The "Hundreds" of games (to be fair I have no idea the number) that are see same %age sales via GoG are those that release via GoG either much later or with no prior warning.

Supraland dev got hardly any sales via GoG, because it was months before we saw a GoG release and even then we had awful version parity.

Devs that say "Hey this is coming to GoG" months before release and actively promote GoG as an option are the ones that see the 8ish % sales. I can't say its an absolute across every game that sell like that, but I can say for every dev that replied, the sales via GoG were significant.

As for GoG's claim of 15% market share, all depends on what exactly they're measuring.

It would be counter productive for GoG to measure certain aspects of Gaming, primarily in game currency and micro-transactions. It may seem petty or "padding the figures", but GoG does not operate in that part of the market. Porche wouldn't include budget/mid range cars when presenting their market share to their shareholders.

Remove Games as a service, micro-transactions and the like, and the figure change drastically. I'm sure I read recently that such things now account for 1/2 of the industries wealth.

So yeah, prior to the rise of Epic store, 15% of the "buy to own" PC gaming market, I can see that being close enough.

Please tell me how negative reinforcement is working now. Here's a clue: it doesn't. If you introduce negative penalties for all these hard deadlines all the time, no one will want to bring their games here for an extra 0-15% income. They might as well forget the stress and stick to Steam and release content on their own schedule without being worried that their games will be dropped from shelves or being penalized.

I simply stated the problem you have if you want to get more people coming to GOG to make them more "powerful". Sorry, if you dislike the facts - I dislike them myself - but unfortunately it is a well known fact that GOG has troubles keeping their games up to date or on parity with Steam (just take a look at the huge list of games that treat GOG customers as second class). So without changing this behavior maybe GOG might even lose more customers instead of winning them, because how should you advertize a shop who isn't even capable or willing to offer thheir customer the safety of ongoing support for their puchases? They have contracts, and I am sure in those contracts is already stated that the publishers have an obligation to update their games. All GOG has to do is to remind them of those contracts. To make it clear, I am not talking about a delay, I am talking about cases in which publishers simply "decided" to abandon their game(s) - but only on GOG.

Btw: If devs or publishers don't care enough about GOG customers I would rather WANT them to not sell their game(s) on GOG at all. I prefer to support publishers and devs that are worth my money. I might be the minority but that is my honest opinion.

I'm not sure that's correct. I believe a fair portion of GOG's income derives directly from microtransactions in Gwent.

From CDP's financial report:
"GOG sp. z o.o. is responsible for processing sales in the PC edition of GWENT, for upkeep of the game’s technical infrastructure and for networking features in the PC, iOS and Android editions".

You know what , I complete forgot about gwent

My take on the high costs of GOG:
1. GOG isnt just working for the benefit of GOG but also for the benefit of CDPR. One of the official (esp future) goals of GOG is to support CDPR games. This costs money - probably mostly in the form of Galaxy development in that direction.
2. They are spending money trying to get bigger and dont have much success.
3. Lack of competence. For example there was (or still is?) for many years the issue of games "randomly" disappearing from libraries of people who bought them. To me its incomprehensible that they dont fix this kind of thing promptly. (Note that I am not talking about credit card fraud cases and such. There have been various forum threads here on this topic in the past.)

And the following dont help either:
4. Lack of value. If GOG sells inferior versions of games for a higher price than the competition there needs to some kind of reason to buy here. With the erosion of DRM free - what is left? GOG doesnt seem to have a vision on this point.
5. Mistreatment of loyal customers. Breaking formerly made promises etc. See for example the boycotting thread for a list. Loyal customers are the ones that spread the word and often also buy more than the average customer. While this (mistreatment of loyal customers) may work if a company is sufficiently big and popular for GOG this simply isnt the case.

I dont think potential competitors need to copy those mistakes. So I dont think GOGs lousy (currently not existing) profit is the achievable ceiling.

I tried to get my friends on board, but I've since accepted that I'm part of a minority group (could be that I just got a bad sample with my friends, but I'm worried).

People aren't even selfish about this, they are plain apathetic.

First of all, many in the gaming population don't care about long term access to their games. They tend to have a smaller, very targeted, collection and view games probably the same way they view most intellectual property: As transient low value disposable goods.

For those that care, I think a lot operate under the naive illusion that some stores are too big to fail and will preserve access to their games indefinitely for practical purposes. These people might change their views later on, when the unthinkable happens, but it might take a while.

Even GOG probably saw the writing on the wall and diversified.

My personal advice would be: Get your drm-free games while the going is good, back them up and be prepared later on to educate yourself on how to run legacy games, using things like compatibility layers, virtualization and emulation (doesn't help that the OS most of those games run on is a proprietary moving target, but compatibility layers like WINE and maybe even emulation/virtualisation could bridge the gap later on).

Most of those people quote that long deleted post from long forgotten forum on a server that no longer exists, that a friend of a friend once saw a screen shot of, where Gabe promises to make all Steam games DRM free in the event Valve collapses.

Its a fairy tale Steam users tell themselves.

The post was never legally binding, it never could be, and yet a month won't go by without someone trying to use it.

Magnitus is right.

Make yourself future proof as much as you can. You cannot rely on any commercial endeavor (store etc).

I got so many free games last year, and that was on top of already having a lot of games, that I should never really want for another game, and cannot see myself ever being able to play all those. Of course, I am gonna play the ones I most want to first.

But even beyond all those free ones, I have tons of DRM-Free ones. And I have backed them up a plenty to external drives.

You could also hang onto old PCs, as you are never likely to get much money for them if you sell them. An old PC can be much like an old gaming console. And if you clean it up, get rid of the AV etc and keep it off the web, you might be surprised how well it will run even decades later.

Having to keep everything up-to-date and working all the time, can be a bit of a mug's game. It's a kind of right tool for the right job kind of situation. Just keep up-to-date with what you actually need to do so.

In the seecond sentence you explained a theory why the majority of people simply do not care that much. There simply are too many games that are available too cheap. Life goes on - real life as well and we all aren't getting any younger. So one might either try to hold on to all those games and make sure that they will run for the rest of their lifes or they could simply say if one game does not work - I already have five new ones, I play one of those. I am quite sure that many people don't care if they will be able to replay a certain game years later since most just don't do. After having finished a certain game they might have puchased 25 new ones the next years and that does not mean that they were able to PLAY these 25 new ones so why go back to the old one?. It might be different if you have all the time in the world just for videogames but for most people that is not the case. If I look at myself - I have several HUNDREDS of unplayed and partly never installed games here on GOG? Why? Because my time is limited and because so many new and intersting games are released so fast. Logic tells me that I should completely stop buying a single new game - curiosity and cheap prices won't let me act this way ;) I also have at least hundred old PC games from the time I bough retail games. I don't even know how many of those would still run - but I don't have the time or the will to test them all. I rather play a bit of the next new game. Time is really important in this equation and our daily time is limited as is our lifetime.

I can't really argue with what you wrote.

And that pretty much echoes me I guess.

I can certainly see why younger generations than mine don't care so much about owning things and are happy with Netflix and Spotify etc ... and hell, even Steam.

Maybe I'd be that way too, if I hadn't come from an era of not being able to own much ... and then suddenly I could.

The young now have an almost totally different mindset. Yes they still like to own some things ... some even buy vinyl records. But mostly they have a glut of everything and very little reason to look back, except nostalgia maybe.

And even for me, it's the next new exciting thing that draws me on, and often gets a look in before something old, such that what I have collected is pretty much a pile of unused things most of the time.

I've got books I'd like to reread, movies and TV series to re-watch, games to replay, places to revisit, people to catch up with ... relatives even. But life is too damn short, and there is always something new on the horizon.

Things used to be a lot simpler.

It's funny, I am at an age, where I am starting to wind down and de-clutter, but I am still acquiring new things. I love the thrill of the new. Love discovering things. Sometimes I do revisit older things ... and boy do I love them too.

In a way, I am blissfully happy and feel like a King, because I have so much choice. It wasn't like that for me as a child or even as a young to middle age adult.

In many ways, I've got everything I need ... except enough time or good enough health.

Should a game be removed from GOG also if it is missing e.g. some Steam-specific update that has no meaning for the GOG version?

See? It is not as simple as you suggest.

Anyway, I don't see why such clauses are necessarily even needed. GOG can decide if they keep some game on GOG or not, just like a publisher can decide all by themselves whether they keep a game in the store or not.

The main problem, which so many of you blissfully forget, is: GOG does not necessarily even know which games in their store are "up to date" and which are not. Hence it is just silly to say "why isn't GOG doing anything about this game?", when GOG is not even necessarily aware of any issue.

Or are some of you really expecting GOG staff to constantly go through the whole GOG library, and somehow cross-check to the same games on e.g. Steam and EGS, whether they have version parity? No, they are not doing that any more than Valve or Epic is doing it either for the games on their stores.

How can GOG enforce it if they don't necessarily even know which games have no version parity, and what exactly it missing from the GOG version (ie. if it is some Steam-specific change which has no meaning to the GOG version)?

Either way, there certainly have been many games in the past that have been removed from the GOG store after the publisher has stopped supporting the game on GOG, and it has become public.

I've seen the opposite, like people wishing to re-play this and that game that they played in their childhood etc. After all, isn't that exactly why many people came to GOG in the first place, to be able to play many games they loved in the past? Why would they do that, if there is, as you say, always newer games to play instead?

To me that is like suggesting no one would ever want to watch a movie or listen to a piece of music they liked years or decades ago, as there are always newer movies and music to watch and listen.

I have about 3000 DVDs at home and I love the classics - I also am planning to watch one or two of those classics now and then but the reality looks different - in most cases I simply watch some of my still unwatched movies and series with the exception of maybe 5-10 films.

The problem is spending time and effort when you have so many alternatives and such limited time. The more time you have on your hand the more you might be willing to get all your games to work and yes, you might have some very few you love so much that you would do everything to be able to play them again whenever you want. But a normal working person with an min. 8 hour job won't think that way for most games. You only have a few hours each day - you might even have to spend some time with your family and do other things. It is hard to imagine that such people would spend so much time and effort to get as many old games to work when they have so many alternatives.
In MOST cases the version numbers are NOT different and NOT specific - that's why the community asks for updates by contacting devs/publishers. If they can do GOG could as well.

Not many, just very few.
Such clauses are needed (and already there afaik) because GOG does not only want to keep their publishers but also their customers. You might not care but far too many do.

No problem at all. GOG could simply let GOGers tell them whenever a game is outdated ... there's also a list already which is too long already. They could start there ... but they won't.