Oh yeah, I'm definitely throwing an accusatory glance at Activision too.

SEGA would be my preferred pick, as I would like to own a digital copy of Sonic 3 & Knuckles. My old copy came as a happy meal toy from Jack in the Box, sometime in the 90's...so it doesn't like modern systems, and probably won't work due to sheer age. Still, it was THE best thing to have gotten from a happy meal. :)

I wouldn't mind seeing Bestheda to hop aboard the GOG yacht. A new release of Brutal DOOM is coming up, so I am revving my chainsaw for another foray into Hell. Being able to buy "No Rest for the Living" from GOG would be nice for adding to the experience.

Square-Enix is already here.

Give them time, they only brought their first games in February. Besides, their most-wanted games (Cities in Motion, Crusader Kings II, Europa Universalis III+IV, Hearts of Iron 3, Magicka) are filled to the brim with DLCs, and they might be cooperating with GOG to find a way that won't have everyone screaming bloody murder at the sheer number of them. Except for their newer stuff (like Cities: Skylines, Crusader Kings II and Europa Universalis IV), where they prefer having them Steam-only, while they are still releasing DLCs/patches for them.

Lol, sometimes i forget that Eidos stuff belongs to SquareEnix. As for the Paradox, yeah, makes sense, gog really needs to upgrade their servers, galaxy is a step on that direction but still...

Some have a hankering for clunky mechanics. As for myself, I love that Star Wars mod... What's it called again? Ah, yes: Galactic Battlegrounds. ;)

Sad thing is I play them both. And I think 'mod' is too strong a word, it's really just a skin. :P

But what a great re-skin it is! I never really cared all that much about the original AoE games, but I love GC to bits. One more reason to give props to GOG, as I would probably never have gotten to play it if it hadn't been released here. :)

2K

I remember reading that Nintendo was going to start releasing their games on PC. What if they make a deal with GOG?

Counting Valve, EA, Ubisoft, Rockstar, 2K, Square Enix, Namco Bandai, Activision and Blizzard out... Because they will NEVER come here... Who else might hop in? I am certain if Blizzard North or Westwood were still around, they would come here at once. Now, i don't know.

Hell, even publishers that actually ARE here, have not released their full catalog yet, or at least the same games they distribute through other vendors...

Future sure seems ugly...

Don't want to make any real "predictions", however here are my wishes:

Microsoft and Zenimax. (Hey, Disney seemed impossible too)

I think I know what you're meaning above however, and I may be being perhaps a bit pedantic in saying so - EA, Ubisoft, Square Enix and Activision already are on GOG.com for quite a long time now. Yes, technically the games they sell here are much older games past their prime and not their more modern AAA moneymaking blockbusters, but they are here which indicates that they do hold at least some amount of value to GOG's business methodology with some of their games. Even if we ignore this completely though, to make the assumption that something can "NEVER" happen based purely on opinion with no real concrete provable reason that precludes it from happening is burning the witch to a degree.

I'm not saying I find it any more likely to see immediate changes happen tomorrow from any of the listed companies and in fact I think we all feel it unlikely to see such changes occur overnight or even in the short term, but I think to jump the gun from that to "it can not and never ever will happen ever for any reason because it is just purely totally and completely impossible - end of story" is a very far jump that is quite extremist IMHO.

Anything can happen. It's all about making money in the end, and these companies most certainly would consider partnering up with GOG.com more frequently and with newer game titles if they themselves in their own calculations and priorities determine that it would be in their own financial best interests to bring their titles here to GOG. If it is possible to make money with any given game - then it is infinitely possible that in the future that game might come to GOG.com regardless of what a company's current presence is here or their stance (stated explicitly or otherwise) might be.

There are many games on GOG.com right now which 2 years ago or more many people here would have and in fact did say "that will never ever come to GOG in a billion years", which... are right here right now, including the multitude of Star Wars and other Lucasarts titles, Metro 2033, Saint's Row games and countless others. The list is small compared to Steam but it is a list nonetheless and a growing one at that. Watching the additions to GOG's game catalogue closely over time it seems that not only is the list of bigger named games from bigger companies growing, but that growth seems to be slowly accelerating also as GOG's success at selling games is being seen more and more as a viable model by more companies and with more of their games.

We probably agree more about this than not ultimately, but I think when we make highly extremist statements of the "possible/impossible" nature for things that are ultimately not impossible that we are overstating our case significantly and accepting it as a form of self-defeat unrealistically, essentially throwing the baby out with the bath water in the process.

So I think it's completely possible that any of the listed companies could come here if they're not here already and that any of their games could come here if all of the conditions to make such a deal is right and they find it a mutually beneficial thing to do for any effort they'd have to put in to make it happen, assuming no 3rd party legal barriers prevent it from happening.

There is no impossible, just varying degrees of possibility greater than zero.

Kudos to you and good analysis. However, while "it's all about making money at the end", those (or ANY) other companies trying to do so, have rules and regulations. You wanted proof? Ok, challenge accepted. Most of the aforementioned, have their OWN client for distributing and playing. As you yourself perfectly stated also, no AAA of theirs here, obviously. All of the above, even those without client, share a common, deep hatred against DRM-Free gaming, to the point of even mocking and ridiculing the DRM-Free model, like Bethesda who lately wrote that hilarious thing: "we like and support DRM-Free".

Fact is, their more modern titles will never adorn our gog shelf, even if we would like to buy them. Because they have those policies, rules and regulations if you will. Making money but THEIR way, not OUR way, the "common sense" way, the "obvious profit" way (which is selling things to those who are readily willing to buy, even if they deviate from their strict model), etc. It's not about pessimism; its all about realism and knowing PERFECTLY well whom you are dealing with, their "history" on the field, etc.

Estimations are not precise, i 'll give you that, but i bet my own balls that modern titles of theirs, AAA titles of theirs, or living legends like Diablo from Blizzard and C&C from EA, are never going to come here, even after 1, 2 decades, or even more.

Actually there's nothing to prove and no challenge has been issued.

Yes, and Microsoft touted Linux as a toy for years, then cast the entire open source software movement as a communistic movement. Now some 15-20 years later Microsoft still isn't happy about the continued existence and growth of Linux and open source software, but Microsoft themselves have released a handful of their own software as open source, and have contributed code to various open source projects also including making a major contribution to what is now known as the IETF standardized OPUS audio codec - which is the best all around lossy audio codecs ever made, and they've also contributed a major chunk of code to the Linux kernel as well as working in partnership with Red Hat and other companies towards common goals. Granted their contributions to the Linux kernel are not entirely altruistic but are intended to help themselves with helping anyone else as a side effect, but they've made contributions nonetheless. In short, they did something that 99.9999% of the open source community would have said was absolutely impossible and "will never happen". But saying that would have been overstating the case of what is in fact possible, and it turns out it was.

I will agree with you that the likelihood of their modern titles coming here in the immediate future is probably on the low side of things but it is definitely not a likelihood of zero. The word never means zero possiblity and that is simply not true. Sure, every company tries to make money their own way, that's true of every company that have ever come into existence. They're doing things their way because they're the ones making decisions about how they'll make money so it can't be anyone else's way. But don't make the leap from that to concluding that some other way is 100% not possible. It is entirely possible at any instant in time for any one of those companies to change their mind about how or where they will sell any of their games. Many of those company's games are currently now sold on Steam in addition to Origin or Uplay. There is no reason why they couldn't also sell them here if they decided they wanted to do so and that there was a possiblity to grow the revenue on a title tapping into another market of gamers. The only reason they haven't done so yet is because they just have not yet decided to do so. There is nothing stopping them from doing it other than them making a decision to not do it. But that they haven't made the decision to do it yet in no way is a permanent thing that can not be changed. They - and only they have all of the power to change what they do at any moment.

It doesn't matter if any of them have made comments anti-DRM-free in the past either. Microsoft made anti-Linux and anti-OSS statements for over a decade and probably still does at every opportunity, while they also contribute to it anyway because they've concluded that it is profitable for them to do so when they think it is best for them. That's the thing - if those companies think selling a game here might be best for them suddenly at some point in the future, then they will explore that as an option.

Why? Because nothing is 100% written in stone and unchangeable. As an example, look at Warner Bros and the Lego titles and Mortal Kombat titles they released here not that long ago. Some are older (but highly popular) games, but the Lego games are much newer even though not current generation. Nonetheless they obviously looked at the options out there and decided that selling some games on GOG.com might be a worthwhile attempt to make more profit from those titles tapping into a new market. It's equally possible that if the sales of those games are high enough they may conclude it was a good partnership and consider doing it for some more games in the future. Disney appears to have come to that conclusion with their Star Wars and other Lucasarts games and made several game drops over time, probably with more to come in the future. Hopefully Warner will drop more games here too, as well as some of the other big names that have showed up in recent years.


Don't get me wrong, as I said already I think we agree with similar sentiment about likelihood more than we don't. I simply don't accept "never" or "impossible" as valid. I might accept 0.001% chance as valid, but I firmly believe that never and impossible are simply invalid because absolutely anything is possible.

Do I think it's possible for Blizzard games to come to GOG? Yes. Am I crazy? No. Do I think it is likely that any Blizzard games will be sold on GOG.com in the next year? No, that would be extremely unlikely. Next 5 years? Still extremely unlikely. 10 years? On that scale I don't think speculation is useful because an absolute humongous number of things can change in 10 years time. 10 years from now Blizzard could be owned by CD Projekt RED. Do I think that will be true? No, but it's possible. :) Hell, if I look back over the last 20 years at some of the things that have happened in the gaming industry I can find shit tonnes of things I'd have thought were extremely unlikely that came and turned into reality. Things that many would have said were impossible.

If I had to hazard a guess though, if we were discussing this in person over some beers I wager that we'd be in 99.9% agreement, and that I'm perhaps being a little pedantic about differentiating between "impossible" and extremely small probability of something happening, but I personally think that the distinction is important because thinking in absolute impossibilities is self defeating compared to thinking in terms of possibilities that exist which may or may not come to be. One of the ways of thinking has the chance for something to change, something to happen. The other is like I said - self-defeatist.

If I might end with a bit of light hearted humour, here is something we can all draw some inspiration from... :)

http://www.zombo.com

Enjoy! :oP