Get woke. Go broke.

Here's GOG's issues as far as I can tell:

1) It's difficult for developers to maintain update and feature parity on GOG with Steam. This is something you hear repeated from devs, that maintaining the GOG version is extra work, which isn't worth it when the sales of games are pretty marginal.

I wouldn't be surprised if it's this factor, rather than the DRM free part, that keeps major games off of GOG. GOG should focus on making sure that publishing a game on GOG is as cheap and painless as possible, so that devs don't feel much regret over getting a game here even if the relative sales compared to Steam are low.

2) Their "curation" is incoherent at this point. Hentai RPG maker games get approved, but actually interesting looking indie games that lack high production values get rejected.

GOG should loosen their curation standard a bit--reject the obvious meme trash, maybe with a $10 price floor to discourage 99 cent asset flips, but otherwise being more liberal about what sort of games they allow.

They can still maintain their current standard of "curation" in a more indirect approach, like by actively promoting games they actively want to sell, but streamline the process for actually releasing a game on GOG.

3) GOG Galaxy was a mistake, but it's one they will have to live with at this point. I think their idea was that with stuff like the Epic store and Battle.net, gamers would want a way to consolidate all of their launchers. If GOG provided that, gamers would inevitably click on the "Store" page on the left hand side of the client and in turn buy games from GOG.

I actually don't think it sounded like that bad of an idea, but in retrospect, it didn't pan out that way. The gamers who don't care about buying games through stores other than Steam generally don't care about having a billion launchers, and generally launch their games through desktop or start menu shortcuts anyhow. The one who do care are either Steam supremacists, or are using a superior client like Playnite.

It's incredible how much the operation cost increase in only 2 years, almost doble. Probably is because of Galaxy, after the store grew abruptly in 2020, I remember read some news about GOG add new servers after Cyberpunk 2077 big launch.
I read a comment about Galaxy and I have to agree that to this point is need it, old dinosaurs like me reject launchers, but I know we are the less, new users depends on launchers even to make some coffe, my cousin use it and praises GOG Galaxy for it's stability, to this point and new generation is something indispensable. Hopes GOG has a better 2022.

EDIT: Just to make a small clarification, I think GOG actually grew in 2021, juat not a the same pace than it's expenses, it's a good and a bad news, that is why I hope they make it much better in 2022, after all the changes and with more Good Old Games exclusively on GOG as they already are showing.

This thread started as a means of discussing the business strategy of CD Projekt and its subsidiaries.

Now, it makes me think of this line.

"Armchair CEOs" indeed.

I think from their perspective, they believe that sugarcoating and spin-doctoring and denying the devastating reality of GOG's losses will paint GOG in a favorable light, and therefore boost its reputation in a good way, and therefore massively increase sales for GOG.

Of course, in reality, such posts actually accomplish nothing in terms of helping GOG to recover.

For GOG really to recover would require massive systematic changes within GOG, and also GOG would need to miraculously acquire a massive increase of clout and influence which allows them to entice the makers of high profile new games to release those new games on GOG in a timely manner.

Consider checking out this Reddit thread about updating on GOG.

I think the biggest issue is just that most people just don't have a reason to use GOG (other than "old games on new machines", they don't care about DRM-free; but now old games usually get released on Steam too, often GOG versions of them), thus GOG can't improve their market share and userbase, thus quite a few devs and pubs of all sizes (but perhaps the biggest companies especially) are unenthusiastic to bother releasing here or low sales make them "lazy" to update here. Perhaps in Japan the DRM thing is still very important, though SEGA had games DRM-free on Dotemu store like 12 years ago (when Dotemu had a store).

I don't think Epic Game Store was even a thing when Galaxy first released ~7 years ago, or at least EGS wasn't being aggressively pushed and actively trying to take on Steam. The sense I get back in 2015 is that with Witcher 3 being so beloved and popular, and W3 box codes only redeemable at GOG and bringing hundreds of thousands of new people in, there was a feeling that GOG could actually build into proper competition to Steam. Obviously that didn't happen for various reasons, including Fortnite blowing up and EGS pushing their way onto the scene, but 20/20 hindsight...

I don't think Galaxy was inherently a mistake - I believe it was said some devs like Telltale wouldn't release on GOG unless there was even an optional client for feature parity (achievements), and iirc on a survey GOG asked people if they wanted a client and something like 70% of people said yes, but I might be misremembering the survey thing. Maybe Galaxy 2 was a mistake and trying to be an "all in one" client.

I've already said it many times in the past few months or years but I'd like less curation and more games here in general, I don't know GOG's decisions about that unless they're focused on releasing games that don't need updates or are from "trusted" devs or publishers ... ?

Speaking of growth - the upcoming section has gained quite a bit compared to last year, with roughly 2 additional pages worth of confirmed titles (~96), too.

How much of this growth translates into sales remains to be seen and, probably now more than ever is relying on proper advertisement both on GoG's and especially the corresponding devs'/pubs' side (putting that GoG logo next to the others in ALL the trailers surely can't be that hard) but I thought this is worth pointing out as well.

Huh, so updating GOG games is actually pretty easy. Okay, so I'm a bit sceptical of some these indie devs claims now.

Also, I was mostly talking about GOG Galaxy 2.0. I agree that a client in general was a good idea.

I think it's a little exaggerated at the time, they restructured the company recently, probably because of this, and as result, they actually grew without a big release as Cyberpunk. Let's hope for the better.

Mismanagement.


They obviously ain't learning (or atleast not fast enough) from the likes of Steam at all, it's like they have their head in the clouds along with the "i/we know best attitude"



However i have noticed a list of new arrivals and upcomings that isn't inundated with porn, which is nice, and i can look at the store page without having hunniepop thrown at me... so i have made more purchases recently than i did last year..

What are you doing? The only talk is doom and gloom. haha
Nice to know your expertise on how Gog should work. In reality, none of us know what's really going on with GOG. Funny how if people come out with none doom and gloom opinion about Gog they're bad.

So what happened between 2019 vs 2020-2021 for the cost of running the site to almost double? Inflation isn't that much. Wasn't 2019 the same year they got rid of 10% of their staff (and the same time customer support response times dropped from hours / days to up to 6 weeks?) I thought that would have reduced costs rather than increased it +60% in a single year? I wish GOG the best for the future but this is very sad if it's going to end up where I think it will within the next 2-3 years. :-(

Interested in this as well.

I think doing a lot more with Galaxy, like working on Galaxy 2 as an "all my games in one place" client.

I'm not sure Support delays were a major issue until Cyberpunk2077 release but I could be wrong.

You don't have to be very smart to know what's going on.

Gog has cut back for years looking to make a profit. Despite this he has had 7 million dollars losses.

The model is unsustainable. So either go back to the goog old games exclusive model or the store will be gone in two or three years.

It surprises me that there are users justifying the losses. The store does not work, it is in the red and doomed to disappear.

Even so, I think it is impossible that it does not end up closing. Recommending backups.