I don't think there's anything that could happen that would make GOG a "major" player in the industry. Even if you had a out of the blue Denuvo shut down, causing people to lose all their Denuvo games until the companies patched them, I still don't believe that would do much of anything for GOG.

I mean, you mention Hades, which is from a developer that had all their games on GOG previously, but they just don't care about the platform anymore and the game is already "DRM" free elsewhere. GOG's "big" Summer sale new release was 'Alien: Isolation', a game that is basically eight (8) years old, and was sold on Steam several years ago for a single United States Dollar during "Alien Day".

Maybe if Gabe Newell or Steam itself was involved in some heinous scandel / crimes then you'd see studios start to pull out and no longer support the platform. That could open it up for GOG more, because people do like GOG, but GOG just doesn't have the big games (they even get even less and less indie games now), and it's not Steam where everyone wants all their games on a single platform with their little "Steamspace" social page that they can decorate with free stickers, achievements, cards and all the other crap Steam kiddies seem to eat up.

No. There'd be no reason for GOG to even exist at that point if they did that. GOG would just become another "Steam" without the userbase and market share.

What I'd like to see would be CD Projekt being bought out by Epic, and then Epic and GOG being a sort of combined platform. Games could be DRM'd initially and after a year or so would be fully removed and have downloadable installers be available. If something like that was available I'd certainly jump in with Epic and buy these bigger DRM'd games while knowing that after that initial release I will have a DRM-free installer available to me down the road.

Probably would never happen, but neither Epic or GOG will compete with Steam as it stands currently, and becoming another "Steam" wouldn't be helpful or work in eithers favor.

That wouldn't be a smart idea. Remember, we're dealing with DRM-free software here. "Punishing" other stores users for not buying on your own is probably not a wise thing to do, when again, you're dealing with DRM-free software.

CD Projekt has already tried GOG exclusivity with 'Thronebreaker' and the game flopped, and was released on other platforms. I'd be curious to see them try it again with a major "AAA" title, and I hope they will make 'The Witcher 4' or whatever it's called exclusive to GOG and Epic Games Store, based on the reported partnership between the two.

Not defending steam again but Steam does have exclusive games just from the sheer number they have not on Epic. Steam also has the money to get exclusives but dont. Exclusives are part of the industry to get people to use the platform (hence exclusive games for Nintendo, Xbox, and Playstation) and given that the cost of using multiple platforms is next to nil on PC unlike console, its not a big deal.

I wouldnt say that steam is the beginning of PC gaming given that PC gaming was thriving before steam. There are many amazing games that made PC gaming amazing before Steam came to the market. Again, steam started out as DRM forcing players to install the software if they wanted to play Half Life 2. Steam has maybe made PC gaming more convenient but that comes at a significant cost. I would rather have the ability to buy PC games on disc that I can reinstall, sell, buy second-hand, etc. but thats no longer possible.

Ye, you can buy PC games on disc but come whit just a code to download the game. PC is all digitally now. Lets see what future will bring us, we have rumors that PlayStation will make a store and a launcher on PC too.

Yeah, defeats the purpose if you just get a box with a steam key in it (thats definitely one of the reasons why steam is so dominant. First mover advantage where alot of systems already implement systems for steam so Epic going the key route will face some barriers, nevermind the early negative press).

Didnt know about the Playstation store and launcher. Would make sense and might not be a bad thing given that PS games on PC have been DRM-free and would likely allow users to link their playstation accounts, thereby allowing users to transition to PC while keeping their trophies.