Better Linux support! Though gog is acting like idiots regarding this topic, apparently gog believes that every game they have already comes with a native linux installer and they're done:
https://www.gog.com/wishlist/site/add_linux_versions_of_games (completed, WTF?)

Now, improving the reviews: only allow verified owners to post, add game refunded tag and product received for free tag.

Revert to an older version of GoG website, right now the front page looks like shit! Also reduce the game banner size, remove "Users also bought" section and reduce "you may like these products" back to one row, and reduce the size/or remove OpenCritic and HowLongToBeat fake info!

Also some game descriptions contain flashing images that make the description impossible to read. Yeah, remove those as well!

Bring back real curation, don't promote shovelware, and purge the game scams!

Bring more games of the premium variety!

Bring back GoGMixes.

Fix the tags!

Delete comment forum feature.

Ditch Galaxy! It's a waste of effort and is causing problems for offline users!

GoG Deck! and GoG OS (though, honestly with the sorry state of the website i wouldn't use such an OS).


Overall, GoG should just stop emulating Steam! Because somehow they only manage to copy the worst aspects of Steam (game client, DRM, lack of quality control regarding game acquisition... etc.).

Most of Steam's success comes from developing an entrenched captive audience around shouting "First Post!" in 2004. Despite the false memories some have of being part of some 2004 CD-ROM to digital imaginary stampede, Steam were widely disliked during their early years when they back-tracked on their early decision to only need the Steam client & SteamWorks DRM for multi-player games and they added online DRM to Half Life 2 precisely to force widespread usage of the client. Physical disc sales also remained fairly strong through to 2009-ish. In fact many AAA CD-ROM titles actually didn't come to Steam until years later eg, Far Cry (2004) launched on Steam in April 2008, FEAR (2005) wasn't on Steam until May 2010.

The real "Digital Changeover" occurred in +2009-2012 when a whole generation of AAA's suddenly went Steam-only on release day, eg, Morrowind (2002) and Oblivion (2006) sold millions on CD-ROM yet only launched on Steam in June 2009, whilst barely 2 years later, Skyrim (2011) and many other AAA's (Deus Ex Human Revolution, Dishonored, Bioshock Infinite, Alien Isolation, Far Cry 3, ARMA 3, Borderlands 2, Call of Duty's, Civ 5, Hitman Absolution, Serious Sam 3, Tomb Raider, XCOM Enemy Unknown, etc) were all Steam exclusive almost overnight, with "disc" versions of many games being bait & switched for a "Steam key in a box". Publishers were aggressive (and in lockstep) in pushing this partly for the 30% digital cut (vs typical 50% physical distribution costs which of course the extra 20% was pocketed rather than passed onto the consumer / developers), and partly to kill off the PC resale (2nd hand disc) market allowing for better top-down centralised price-controls. Gamers (and the gaming press) just passively followed where the games launched (aka "You have a 'choice' of one store..."). That's 95% of Steam's real-world success story at dominating the market. Half the features people "remember" switching to Steam for in 2004-2007 weren't invented until years later (2008 = Achievements & Cloud Saves, 2011 = Steam Workshop, 2012 = Linux Support & Walkthroughs, 2013 = Big Picture Mode, Early Access, Trading Cards, user reviews, 2014 = In-home Streaming). Steam didn't even have refunds until 2015.

GOG's problem isn't lacking some magical "killer Steam feature" it needs to 'find', it's that the "Steam model" (forcing devs to put Middle-man client code into their games) essentially turns resellers into "Software consoles within the PC platform" that simply doesn't scale well (intentionally so) beyond the first store to push it (which happens to be Steam). We've heard from several devs who've removed games from GOG / not launched here say that it's not lack of features, but rather the workload multiplication of every store wanting those features coded just for its own proprietary client that discourages them (by design) from wanting to sell on too many smaller stores. Epic can "brute force" through that reluctance with 'Fortnite money' but even then they are still making a loss. Microsoft & Amazon are heavily subsidised by Azure / cloud services (it sure as hell wasn't Microsoft Store / Quantum Break gaming sales revenue that grew the huge $68.7bn cash pile that bought Activision Blizzard), EA & Ubisoft have a "stable" of subsidiary game developers that make many more games than CDPR's 'one game per 4-5 years'. In short, every large PC gaming store that isn't Steam all have some secondary funding in addition to (and outside of) 3rd party game sales. The alternative is to be a smaller store that focuses on keeping costs low and ambition sane (itch.io, etc). Half of GOG's problem is wanting the ambition of the former with the finances far closer to the latter...

What GOG need to do is go back to basics. As I posted before, it took me around 30 minutes and a rudimentary knowledge of Flexboxes to turn this (fixed 960px width like its 1998) into this (fluid design that auto-scales number of columns to browser width & device (mobile v desktop)), using just pure HTML / CSS and no JavaScript, and I don't even do web development for a living. So, if they took just one of the dozens of people they've spent 10 years employing to keep Galaxy running at a loss, and replaced them with just one competent web designer, they'd probably at least not lose more sales to potential newcomers from Steam who take one look at how slowly / clunky the site is, decide "No I don't want a second client, I was told the whole point of this place is I don't need one", then just close the tab and go back to Steam. I've read more than a few comments like that on multiple gaming / tech forums to know that over-pushing Galaxy for the wrong reasons (to never fix any website / offline installer degradation problems) is absolutely backfiring far more than lacking GOG Trading Cards, GOG Home Streaming, etc.

They've been trying to hire a UI designer for several months now, and you mean to (I say, tongue in cheek) suggest they could just take someone aside with a HTML manual and give them a few hours to fix longstanding issues with the site instead of wasting major salary and manhours?

Great write up. Pretty much all there is to be said.

I totally agree, +1. Back to basics, ditching of Galaxy and fixing/updating the offline installers is the best decision GOG could make.

GOG don't need to emulate anything from Steam to be successful. By far their best option would be to differentiate their store as much as possible from that abomination and present themselves as a true alternative, rather than some sort of jealous copycat wannabe.

Technically..... yes.

But I'm not saying replace Galaxy with Steam because I hate all store-based launcher equally. I'm saying just get rid of Galaxy and be the 100% launcher-free store. At most have a match maker utility to help facilitate online multiplayer for those game that need the extra help getting players paired up for games, but that's it.

Many mentioned Linux-support. While it would be nice to see that (hey I am a Linux user myself), I disagree that it would be something that would make GOG successful. After all, only a small fraction of Steam users use Linux either, at least as their main gaming OS. Linux support didn't make Steam successful, they have other reasons to invest so much on Linux than that it would be important to their current business.

Here are what GOG should emulate to be successful:
 
1. Business-critical mindset.

2. Striving for excellence in asset management theory.

3. World-class end-user experience.

4. Scientifically proven holistic approach to gaming management services.

5. Virtualization of class-based multipath inquiry system realization.

Ok ok, I am just pulling these out of my ass, trying to sound like some annoying business consultant who is making up cool sounding terms on the fly. "Emulating" Steam doesn't necessarily make you successful, just ask Epic. You have to come up with some unique angle to justify your existence, and even then it might fill just a niche, not making you a true contender to Steam.

1. Promotion. GOG is very underrated, almost every gamer I know has Steam but very few has GOG. More devs should also release on GOG, and put it on their announcement. Simply like "available on Steam and GOG today!" Instead of just "available on PC today!" Working with Prime Gaming for more GOG keys is a right step in this direction.

2. Add more games. Some series are incomplete, like how Tomb Raider 2013 is here but its 2 sequels aren't. But most importantly, I hope they have more and more rare/niche games unavailable on Steam.

3. I know they are against this, but regional pricing. For countries where Steam games are cheap due to their pricing, on GOG they are considerably more expensive. People who don't care about DRM-free would just choose to buy the less pricey one.

They stopped being against it over ten years ago, they readily implement it when it comes to charging regions more than the base (US) price, and there's nothing stopping publishers from setting whatever price they want in any region. Just that some don't do so here when it comes to some regions that get charged less elsewhere.
One thing that might make a difference, however, is supporting more currencies.

But, getting back to the general issue, there really is little left to say after AB2012's outstanding post.

And basically, trying to imitate Steam is a recipe for failure, not for success.

But to tackle the assumption from the thread's title, I'll firmly say that GOG is successful. Staying around for all of these years and being in the black for almost all of them in a field so thoroughly dominated by one behemoth and with a coterie of other players backed by entities that can afford to operate them at a constant and massive loss just to remain relevant is success in any reasonable sense of the term. And doing so while continuing to add titles to the catalog, including notable ones every so often, and cultivate some partnerships, even more so. If it appears otherwise, it's because the expectations, whether their own or those of some users or devs/pubs, far overstrip the resources, and maybe even any sort of realistic possibilities.

Also, until and unless regulations that will thoroughly change how markets work will be enforced, Steam will only fail when it, in itself, will fail. It won't be brought down by a competitor. And as long as Steam doesn't fail, nothing else will be comparable. So success must not be judged by any sort of comparison with Steam. Period.
But, as others have kept saying here, more success, as long as we remain reasonable about its definition, may come by differentiating more from Steam.

I still think the issue with GOG is just the lack of activity/resources to encourage non-users to come here in the first place.

One thing steam has is user guides and communities for specific games. It is much for likely for a random user interested in some game to stumble on steam by googling that game because they find a guide or questions on that game that then link them to steam.

GOG doesnt have much discovery for new players it seems relative to Epic or Steam.

But this is also where the problem lies. Devs/pubs have been indoctrinated by the long-standing Steam dominance, that those features are something good, desirable, that a release without those features is by default inferior/undesirable. Basically, whatever Steam says/does, stands across the entire PC gaming space as the standard. If GOG starts dropping those completely, they are going to lose even more appeal in the eyes of those above, excluding the already frequent repellent of just not wanting to make a build for GOG or integrating for another store the many features already present in games. What the consumers want is one thing, but losing the lifeblood (game releases in this case) will be fatal. And that is where that road will undoubtedly lead once the already somewhat shallow well of oldies dries up completely for GOG.

On the consumer side, it's mostly a problem of habit as humans are creatures of habit. The problem of course being what AB2012 already talked about - they were by far the first. Somebody who's been using something for 10 or more years is going to find it hard to make themselves try/change to something different. Even more so, when they've already sunk hundreds or thousands of dollars into it and have a massive library there. And especially when they've been similarly indoctrinated that when another place doesn't have the exact same full lineup of features as their "current thing" it's inferior by default. Everybody screams about platform exclusivity, but nobody cares that store exclusivity is the default. Because it's their, the vast majority's store, that's the exclusive one. This just perpetuates their near monopoly position, because even if a game later releases elsewhere, it will only get a minute fraction of sales, most profits from a game's lifecycle already gobbled up by the store exclusivity. But if a game dares to try releasing anywhere but Steam first, it's a massive, boycott worthy problem until it comes to Steam. Even Epic with their near inexhaustible cash reserves and constant freebies is failing to make a dent in the market share.

The entire perception of the current industry situation is skewed by what Steam has been doing over the 15 or so years it has been the dominant force. Offline installers are not seen as something desirable/necessary by the general gaming public, because Steam does not have it. It only works in the direction from Steam, not to Steam. And finding a way out is going to be nigh on impossible. Either you submit and maybe manage to survive as an "alternative" (not competition), or go against the flow and are all but doomed to fail.

One of the best posts I've ever read on the internet for the last 15 years.

Valve / Steam is same as Disney : a cancer .

They can't

Steam's success didn't steam from being better, it was never consumers going "I chose Steam over BrandX"

People forget Steam effectively started as form of Physical Media DRM. Valve got millions of users because physical games had "Steam account required to activate" on them. With that event they had already gained a critical mass of users before internet speeds made digital distribution possible.

That said, there are a lot of functions Steam has that GOG should

Such as Workshop/Mod integration, controller support for Galaxy, Linux support
Pretty much spot on