Fact is... the top 1% of people in Brazil are getting richer by a way higher speed than the income increase of any other Brazil people. They earn around 18 000 USD (100k BRL) a month, in average. 5 USD is nothing for them....
Yet, the other 99% only got about 750 USD a month, in average. Of course, for those below the average it could go down to 500 USD pretty quick... it can always go down, almost as much as it could always go up.

We got extreme capitalism, everywhere... including Brazil.

I see no changes any time soon, means, it will only become even more extreme = even higher gape, the next years.

Sure, the top 1% of almost any country could in theory pass 5% of their income to a company like GOG and GOG would "earn" billions after... they are just so crazy rich, kinda insane.

Sure, they are "passing" it already... but not to CDPR (GOG got no shares themself), to Nvidia instead or Amazon... the "effect" is well known.

Besides not sure if Amazon is still being "fluid" toward GOG with the Luna-program... probably reason the newest titles are still not approved by Luna.

Oh an Netflix... just do not pay it, issue solved. I dunno why milliions of people are squeezing their bloody nostrils "out in the sun" in order to support such companies. As well other companies such as MS gamepass, Steam and whatelse... as long as they squeeze their almost empty purses into them... no wonder they are ruling the market. Guess this is the sheep-behavior always looking for the biggest and most popular thing.

I don't like, and I'm not touching it with a ten-foot laser pole. I don't like where it's going, I don't like what it says about GOG's situation, I don't like the jacket it's wearing, the stupid hat and how it eats bananas sideways.

What I'm trying to say is that I like nothing about it. It's not yet crossing a line I can't abide with, but I don't like it.

Personally i am not supporting any of those "programs" or "options". However, roughly half of my game-money = they are at the first place, was going to GOG in the past years... so my support was strong already. Second place is Sony... while Steam is only the third place with EGS at the 4. place. No other game-provider anymore. Nintendo got nothing at all... so they will have to pay their lawyers without my money... yet they seem to have enough of "other sources".

For me true game preservation means making it run on a popular free (as in speech) OS (ie, Linux).

I'm ok with a two-tier preservation program, where a lot of games are made to work with the latest versions of Windows and Linux support plays catchup, but in the longer term, being dependant on Microsoft's whim (it might be the popular choice for users today, it is still the wrong choice for long term preservation which is the stated goal here... users are legally barred from adapting Microsoft's OS even if they can reverse-engineer the source code, the only thing you can legally do is treat it as a black box and emulate it) for my games to work is not a strong foundation.

I'll be happy to finance GOG's work in the preservation department if the above is a clear stated goal that is part of the preservation effort.

Otherwise, at least consider patrons clearly marking that they want to allocate funds for this work as part of their contribution and then you can gauge how much money you amass for this.

To those who are concerned about GOG's finances: If CD Projekt's stock price is any indication, they are doing rather well this year. Their stock price is up over 50% since this time last year which means that this Patron thing doesn't appear to be "the last gasp of a dying company" or something like that.

I believe that the conversation with the publishers would go something like: "If you give GOG an extra X% cut on sales, you can enroll your game in the Preservation Program, and we will handle compatibility patching, testing, etc. so you don't have to hire your own people to maintain this old game in-house." I could see many companies - especially the types who like to buy IP as an investment and sit on it - leaping at that offer because they can create a new revenue stream from the game without having to keep developers on their own payroll.

I think it would look far more honest if the list of games immediately above the "Preserved By GOG" badge were actually in the Preservation Program or at least have been sold by GOG at some point rather than be a jumbled mess of games you've 'preserved' mixed with random titles plucked from the Community Wishlist which have never been sold "digitally" anywhere ever so slightly greyed out. In reality, GOG may still not have the rights for Age of Empires 2, Black & White, Dune, Freelancer, No One Lives Forever, etc, even in another 5, 10, 20 years time, anymore than they did 10-15 years ago no matter how many sign up.

Examples - The family that own the Dune IP are virtually on a crusade to erase the early games from history and no amount of money is going to change that. For others like Age of Empires, Age of Mythology, Diablo 2, etc, the older DRM-Free versions of these games won't be coming to any DRM-Free store because they've been "replaced" by more profitable remasters, but those new versions won't be coming here either due to newly added DRM or DLC increasingly functioning more like online-service models. Sticking NOLF next to Day Of The Tentacle, or Freelancer next to Doom as if to say they have every equal chance of being "preserved" here given enough funding, when we all know they're not remotely in the same 'rights' boat is more than a little weird.

Also:

Why introduce a membership now? Is GOG in financial trouble?

No. Our mission of making games live forever has never been as visible as it is today. We're doing well, and this year has been especially encouraging.

The GOG Preservation Program keeps growing, the GOG Dreamlist has become a rallying point for unreleased classics, GOG One-click Mods are expanding. We've brought back some truly iconic titles, and more are on the way. More people are joining GOG than ever. In every way, GOG is thriving. The momentum is real.

GOG Patrons isn't a lifeline. It's a way to go further, faster. Preservation takes time, resources, and people. And while we've always found a way, we know we can do even more: with your support.

"Your nickname will appear on the game pages of titles you help preserve."

Can this be disabled for those who don't sign up? Or if 500x people sign up, are we going to have to scroll through a wall of spam like page of 500x names of social media badges / fake credits for every game in the Preservation Program?

"As a Patron, for £4pm you'll get access to our dedicated community Discord server"

You couldn't pay me £4pm to use Discord, especially after the recent "UK users may need to upload photo ID age verification, oh and btw, we just had a big data breach that leaked all that same personal information out...

You know what, you gave me a thought. Say everyone has budgeted and has allocated a certain amount for purchasing games (from GOG). The people who would be kind enough to become a patron of GOG, where would they get the funds from? Would they take it from the pool of money that they use to purchase games from on GOG, or reduce their spending elsewhere?

I wonder where the numbers would line up, especially if most people would do the former: does a potential world exist where, because a significant amount of people are parting with money whilst purchasing fewer products, GOG ends up shooting themselves in the foot? That is to say, because obtaining licenses and entering legal limbos can be costly with no guarantee of success, perhaps nothing much comes of these 'donations' (investments that GOG spends in any way they see fit, for 'daily operating costs'), GOG actually sees fewer sales as a result, with some potential long-term ramification? I doubt enough people would donate for it to be significant, but it would be funny.

Everything that I mentions is treating customers as second class citizens just because they're non-patrons. GOG is not a free gaming service. It is a store and like with any store, you expect that the thing you purchase to work.


Patches

Two days ago, I downloaded an update for Cat Quest from my GOG account page. This is a game that I paid for and isn't even part of GOG's preservation program, so all patches for it would be coming from The Gentlebros (developer.) GOG should not limit who has access to a patch that comes from a game's developer or publisher such that only Patrons can have access to them. There are many other games that simiarly get their patches from the game's developers only because they are not part of GOG's preservation program.

Also withholding a patch on an old game that actually is part of their preservation program can make the difference between the game working properly on a non-Patron's computer and requesting a refund because the game doesn't work. If you consider Dragon Age Origins, for example the preservation program version broke the game for a lot of people by making the game's performance really bad. If they every fix this, they should not limit the patch to patron members only.

What's the next step? Non-Patrons cannot request refunds because the patches are there that would fix a defect in a game. You just need to be a Patron to access them.


Exclusive DLCs

I was referring to something like what if the Siege of Dragonspear DLC for Baldur's Gate was free for Patrons and not even available for sale for non-Patrons. Also Baldur's Gate isn't even part of the Preservation Program, so it would be just withholding access to a DLC to try to force people to subscribe for access.

Better yet. What if every single one of the free Unrated DLC for the porn games required subscribbing and be a preservation program Patron even though none of the games that have these DLCs are part of the preservation program. You have to pay a subscription if you want access to all the porn.


Support

Again we're talking about something that treats some customers are second class. Priority on support tickets for Patrons can easily turn into you need to be a Patron if you need to contact GOG support for any reason.

Indeed. They haven't had anyone with a really consistent grasp of marketing psychology since TET left.

'My "not at risk of bankruptcy" shirt has people asking a lot of questions already answered by my shirt.'

(I don't think they are at risk of bankruptcy, just that they're chasing weakly defined, overcomplicated strategies again.)

If I paid $5 a month and got the same level of disengagement that we get on the forums right now then I would be very unhappy - so are you saying that you are going to stop ignoring long standing issues on the forums?

I would discontinue, but my parents are still using it. I think. I should check.
Another thing is that said thing tends to blow up in their face spectacularly. Anyone remember when some staff member uploaded their agile list in place of a proper screenshot?

I actually don't mind Patrons funding theoretically preventing price increases on games, unlike UnashamedWeeb.

To be fair, that was over 12 years ago and they're still alive, so something is still going along okay (I don't believe they've needed CDPR's money to bail them out either).

"17.3 It seems very unlikely, but if we have to stop providing access to GOG services and GOG content permanently (not because of any breach by you), we will try to give you at least sixty (60) days advance notice by posting a note on www.GOG.COM and sending an email to every registered user – during that time you should be able to download any GOG content you purchased."

https://support.gog.com/hc/en-us/articles/212632089-GOG-User-Agreement?product=gog