I was looking in this Reddit thread about Metro Exodus not coming to GOG, and it looks like one of the developers of CrossCode posted in it. (he was responding to this, just fyi) edit: Oh I guess the Deck13 guy originally started that Reddit thread anyway.

"Some people just buy stuff which is DRM free where in most cases only GOG is a source for. Although it is possible to upload DRM free builds to Steam as well (we did so with CrossCode, so whoever wants to prove this statement wrong, you are wrong). Others use GOG as their main source for gaming content and they don't want to use a different store.

Regarding Epic: That's a loaded question. Quite a bunch of people dislike store exclusive games on PC and they want to have them on their preferred store (in this case most likely Steam). They can give you tons of arguments why this is not only legit but must be followed by each publisher and developer (Epic is partly owned by Tencent, Epic buys exclusives, Epics store does not have the same features etc. etc.).

My personal opinion here is different as I think that the Epic Game Store does a good thing for the overall market, also for Steam. At least from the developer / publisher perspective. Before EGS Steam was the only important store (sorry GOG users, but sadly this is the truth. I wish it was different but GOG is like 5 maximum 10% of Steam usually). And while people will claim this is still the case, numbers prove them wrong. Anno had its strongest launch ever on PC. So had Borderlands and quite a few others + the money from Epic. And this also forces Steam to actively imrpove their eco system for developers. In the long run, everyone profits from that. ..."

What do you guys think? I know some of this isn't exactly new info but it might hold more weight coming from a game company employee.

The guy brings up some important points, I think:

1. GOG doesn't sell as well as steam/epic and isn't/likely never will be a serious threat/competition to them, but that has it's up and downsides.

2. EPIC being a thing brings more competition to the market which is always good, and if it forces steam to do things for the better for those of us who want to see such than it is even better.

That depends entirely on whether or not the GOG devs are ever going to fix the glaring problem of GOG not being a viable multiplayer platform.

If they do fix that, and make multiplayer on GOG just as viable as Steam or Uplay or EGS type of platforms, then GOG could indeed become a serious competition to them.

On the other hand, if GOG devs continue to do nothing to fix it being unviable as a multiplayer platform, then GOG will continue forever being a small niche store.

Maybe they'd see at most a max doubling of their user base, but imo that would be about it.....I don't see GOG being a major player in MOST scenarios(though there could be rare ones where GOG did become a contender).Gog has a good number more issues keeping it out of the spotlight/from being a contender(imo) besides just that.....but I get where you're coming from.

1. If it requires a client it's not DRM-free.

2. 5-10% of the biggest player sounds good to me. What if manufacturers of physical goods, which actually do require more care and effort to ship to each place, would have that same attitude, comparing sales to their one best retailer worldwide and only offering the product to those that compare well to it, let's not even talk of small corner stores, but even how many major chains in how many parts of the world wouldn't receive a product?

Isn't it a bit hypocritical for devs or publishers to state that Steam was the only important store before EGS and they wish it had been different, but they never trusted GOG with their newest releases and put them on Steam only? It's not just the customers who helped Steam to gain that unique market position.

And while it is true that games on Steam can be DRM-free (after installation and only if the installations are portable as well), I've never seen it advertized on any game page. Steam has info on additional DRM on top of Steamworks, but does not allow to label a game as DRM-free, so how should customers know which games are safe to get? Not to mention that they still need to install the client on their rig, even if what they like about DRM-free is that they don't need third party software to download and install their games. (Of course that's not a valid argument for those who are fine with using Galaxy.)

(And one of the reasons why Epic managed to rival Steam is the very same reason that they get all the hate for - because their aggressive exclusivity tactics work, whether you like them or not.)

I doubt it will convince the hardcore "No Steam, no Buy" crowd as to how 'wonderful' Epic's exclusives are. Having said that, it doesn't exactly convince me either that it's "too much effort" to bring it to GOG when the previous two games are already here, and generally reads like another "we're not lazy, but..." excuse when one-man studio's like ConcernedApe, Spiderweb Software, etc, have a mix of games that both sell even more (Stardew Valley = +10m) and games that sell fewer (eg, Pinstripe, Geneforge) vs AAA's whilst none of them have any logistical problem being on GOG as well as Steam (and Humble, and even offering DRM-Free direct sales through their own website on top...) ^ Technically he's correct that Steam games can be made to run without the Steam client (or secondary CEG). In reality, barely 6% of Steam's catalogue are like that, none of them are advertised on the store pages as being DRM-Free, so people have to research half-complete community efforts which itself involves a lot of testing and re-testing on every update (because some games have had DRM quietly added to 'DRM-Free' post-launch, others are DRM-Free but only for Linux not Windows, some are half-broken (eg, the game will run but you can't save, etc). At best it's a hack for a few of us geeky enough to sink time into doing that, but as an "alternative" for not releasing on GOG, it sounds like the same "we're not lazy, but..." excuse making (even without the obvious contradiction of 'DRM-Free friendly' devs adding Denuvo 5.6 to it...)