JakobFel: I don't believe I mentioned that in my last post about this subject. People just acted like I was an idiot for suggesting the idea that GOG doing this was a bad idea because it was removing value. Didn't even want to argue, since I was swarmed by fanboys for suggesting such a thing... maybe I was that bad when I was a fanboy but I don't think I went
that far.
Braggadar: All I merely pointed out is that using "degenerate" in your current post means you're not only describing the content as being distasteful, but it also at the same time sounds like you'd consider those who buy such games as equally distasteful. That alone will attract heated argument.
The other things, like cutting server costs etc are quite true - it's asinine to reduce the quality of your service when already the patronage isn't walking in through the door. It's counter-intuitive. But the sale of NSFW content, although I admit low-quality NSFW content on average, is a thing of
taste not
value. If you're not buying the content, then it's not part of the value for you in this equation. GOG's mistake is advertising it too hard and often, whilst simultaneously not offering simple filtering for those whom don't want to see it ever.
Because I do view them as distasteful. Porn, in all of its forms, is filth and people who try to be apologists for something that is objectively awful and evil for everyone involved should be called out for their behavior.
That said, I agree entirely on the value reduction. I can't think of a scenario where cutting something like that would make any sense unless GOG was literally on their last legs, in which case they should just leave things as-is and let people have a little bit more fun with the way things were before things go under.
JakobFel: But no, let's significantly cut basic features that most modern gamers expect... because doing nothing seems to be GOG's specialty as of late, which infuriates me as someone who used to be the biggest fanboy of this service and the company behind it.
Hirako__: In general I am not a fan of the idea either lowering the cloud save quota, I was hoping at least for a few mostly CDPRs games they would change that cause I think they gain a lot from these games and it is reasonable to invest more in them BUT for you to say "doing nothing seems to be GOG's specialty" is leggit trolling for me. From what I see GOG in the past months(year) have been most active in years. The recent Resident Evil release and next 2 coming soon too, the Alpha Protocol before that which they worked on with the devs...
And GOG does not have a competitor, at least not in the sense you suggest it. It is something that have been discussed many times here. What GOG do is a niche. If they try to compete the way you suggest they will lose the battle right away.
Honestly, if they want to reduce cloud storage sizes, they should evaluate the size of a save file for an individual game. For example, modern Bethesda games tend to have very large save files, especially once you get further in the game and/or start using mods. It's hardly fair to drastically reduce ALL games' cloud storage when not all games have equal save file sizes.
You can think it's trolling for me to say that but the truth is that aside from some lip service and
very minor changes they made in 2021/2022, they've effectively done nothing to fix the problems that this site and service have. Credit where credit's due, they definitely have gotten better in acquiring rights to distribute bigger, more desired games. I'm not a hater (I'm legit a former fanboy), I'm simply frustrated with GOG's focus on really stupid things like porn games, maintaining the status quo, and reducing value to cut costs.
And yes, GOG definitely does have a competitor. Sure, in the DRM-free space, they really only have one major competitor (Zoom) and it's far from being on equal grounds. However, in terms of the digital distribution of video games, they have more competition than ever before. To be fair, most of those competitors offer very low-effort services (Epic, for example) but when you have GOG facing off against Steam, which continues to offer more value to the customers while also generally being very consumer-friendly, it really does take away from GOG. At this point, even for an ex-fanboy like me, the
only thing GOG offers that keeps me here is the fact that I get my games DRM-free. It's nice to have backups.
Other than that -- between a lack of features and value, as well as the fact that it's very inconvenient to buy from them if you don't have a credit card -- it makes it so that I really don't care to keep shopping here unless I'm double-dipping and grabbing a game I love so I can have offline installers. It sucks to see, because again, I used to be such a huge fan of GOG and of CD Projekt. They were effectively my "heroes" in the industry because, at least under Marcin Iwinski, they seemed to be focused on the players more than anything. I legitimately went out of my way to buy from GOG and from CDPR because of it. However, since Marcin was effectively pushed out of his leadership role, both companies have drastically dropped for me and I really hate that! I want to see GOG succeed, I really do, but we have to look at things here: most gamers don't care about DRM-free. It's sad, but it's the truth. That doesn't mean GOG should stop focusing on DRM-free, not by a long shot, but they also need to be able to offer competitive value comparative to Steam, at the very least, no matter what the forum codgers claim.