Eh. Steam's losing out at the moment no doubt, but Steam's the store that can easily handle that. GOG on the other hand hasn't exactly been profitable over the years, and while it has been slowly growing, it's still rather small. If the cut (has to) get even smaller, does that not directly impact the chances of GOG doing well?

Honestly, given where GOG is right now, if it wasn't for CDP, I'm not sure GOG would exist anymore. This is where GOG is *despite* the Witcher series giving it a regular boost. Think about where it would be if the Witcher series hadn't been a part of it.

In the long run, sure.
Although recent developments like the partnership with Blizzard surely helped to get new blood on board and to probably even out the smaller cut for the time being. Diablo steadily elbowing its way up the all-time bestseller list speaks for itself.
And who knows which developers or publishers are now more willing (again) to enter or already have entered a similar partnership. GoG could be working on the next highly voted wishlist entry right now.

Witcher helped and continues to help keep GoG afloat, no dobut about that. But so will Cyberpunk 2077, and even more so if CD Projekt RED would make calling out and advertising the close ties to GoG a top priority.
A lot of people are already aware that buying CD Projekt RED's first party titles on GoG directly supports CD Projekt RED but quite a few recent comments on the social medias like "What is a GoG?" made it obvious that there are still a lot more people that are unaware and probably would love to directly support a reputable and consumer-friendly developer like CD Projekt RED if they only knew how.

CD Projekt RED were to waste a doozy of an opportunity if they don't put a lot more emphasis and shine a really big spotlight on GoG as the in-house distribution platform when Cyberpunk 2077's marketing campaign is in full swing.

Nobody says anything, even after ex Valve employee said that "Steam was killing PC gaming... Epic is fixing this for all gamers."?

The market changes, from 30% to 12%, what should be the reaction of GOG to remain profitable? I agree partially with @Pheace, what gives life to GOG is CDPR with their IP, Witcher&Gwent. In this context CP2077 day1 on Steam would be a good or bad decision for GOG and CDP? Apparently Ubisoft is happy with Epic, PC preorders for Division 2 from its own store are six times higher compared to the previous game. Would this be possible if the game would also be available on Steam?

Yeah I am in the thought of that CD PR should release Cyberpunk 2077 (temporary) GoG exklusive so that people mayby come to the experience of how it is to have a game without the need for a launcher and having those inital game sales better. Because the argument of "I do not want to install another launcher." is invalid with Galaxy being optional.

Edit: oh well the PC Pre-Orders for TD2 are for two reasons better.
First the people know already what TD is going to be and with the trust it will be good they are easier to be sold.
Second Ubisoft give away one of three games with the pre order so instead of buying one game for 50€ you bought two games for 25€ each,

I think that is a good idea - Exclusive to GOG for 2-3 months maybe or whatever sales forecast the mid-tail to be, then release to all other platforms!


While I'm here, what is this big gripe about Epic Exclusives that is going around? Most of the arguments I've seen against it seem to be from Steam users, who seem to be unaware that currently 95% of PC games are exclusive to Steam...

Buying what basically amounts to a Steam activation code from chrono.gg or humble store or Game or Walmart doesn't really count as an alternative...

also diablo 1 and warcraft 1 and 2 are GOG exclusives blizzard doesnt even sell them on there own store, they only sell d2 and d3 and wc3 and the reforged version yet to be released

Doesn't necessarily need to be that long, 2-3 days would be quite enough to reel in most people with the patience and self-restraint of three-year olds locked in a candy store over night.

Incentives such as:
- a playable demo (https://www.gog.com/wishlist/games/cyberpunk_2077_demo_via_gogcom)
- or a GoG-exclusive pre-order

would certainly help to get more people on board as well.

Also: The big gripe is with Epic's warped idea of competition.
Throwing money at devs/publishers and holding their games hostage for a year is not competition in the common sense.

Add to that:
1. yet another mandatory client/launcher
2. which reportedly also doubles as spyware
3. Epic shareholder Tencent's close ties with the Chinese government
4. making 2. even more likely to be true

and voilà.

I see Roller Coaster Tycoon Adventures on the Epic Store, and I feel like an old man rapping his newspaper loudly, saying "Well, it didn't take long for shovelware to happen, so much for the "no crap game" policy."

So, seeing as it has a 43 Metascore and has generally been shredded on all sides, I wonder what the next lowest game will appear on the store? Perhaps it won't be long before Bad Rats arrives?

Of course it is, other stores could do the same or enjoy higher net profit per game than Epic by not spending tons of money on exclusives. Other stores can therefore use that higher profit per game and outshine Epic in other areas.

How is that not free market competition? Even though exclusives grind my gears, I still prefer other stores because they're better in every other area.

That seems to be quite disingenuous...
Just because many devs only release on Steam or their own websites, does not make 95% of PC Games "exclusive to Steam". I highly doubt there is any restriction at all on games being released elsewhere. In fact, I highly doubt your figure of 95%.

If you are going to talk about the topic, how about getting the facts straight.
Epic is paying companies for an exclusive window of sales on their platform at the expense of any other. To my knowledge, nothing is stopping any other storefront from negotiating with the devs of these Steam games to bring them to their stores. Thus, nothing is "exclusive". The same cannot be said about Epic and these agreements...

I see your points, but the fact is Valve has a functional monopoly on the PC games market - They effectively have exclusives on the vast majority of modern PC games.

Ut 'til now dev's haven't had a choice of putting their stuff on anything other than Steam, so Valve haven't had to give any of them a dime for their exclusivity - It will be interesting to see if the competition from Epic changes this. I know a lot of devs have grumbled about how they're effectively forced to put their games on Steam because of their monopoly despite wanting a bigger cut, and is partly why I'm always so grateful when they bring stuff here - It's frustrating because we are second-class citizens when it comes to updates and patches, but I can extend a lot of patience and understanding because I get why it is that way, and esp. if they have good history in delivering, even if it's some months behind Steam. (I am itching for the updated Hat in Time and West of Loathing content tho'!)


GoG is a bit of a special case as they specialize in old games that most publishers assume people don't give a shit about (And we showed them! Go go retro community!), but as they've tried to break into modern games more it's been very hard - I suspect mainly because devs/pubs are scared of the no-DRM condition (And massive kudos to GOG for not compromising on that condition just to make more money!), but also GOG's userbase is tiny compared to Steam's and most devs don't want to deal with the extra work of two platforms, so Steam gets the exclusivity that way.


I feel if the exclusivity is temporary, it's not that big a deal - In contrast, I don't think we will *ever* see Valve publish the Half-Life or Portal games on here or the Epic Store. (And will we ever see Half-Life 3?! Or even Half-Life 2 Episode 3?!?!)

OTOH, in a year those exclusive-to-epic-store games will be forgotten by most of the player base - Would people be more okay (or at least less pissed) with it if they shortened the length of exclusivity? Not sure what an acceptable length would be - My thoughts of 2-3 months going up against 2-3 days shows quote a big disparity in mindset XD


I must admit, most of the hate Steam users level at the Epic store for their exclusives I feel towards Steam for why I haven't played any modern AAA game on PC - Because I'm trying to boycott anything that needs online activation, and virtually everything is on Steam, I'm kinda stuck with GOG and the Humble store (Increasingly rare since they've slowly changed into JASSF (Just Another Steam Store Front)), and self-publishing indies like Rake in Grass.

Even relatively old stuff on Steam doesn't seem to be filtering down to GOG any more - We've had some nice ones like Crysis, but I'd love to play things like Borderlands, or EDF4, or Rage, or the new Deus Ex and Dooms one day...!

^ That's exactly how many people feel. The arbitrary "Epic-only games are evil because the devs agreed to exclude through legal means whilst Steam-only games are holy and good because that's 'only' due to devs excluding due to laziness / coercion of a natural monopoly" doesn't mean a damn thing in practise to the end gamer if games end up Epic-only just for 6-12 months whilst most Steam-only games remain Steam-only for years on end. A lot of this stuff is nit-picking semantics over "exclusive must mean only legal prohibition". In reality, the word can also mean "limited to", eg, being the exclusive owner of a product / service due to it being a unique object, or the owner a de-facto monopoly or having an extremely limited distribution channel of one single business without there being any "bribes" or specific exclusivity contracts involved that prevent others from selling it.

There's a difference here though is that if you Isthereanydeal those titles you often come up with anywhere from 10-25 stores you can purchase those titles on, only 1 of which Steam gets any cut from, whereas with the Epic titles there's only one store where you can purchase it with some rare exceptions (Uplay/Microsoft store among them I think for specific titles)

Steam key resellers are hardly competition to Steam. If Steam was losing money overall, they'd have locked them out long ago. The reason they don't is precisely because "You can own any colour car you want as long as it's black" (ie, no matter who you buy a Steam key from you'll still need to use the Steam client, platform & infrastructure) still benefits Steam in maintaining the de-facto monopoly status. Steam don't permit 3rd party key resellers for direct profit, they do it to retain predominant market control. If someone wants say a DRM-Free version then 1,001x different key resellers selling the same "comes with Steam DRM" for 94% of games on Steam is zero real competition, they're just glorified affiliates. Like arguing a "healthy car market" = you can buy a Ford at 20x different prices from different showrooms, but can't actually buy any brand other than Ford. Microsoft also doesn't directly benefit from 99% of 3rd party Windows games / software sold outside the MS store. Can you guess why they're still happy about that?...

A big difference on this issue across the internet is how much you like Steam. On most forums/comment sections I go to people seem fine with Valve having so much control of the PC market because they like the company and like Steam. It's like the happy dictator theory, yes he has total control but things are good in the country so who cares. Same thing applies here. It's the people who don't like Steam who are like "hey maybe competition is good" or in my case "who really cares which client I have to boot up and then ignore?"

Pretty much every passionate agreement or disagreement with Epic's actions here can be traced back to how they feel about Steam, in the end. Other than maybe the pricing issues in some parts of the world that I'm sure Epic will sort out eventually.