I rather think CD Project Red should first deleniate business wise development (The Witcher) and distribution (gog.com). This bears nothing on stock-holder ownership.

My suspicion is that the money is on the distribution - not on game development.

Interplay has at least had the good sense to properly milk gog before selling these franchises. Best of luck to whoever buys them.

I'd much rather have Interplay buy up select IP's rather than every single one. Star Trek would probably be one you want to see them buy so we do NOT lose out on having more than the 4 games here. Depending on how much that sets back the budget for IP's, more could be gotten. Of all the IP's I believe they have, I think the Star Trek ones will fetch the most. Do we want a SS2 style rights problem with games where it takes years to get? (GOG got CBS, paramount, and Interplay to agree for the 4 released)

Why are you buying a sinking ship?

The best investment is to buy a king (like Blizzard) or rising star.

There's money to be made in video game development, publishing and distribution. Otherwise if any one of those categories didn't have money in it there would be no company doing one of those things that are unprofitable.

I think it is important to note though that CD Projekt RED is just the game development studio and is not itself the parent company. CD Projekt is the parent company. Because the "CD Projekt" part of the name is shared between that and the studio people confuse them and use them interchangeably but it then gives the impression that GOG.com is a subsidiary of the game development studio which is not correct.

The CD Projekt Capital Group organizational structure has "CD Projekt S.A." at the top of the hierarchy with "GOG Ltd.", "GOG Poland Sp. z o.o.", "CD Projekt Brands S.A." and "CD Projekt Inc." underneath that (taken from their website). CD Project RED fits in underneath CD Projekt Inc." if I understand correctly from the materials available.

I point this out only because a lot of people seem to confuse things when discussing these sort of matters and I think it is important to clarify these things so people get a better understanding of the organization of the company if speaking about how it should be organized. If your statement is reworded to remove the "Red" out of it as follows:

"I rather think CD Projekt S.A. should first delineate business wise development (The Witcher - CD Projekt RED) and distribution (gog.com)" then it makes more sense, but then we also see that the two are already completely separate from each other because they are. The organizational chart that shows this is at:

https://www.cdprojekt.com/en/capital-group/

In a nutshell the game studio does not run GOG.com, and GOG.com does not run the game studio. The parent company runs them both as separate entities already. Obviously they make money both from their video game development (CD Projekt RED) and also from video game distribution (GOG.com), and both are highly profitable. But with respect to their specific company (CD Projekt S.A.) as a whole, the money is in both video game development and distribution, however the majority of it is from video game development not distribution as you're suspecting. The reason I can say that with confidence though is that CD Projekt S.A. is a publicly traded company on the Warsaw stock exchange and thus has to disclose their financial statements. The financial statements publicly available on their website show that the majority of their profit comes not from GOG.com games distribution, but from the video game development studio from the Witcher game series.

No need to take my word for it however, the financial statements are here:
https://www.cdprojekt.com/en/investors/

These details may or may not influence one's thoughts or ideas about what the company or any one of its subsidiaries should do or what might be good for business, but understanding the actual structure of the company is an important part of the speculative process I believe if the speculation is intended to be serious.

This is why I have said that it makes no sense for CD Projekt RED to acquire Interplay titles. I'd go as far as saying it would be highly unlikely, because their core goal is to do nothing but develop video games, and to do so one game at a time and do nothing else. Again, this is the game development studio part of the larger company we are talking about here.

"The company aims to follow the Rockstar Games model, where the company works on a single project with a large team, and avoids working on multiple projects at the same time." -- http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2016-04-27-cd-projekt-games-will-follow-the-rockstar-model

Acquiring another failed company's old video game titles has nothing to do with video game development, nor of pursing their goal to be a self managed game studio working on a single large project at a time, so unless they were to reassess that goal I speculate that it is not something going to happen.

However, if when someone says "CD Projekt RED" they actually mean "CD Projekt S.A." - the parent company, that is a different thing. They could create a new subsidiary called something else to speculatively invest in other failed video game company's non-profitable game products in order to keep the venture separate from their currently highly successful ones at the organizational structure level. But that doesn't have zero risk to it either and would IMHO. If someone thinks most of their money comes from game sales on GOG.com and forms an opinion that buying Interplay's titles would boost GOG.com sales and make them even more profitable, that's an ok opinion to have but it isn't backed by sound reliable financial data of the actual company that shows it is The Witcher game series developed by the game studio portion of the company that is actually the basis of the majority of their profitability (see the linked financial statements above).

Buying up the Interplay titles wouldn't be just distribution though, it would be maintenance, publishing and distribution, possibly with other publishers involved in other regions perhaps as well (as has been done with The Witcher games for example over time.) The "maintenance" portion of that is development, and that's something that sucks up resources. Judging from both GOG.com and CD Projekt RED's individual "Careers" pages that perpetually seem to list positions for developers, it is either suggestive that they're finding it hard to find the right people to hire, or that they're hiring people left and right in a continual basis and hiring more and more. That's hard to say, but there might possibly be information in the financial disclosure details concerning head counts on that perhaps. (I never investigated that).

Nobody can say with certainty either way whether they would or will do something like this, but based on a reasonably good understanding of their corporate structure from publicly available information, knowledge of the company's stated goals based also on publicly available information, it doesn't seem like buying up the Interplay catalogue en-masse would be something viable for them to do in any part of the overall parent company or its subsidiaries IMHO. They're doing well but they aren't moneybags like Ubisoft or EA either. If they could pick up a couple of titles for pennies on the dollar that need minimal maintenance and ongoing resource commitments presumably like the SSI Gold Box titles for example, that might make sense. But the idea of them doing something big beyond something like that with any of this, pursing mobile ports of the games etc. is seemingly way outside of what they do as a company right now, and outside of their area of expertise IMHO. I just can't see it happening.

For CD Projekt S.A., the way the numbers stand right now - the majority of money is all in video game development, and assuming Cyberpunk 2077 does well when it is finally released, that will become the largest portion of their incoming revenue at the time presumably, especially if the game is anywhere near as successful (or more) than The Witcher 3. Their core focus should remain on where the money is, and perfecting and improving those things. They're not Yamaha. :)

Why would GOG give much of a crap at all whether those games go to EA, Activision or some obscure Russian Developer that is a front for the Mafia? I'm not sure I follow that. Is it because when the games transfer ownership there is a chance that GOG may no longer be able to sell those games and thus lose potential profit that could be had from them and the userbase may be disappointed that the titles are no longer available? If so, that's happened many times and life goes on and GOG.com continues to produce profit. In a number of cases the games have came back weeks/months later under the new ownership. As an example I put forth the Fallout games that temporarily left the store for some time as the IP transitioned to Bethesda whom partnered with GOG later on to bring not only those games back to GOG.com but a bunch of their other titles that nobody ever thought would ever show up here in a million years. Or Nordic whom temporarily had to pull their entire catalogue out of the store due to 3rd party contractual reasons we're not privy to the details of but hoped to return in the future to GOG.com and eventually did a year or so later, bringing back all of the games plus a lot more. There are probably other examples.

For those games that have left and never came back, GOG may have lost potential sales of them but it isn't like they suffered and went out of business due to it. Buying up such games might have actually turned out to be a bad investment that could have ended up harming the company, especially if the reason the games are for sale is that the current owners can't make enough profit off of them to stay afloat.

If anything IMHO GOG should purposefully NOT buy ANY of those games because someone else will. If the company that buys them is DRM-free friendly then the games are highly likely to come right back to GOG within days/weeks/months anyway assuming they leave at all. If the company is not already doing business with GOG, it is actually not bad at all because it gives GOG an opportunity to go to those companies and say "hey, we have sold those games profitably before DRM-free and can show you the financials to prove it. We have not partnered with you before but we would love to try to work out a mutually beneficial arrangement to sell your games here, please come and talk to us." The result could end up being something like Bethesda coming here and bringing a number of highly anticipated titles that nobody expected to show up here ever.

I think GOG would make a lot more money off of something like that, than buying up someone else's second hand newspapers. I hope Microsoft or some other evil empire buys those Interplay games up, giving GOG a challenge to crack into another publisher that isn't here while simultaneously avoiding all of the risks of being a speculative investor and 2nd hand code janitor. :)

Correct, and easily confirmed via a quick web search.

Yes, and all of those games were extremely old legacy titles rather simplistic in nature by today's standards, all of which were extremely highly requested on the GOG wishlist for a long time. The majority of them are all old Dungeon's and Dragon's properties and GOG.com is probably the centre of the universe for die hard greybeard D&D gamers. D&D games almost always top GOG's bestsellers especially when there is a seasonal sale on. Aside from D&D specific games, RPGs in general are a huge part of GOG's life blood. One merely only needs to click on "GAMES" at the top and sort by bestselling to see that. The games they bought were not available on the market for years and probably not considered to be worth much at all by the rights owners (or they might have already had them on the market already). I presume that once GOG got all the legal issues sorted out and enough money was on the table to get the IP owners to put down the remote control and get off the couch to come talk with them, they probably got all of those ancient games for a song and dance, then probably had to do minimal work to get them to work in DOSbox et al, mostly as a one time resource cost that they do for most other old games anyway, knowing that the popularity of RPG's in general along with the high ranking on the wishlist would most certainly recover the likely relatively small investment they had to put up for it.

When I look over the list of Interplay games, even ones that are arguably decent in some way, none of them have the same vibe. I haven't checked on the GOG "Popular titles" list but I wouldn't be surprised if most if not all of the Interplay games are near the bottom. I mean, when they go on sale they go on sale for 90% off, which is a good sign of how popular they are right there.

"They bought game xyz so they should buy Interplay games too!" thoughts anyone might have isn't looking deeply enough as to why they bought the games they did, how much the likely paid for them and what they're likely worth in terms of return on investment based on what sells and what doesn't here.

Many of the Interplay games that are here right now, should they get removed due to transfer of ownership, might very well come back anyway, but if they didn't - I'm sure people would make wishlist entries for them all to get them back here. I speculate that none of those games would get even 10% of the wishlist votes of those ancient SSI Goldbox D&D games did for example. Almost never hear anyone talking about old Interplay games as amazing mind blowing classics. They have their nostalgia, but they aren't no Planescape Torment or Star Wars or anything like that to give anyone a big woody. I'm just saying. :)

Sure.

But also if you ask me to forget how TW2 did away with Dethmold getting his due as he did - genitalia cut off after a rape scene - please!

This is the reason I have not bought TW3 when I actually still hail The Witcher as a harbinger of the new era of cRPC gaming.

Ok... I'm not sure how that fits into the conversation about Interplay and CDP/CDPR/GOG though. :)

Easily. CD Project Red is a corporate project, and having all around good PR is commercially favourable.

I am perso strongly disapppointed about Dethmold, because I could never replay TW2. And thus far I have not bought TW3,

Thinking all gamers should have bit of a shot at immersion might seem outlandish to you - but I think it will be a commercial relevant.

Just to clarify, are you saying that you found the scene you described to be disturbing or off putting or offensive or similar? If so that's fine, such games aren't for everyone. For the record there is a very shocking scene of a horrific nature not unlike you describe in The Witcher 3 also. I found it disturbing as well, but in an entertaining way. Entertaining in that it made me feel emotion and entertainment is about feeling emotions, good or bad or in the case of that game - both. I wont mention the specific scene in which I am talking about as I do not wish to spoil it for anyone, but it is very adult in nature and was unexpected and disturbing, but I handle that sort of thing pretty well. For example, I am a horror and gore movie genre fan and I love movies like Hostel, Saw, Wolf Creek, High Tension and the like which many regular average Joe's would find quite disturbing or disgusting. That's ok too, everyone has different tastes and thresholds for what they consider entertainment or acceptable, and what I can tolerate might be beyond what someone else can etc.

For me, their willingness to do such things make the game experience that much more immersive because real life can be a very dark evil thing too and I can enjoy it when a game developer isn't afraid to show this in a fantasy context also rather than being afraid to have to be politically correct or tone things down because it might offend or upset someone. I would feel the same way even if I found something that I personally was deeply disturbed or disgusted by also.

So you may feel that something like that took away from your immersion and be 100% completely correct about that for yourself, I personally find that sort of thing increases my immersion, and the more emotion I feel about it the more immersed I am in it by definition - for it is only pixels on a screen being generated by a computer and not something real that is happening or that actually happened. It's an artificial experience - a dark one at times, but a virtual one and I appreciate feeling a wide range of emotions in a game or movie or TV show. To me, a studio that can create that wide range of emotional experiences for me is a true master of the art of entertainment. To be honest, very very few video games I've ever played have generated wide ranges of emotion or any strong emotions for me. The Witcher 3 was one of them, as have been all of the id Software DOOM games, Skyrim and a short list of others.

But for all the content I've enjoyed like that whether it was in a video game or a movie or TV show, I know others that really dislike it too, and that's ok - everyone's different and there's nothing wrong with that. :)

Having said that though, and I respect your opinion about what you shared but I still don't see what it has to do with CDPR/GOG potentially buying video games or about their profitability. I don't want to speculate what you mean, but if you're suggesting that because there may be emotionally disturbing content in one of their games you've played that it is going to hurt their sales - that's a valid opinion but not one backed up by their financial statements. It might cause you to not buy their games perhaps but the game is a bestseller by any measure and I don't think that a few brief disturbing scenes in the game had any net negative impact on their sales to be honest.

It is not Dethmold dying - but his pimple popping and slave raping, as lead up to the genitalia mutilation and throat slashing.

I killed the rapist king, too, btw - *the flea stabs a lion" or whatnot - no humiliation though.

I want gsming to be universal, and to me: Dethmold having his genitalia slashed is not it.

Earthworm Jim, Freespace, Giants, MDK, Sacrifice and Shogo have sold very well on GOG (especially Freespace 2, which is the 24th best-selling game here). You keep repeating that Interplay is famous for its 90% discounts, yet Interplay only did 90% discounts during the 2015-2016 period. In previous years, they were quite famous (and infamous), both for doing only 50%/60% discounts and actually increasing the price of some games. Despite that, people still bought the games.

There is definitely demand for Interplay games (here and elsewhere), but if a company is desperate for money (like Interplay), they will sell those games for seriously cheap prices, perhaps altering their perceived value in the process.

What they might have done years ago is not so relevant to what their games value are perceived to be right now in 2016. What is most relevant is the current price of their games and how often they go on sale and for what kind of discount, with the most recent trends being the most accurate of a reflection of the game's perceived worth in the marketplace in combination with a company's willingness to lower the price lower and lower out of need of money. I haven't dug up the actual GOG sales promos to get the most accurate information but I remember at least 2 sales this year in recent memory that were seemingly close together the entire catalogue was on sale for 90% off and that is the most relevant info as to what the company and the potential customers value their games at right now.

That is not dissing them in any way either. The price of games go down over time as a natural course of time passing. What is different though is that some companies are successful and as their games lose value they can straight up say (to themselves not necessarily out loud in the public eye) "We absolutely will not sell our game for less than $5" and they'd rather sell less copies than lower the price to dollar store prices out of pride or whatever. A good example of this is Bethesda, id Software, Ubisoft, EA. Not all of the games they ever made necessarily, but those made after a certain date for sure, and their tendency is often to do it with most older games too.

What would it take for Bethesda to lower the price of the games they sell no lower than $5 right now no matter what - to lower the price to $3 or $2 or $1? They're highly successful with a widely diverse portfolio and a lot of padding. They don't need to lower their prices even on a game that isn't even that great. If there's little to no overhead or costs with selling it, they can just sell it for whatever they want and if they sell a million copies in a year or sell 100 copies it is practically pure profit and they don't need to care.

Interplay is a struggling company that is and has been desperate for a long time now however. Even if one picks an Interplay game that is equal or even better than a game that some other company might never sell for less than $5 because they simply don't need to like my Bethesda example (but I could have picked one of many companies in a similar position, say Blizzard...), Interplay doesn't have the padding of success to do that. They are starved for cash and their games aren't selling in quantity enough to keep them afloat, old or new. They have no choice but to lower their prices and start bailing out the water.

I'm not saying there is zero demand for Interplay games. I'm saying that the demand there is for Interplay games in combination with the companies need for money means that their games only move in sufficient volume in 2016 when they are 90% discounted by and large.

Since that's what you seem to be saying in your last sentence too though it seems that we may completely agree on the final verdict but perhaps have a different way of viewing or stating the details. ;oP

If Bethesda started to struggle to the danger point, you bet we'd likely see DOOM3, Rage, and many many other games that are both old and $8-20 all of a sudden be $1-3 too. :) A price is ultimately a negotiation. A negotiation of goods, and what the price is ends up being the meeting place where the party that has the most to gain and the party with the most to lose if the transaction doesn't happen meet together somewhere in the middle.

Bethesda has the least to lose if we don't buy their 15 year old game for $5, they simply don't care - if you want it, you'll buy it eventually, if not they sell other games to hold the fort down and someone else will buy it instead. They have the bargaining power. With Interplay, they could do the same thing but if you don't buy it, they are not eating dinner tomorrow. :) Our $2 whimsical purchases let them have another day to breathe. :)