I don't think the lack or presence of "AAA" games is really representative of GOG at all. . . never has been; GOG will probably remain niche, as it always has, by dusting off good titles and "refurbishing" them, or fixing past botched titles that shoudl've been great, and making them actually playable today. Besides, all those "AAA" titles inevitably end up here anyway. The GOG user-base, IMO, are folks who do not buy games, especailly "AAA", upon release; we wait, let them marinade through some studio-development patches, then slow-cook through community-patches; after which time, several years have passed, and you have a finished product, that will most likely be sold. . . here . . .and no one remembers, or cares, whether it was mega-budget or not. Sierra, Koei, Square Enix, Lucasarts, Eidos, etc. were all 'AAA' at one time.

For me, there are exceptions: when Larian studios releases a title, I usually purchase their games shortly after release; and, this is because they produce a finished product, to the extent it's humanly possible; I don't mind inconsequential bugs, as long as performance and the main story/objectives are not compromised. Large studios think they are reducing expenses/increasing revenues by rushing titles, but they are woefully mistaken, and seem to never learn. Pre-releases/pre-orders, alpha/beta/gamma/delta releases, 'is it persistent yet?', etc.. . . that's amateur-hour nonsense. . . yes, by all means. let's give customers the experience of test-driving our new hod-rods, which blow a gasket before you can say 'fatal exception error.'

The way I see it, Steam is. . . kind of the Amazon-Prime of retail game sales, except Amazon does a much better job of promoting and selling product. I've bought one game from them so far. . . and that was Star Trek Birdge Crew, for kicks-n-giggles. I will probably buy Dark Messiah from there shortly as well. I've just. . .never really had any use for Steam; I guess because I don't purchase titles upon release. . . I dunno.

We're still missing "AAA" games that are 10+ years old so I'm kinda wondering what's the hold-up.

Maybe not, but based on the microtransactions in Assassin's Creed and MGSV, SP could become more live service. That would lead to both planned obsolescence and more DRM.

He said he doesn't want DRM, but he can tolerate low level, minimally intrusive DRM unlike others.

Unless you run your own server you would still need to access someone else's server.

He never said he wanted MP to require DRM or asked for it, so you are making false statements with that bit.

Framing.......No, he isn't asking for it....he is willing to compromise and accept minimally intrusive(think cd keys and similar) drm if need be....something which some seem to not be able to do.

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They likely have a deal with Epic to push people to that storefront.

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As I said elsewhere I think SP games with/without DRM or DLC will be made as niche products over time to sell to those that want them and have money to spend....same as we are seeing now with retro 8-bit/etc games.

GOGs aversion to lootboxes, microtransactions or "pay for less grinding" DLC would be discouraging to some publishers more interested in money than game experience.

(There is the odd example within the store, but they are rare).


Multiplayer games with central servers designed around bringing random strangers together are also a problem. I'm skeptical whether client side anti-cheating technology is possible without DRM.

Good sense. Pst! Offline installers, which still work on XP. You only need to be online to originally download the installer & then you technically never need to be on again. That's an important distinction beyond just being DRM free.

To be fair you DO need to stay online for some of GOG's games with MP.