally, I own every Legend of Heroes and Ys game on GOG, but I'm going to re-buy them on Steam when it get's closer to the upcoming releases. NIS America, for example, has a nice Falcom bundle with everything in it on Steam that I'll likely buy. I don't exactly trust GOG anymore either with the handling these new releases because of the issues I had with Trails of Cold Steel IV. Ys IX had issues with it's launch week free DLC's disappearing also. It's unacceptable, and you just can't really trust this store anymore with certain things.
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Anyways, this news should be of no surprise to anyone. I've been openly saying this here for months now, and anyone who can look at things objectively and take their fingers out of their ears, or their head out of the sand, would hear and see the same thing.
GOG is forever treading water in the deep end, and it's only a matter of time before they drown. You don't think GOG hasn't exausted most ways to improve their situation? Of course they have, and while the general public opinion of GOG as a store is high, the sales are not ever going to be where they need to be. The overwhelming majority is going to choose Steam over GOG every single time, and there's nothing GOG can do about that.
Games that release here same day as Steam don't even get double digit percentages of sales. That's pitiful, and games that release after Steam do even worse.
CD Projekt has even tried releasing a GOG exclusive with their own games (Thornebreaker) and it performed horribly. They can't try that with something like a Cyberpunk or a Witcher 3, because people would get pissed off, and it would be an anti-consumer move, and people would pirate it out of spite who'd normally have bought it on Steam.
Steam is necessary for CD Projekt to succeed on PC, and they obviously need the console market also. AAA game development is extremely volatile and one flop could seriously damage or even sink a studio. Don't expect CD Projekt to throw away money to help GOG more than what they're already doing.
But just stop blaming GOG for the problems here. The issue isn't with Galaxy, offline-installers, or even the limited selection of titles GOG has. The issue is that most consumers want a monopoly when it comes to digital entertainment. Having all their games in one place is too appealing. No one wants to have all these apps, accounts, and launchers. People say they don't want a monopoly, but they really do, because it's the most convenient for them.
If every game was on GOG would you buy anywhere else? No, so you'd be in favor of a GOG monopoly if that was possible.
Steam just has such a lead from being around in 2003, and the feature set of thier client, that realistically no one can catch up. Even if they did, and had a comparable client, with a social space people cared about, it wouldn't matter, because, again, the whole everyone wants all their games on one client deal. Steam is the Playstation, Xbox, or Nintendo of PC, and that's never going to change.
When people think of PC gaming they think of Steam. I don't like that, but that's just the way it is. Even "influencers" who have CRPG channels don't even mention GOG when covering games. It's like you're a channel talking about Baldurs Gate 3, Solasta, and CRPGs, but you don't mention these games are available on GOG? CRPGs are some of the most popular games here, but the influencers ignore this store.
The good thing here is that as long as GOG exists it's going to remain a DRM-free store. Why? Because without being fully DRM-free it would just be a really crappy version of Steam. There'd be no reason for this store to exist if it was selling DRM'd games.
It's not like major publishers haven't tried releasing bigger games on GOG either. The sales must be so bad, and these publishers feel that just having an advertised DRM-free version affects the sales on other platforms, that they choose not to release more here. The majority of games are actually DRM free on Steam also, but there's a difference probably when you're actually advertised as such or not.
Lifting curation isn't going to help either, because curation has always been part fo the selling point of the store. They've already opened it up to having more "adult" titles and the like now also (which was long overdue), but having shovelware, asset flips and whatever else garbage that Steam sells is not going to help GOG.
A huge influx of additional titles isn't the answer. The more releases on your Store means the more it costs to operate. GOG needs titles that are going to sell for them. A lot of why that crap sells on Steam is because of Steam features (Cards, Badges, Achievements, and it being another "title" that people add to their collections. It's "clout" or gamer cred when they have their gamer social space with thousands of games or their little profile all decked out...
There's really not much GOG can do except what they're doing currently, and that's restructuring so GOG can operate at as low of cost as possible so they can remain in business. Unfortunately, that means that things like support is going to be forever backed up, and there's no going to be as much improvement to areas that need it.
I really don't want to hear anyone mention COVID as being an issue either. No one, and I repeat, no one has benefitted more from COVID than the gaming industry. Videogame sales are at an all time high and most of these companies are making record profit. If anything, GOG benefitted greatly from COVID. CD Projekt not so much, because while they did have the biggest digital launch ever (yes, ever) with Cyberpunk, they also burned so many bridges in the process because of it.
Should you back up your library? Absolutely. Is imminent doom coming? No, probably not, but you can bet your ass that GOG is in icy waters and it's only a matter of time before an iceberg is right ahead. Be smart and slowly get those back-ups going.
Another thing is that news like this doesn't encourage sales at all. People see a store with a questionable future and it doesn't inspire purchasing with confidence. You might see a situation where people are gonna start jumping ship, and take their money elsewhere in the future. I know that's what I'm going to be doing moving forward.
I've already cut back on my purchases on GOG a lot, and most games will be bought on Steam in the future. Most recently I purchased 'Ruined King Deluxe Edition' in November on day one, and 'PoE:DE' over the Black Friday Sale, but that's probably it for a while for GOG. In the past year I've spent close to US$1,750.00 on GOG, but I'd rather put that money into a store that I feel comfortable will be around in forseable future.
Do I think Steam is going to be around in the next Five (5) years? Yes, absolutely. Do I feel the same about GOG? Not at all.
It's not going to be fun maintaining a hardware based backup of hundreds of GOG games, or paying for online storage for that backup. Maintaining the health of that backup will be an annoyance, and having a backup of your backup will be necessary. It's time and money that I have to commit to that, when ideally you'd be able to download that game whenever you wanted from GOG.
I'll still be around, and will buy the occassional title off GOG, but I wouldn't think it smart to do anymore than that when the future of this store is looking so grim.