I've spent some time trying to think of how GOG can grow as a business, since Steam seems basically fine for most PC gamers, both for features and convenience of "all my games in one place". Despite some screw-ups I think GOG still retains, or at least can recapture, the DRM-free banner, and in the era of everything going the way of streaming that's a good contrast (if not terribly profitable unfortunately).

So, while admittedly GOG should not be stretching their resources too thin, I wonder if GOG should try to get DRM-free movies onto their service again. I'm not sure we ever actually learned why GOG stopped pursuing movies, but I think it was suggested (by at least one person) GOG may have stopped because nobody wanted regionally-restricted titles here. Now, this may be easy for me to say as an American (who I guess has many countries vying for my dollals so few regional restrictions in the USA ...?), but I'd rather see GOG try to get ahead in the DRM-free niche and potentially build some "clout" that area for other mediums of entertainment, even if that means they can't throw their weight around in other areas (like preventing regional restrictions).

I look at Tubi's free ad-supported service, they have a lot of garbage but also decent horror movies both mainstream and less-so like Jeepers Creepers, the Hatchet movies, the VHS movies, Grave Encounters, Cube, The Thing 2011 (not everyone will think it's "decent" but at least mainstream), The Descents, It Follows, Creepshow 2, Rob Zombie movies, Hills Have Eyes, Species, As Above So Below, Phantasms, etc. Maybe the service acts as a loss leader for Fox Corporation (so the ad revenue isn't enough by itself but the service is worthwhile some other way, how I'm not sure since afaik all Tubi content is free), or I'm otherwise just being really naive about this (I mean, Fox bought Tubi for $440 million in 2020), but I wonder if CDP/GOG can say to some movie distributors, "You make about this much per viewing from ads on streaming service(s). Why not let us put your film on our site for the DRM-free crowd for a similar amount?" (Granted that'd be a flat fee, whereas multiple viewings of ads can continuously bring in more revenue.)

Personally, if the price is okay, I'd be interested in buying the Postal movie here (it's already on Steam), and (I know this is controversial) even some of Uwe Boll's other movies here.

Also if this were to happen, I do think GOG should show more commitment to being a movie distribution service this time than they did when the originally started bringing movies, such as hosting high-quality versions of public domain classics available for download. And drop "Movies for gamers", make this more mainstream.

Like I said earlier, I don't want GOG to spread themselves too thin, so if the best thing to do remains focusing on games only, fair enough. But part of my reasoning is films are generally a one-and-done deal, no need to make sure they get "patches", unless George Lucas gets his neck flab around them.

Anyway there's probably a lot I'm not considering here (GOG is small fries, these other services are 100x bigger; and maybe the reason GOG didn't bring more movies wasn't because of regional restrictions, maybe something(s) else) and more I could write, but I at least wanted to throw this idea out there because it's been in my head for a while.

With the existence of even more streaming services now than back when gog tried movies, the result would be the same as last time. Throwing money away faster is the last thing gog needs right now. Hard no to gog trying movies again.

No, and to put it factually, they had already drilled though the barrel and went digging though effluent when they did try. Movies for gamers? It's a bit of an oxymoron. Many of the movies they chose have aged laughably. Of everyone from Indie Game the Movie, I think only Team Meat is the only one still around who isn't a laughingstock or pariah?

Here's a thread from people outside the looking glass.

There's a few conclusions to draw:
1) GOG is at it best when dealing with old games.
2) Galaxy opinion ranges from okay, to lackluster, to perhaps a mistake.
3) A lot of people are still sore over the stupid shit that their media people said years ago. (Was a formal apology ever issued?)

I agree. Right now, GOG needs to refocus back onto being a 100% DRM-free game store and regaining the trust it has lost with its customer base.

Copyrights of movies and series tend to be hell, so I can imagine that's one of the reasons they don't go after it.
But still, if they went after the right titles, they could get good returns.
Imagine if they'd bring both The Witcher series here, DRM free. GOG already promotes the games of the franchise by sending only GOG keys to the official sellers.
Same from the series of The Witcher for Arcane since Riot seems to be investing a lot in its spin offs and people seem to talk well about the series.
Or even if they went for indie productions, they could get lucky. Murder Drones pilot, for example, in 1 month, got 5 million views on Youtube. I imagine that if even just 1% of all those viewers decided to support the series by buying an actually DRM free version, the revenue could be pretty good.

And DRM in movies and series is a nightmare right now, with most video distributors being heavy at DRM. So GOG could try to advertise themselves as a safe heaven for DRM in videos (and hopefully they'd stick to their principles this time around).

Nope. Hollywood is way too resistant to that.

So just like last time, the only thing GOG would actually be able to get would be a few scraps comprising trash films that no one wants to watch, much less buy.

Doing this would be another example of GOG chasing an unviable idea, and "throwing good money after bad," as the saying goes, just like they did with their massive "Galaxy 2.0" investment.

And GOG probably can't sustain another major bad investment of that magnitude.

Turns out putting your head in the sand and hoping people will forget about all your blunders isn't good for business.

No, Go back to basics, dump galaxy, or give it to a more experienced team, dump the all your games in one place bullshit.

focus on games, focus on drm free, get rid of curation or make it have less influence.

this is the path forward, stop fucking around with bullshit, otherwise gog will be dead by the end of 2022 or 2023.

many gamers will help them out for sure
why else did they sell their soul if not for this? imho this is not possible , looks like they have a leadership problem and that usually doesnt change,
every feature is stagnating and many are outdated and they cant even compete with price vs steam

Only game related ones or inspired-by-a-game type movies. Like if a fan made an hour long cg film on Tiberium Sun lore then gog should be like "Hey we will sell your movie on our platform and give you some profits." If they do it right they can have their own award and be included in Indy Film Festival's. Something like The Good Old Games Award for best game inspired film.

Yeah so I guess that means GOG is fucked. back to Steam I guess.

Movies are a dead commodity now anyways. It’s all streaming services with long series now. And every channel, company, etc. Has their own streaming service, no one wants a central one. Just look at back in the 80s/90s where everything was split out, piracy was rampant until sky unified it into one package.

i want a central one , who wants to pay for all these streamings when only watch a few movies/series from each

As a customer yes, however companies dont want that. As I said, it was the same in the 90s, which led to a huge rise in piracy, then along came sky which centralised it and it was better. Now greed has set in and everyone wants to go off on their own again. Same thing cycling over and over.