Calling it now. This donation thing is gonna fail and will be an excuse for monthly subs.

This is speculation. Y'all retro gamers need to contend with the fact that paying $10 USD for an old game that's now remastered and repackaged by GOG to be compatible with modern systems are being heavily subsidized. I don't know the economics, but I'm gonna wager it should be $20-30 USD to reflect the actual price it took to do the work and be feasible. But you do that and then all these old people who should have the most disposable income are whining about how it should be much cheaper just because it's old.

The economics simply doesn't work out if they have to rely on a donation program to enable this.

[...]

This is a monthly sub fee for services we're already used to and, more importantly, the uneconomic preservation of old retro games should have been built into the price from the get-go. Make the boomers / Xers / retro gamers who actually play these old games pay the actual price that reflects the labour and costs it took to produce the game for the modern age rather than let it be subsidized through other cashflows that unfairly 2-tiers users just because they're not in that niche.

Does anyone here actually think the effort they spent talking to Capcom and remastering Dino Crisis 1 and 2 is actually worth $15 USD/copy? With the lawyers, re-porters, bizdev, marketing, etc. that were involved over months? Without any numbers, I speculate it should be at least $30 USD/copy, but at that price, the mass market aren't buying it because:

1. People expect older games to be cheap since depreciation
2. People are analyzing opportunity costs to get a more recent and funner AAA, AA, or indie spiritual successors with modern QOLs instead

Meanwhile, newer AAA / AA / indie games made these days literally queue up to be curated for the privilege to sell at this store and are almost guaranteed to work on modern systems without much extra work on GOG's part. Yet many of their successful sequels are not being distributed on GOG here simply because GOG doesn't care to better cater towards them like lowering barriers or auto-payments. Even though the markets are more than willing to buy them at a higher price and better help drive GOG's bottom line.

If they even make a subbing service for some frivolous services and this preservation program that should've been able to stand on its own two feet without it, I'm out because it really is the last straw of how incompetent GOG upper management really is and I don't want to support it anymore. There's a better DRM-free store that'll better cater to me I'd rather support.