How about sorting out some stuff internally, Gog. The biggest thing Gog needs is promotion. Invest more money into marketing. Gog is a known PC retailer, for sure, but that circle is limited, and you would not believe how many people have not heard of Gog yet. Look up the article about Gog firing people, and you can see comments like "I didn't know Gog was owned by CDPR. I like The Witcher III, I will check out the Gog store now." You should play that card of people's emotional attachment to The Witcher series, just like any other brand in the business. You would not believe how many people are there in Steam forums who ask "What is Gog?" when they see it mentioned in the forum discussions. Probably some of those people would be interested in buying their games via Gog.
What about some broken games you sell. Take for example The King Of Fighters XIII. Ever since it was released the game is still stuck with the version 1.0, without the patches it needs to address. The game can’t run at all on my PC. I was looking for the article on Gog Support page, and saw that 15 out of 355 users found those debug tips useful. I was forced to ask for a refund, since the Gog support was unable to solve the issue. That was on developers to fix the game, not yours. That is 10€ less in your pocket. I wonder how many people requested refunds as well, hundreds, maybe over a thousand. The game barely has any reviews and very few people participate in the forum discussions. That game was dead on arrival.
Or the time when I had the issue with launching the Abzû. I had to refund that one as well, because I was unable to run it on Windows 7. Later on I have re-purchased it, because I have found the solution for the problem. But the Gog support was unable to help me with that issue at the time. I have opened the ticket afterwards, explaining the Gog support how to help their users solve the compatibility issue with Windows 7, because I wanted to help out the Gog support, and prevent further refunds from happening. I wonder how many people have refunded that one as well.
With Saints Row IV I had similar issues. Some of us had the issue with the game regarding the key rebinding. The changes made in controls options were not saved when exiting the game, and keys had to be rebinded every time you run the game. Screenshots I took via Gog Galaxy looked washed out and blurred. I had issues with hosting multiplayer games. That was additional 5€ less for Gog. I wonder how many people out there had the same issue, and have refunded the game.
Make developers address the issues with their games.
Call off your laughable curating criteria, where you don’t want to add some games because they are “too violent” to some hypersensitive people. Stop bowing down to the whims of the crazed liberal social justice warriors, and start accepting more games in your store. Take the Hatred for example. Hatred has 4400+ votes cast inside the community wishlist tab. There is some money to be earned there. But nope, since you are more concerned over the backlash of the anti-consumers, libtards who will not buy the game. Games are being sold to the crowd who wants to buy them, not to those who protest it. Logical, huh. Then act in accordance to this. Just because somebody is butt-hurt over school shootings in real life, doesn’t give you the right to restrict the game release to the customers who want to buy it, in favour of some useless, lazy, hypocritical people, who virtue signal via social media, because they have nothing productive to do in their empty lives.
I don’t see how a store which is specialized in selling Fortnite cosmetics and some PC titles which would not have been released via Gog anyway, like Tom Clancy’s The Division II, has anything to do with Gog’s revenue. Epic Games is not to blame, nor is Steam. The greedy publishers are. The very same publishers which spend their money on implementing questionable DRMs, which get cracked by hackers eventually. No DRM has ever stopped the hackers from cracking games, only delayed, unless they are online only. Even then, with online games you have some of them which are cracked, and can be played online. Let us look at Metro – Exodus. It has nothing to do with bigger revenue the developers/publishers get with Epic Games. The game was set to be sold with the Denuvo, and it would not have been released via Gog no matter what. Pulling that game off the Steam was a scummy move, but it has nothing to do with Gog’s revenue.
Publishers need to understand this – some of us buy games via Gog only. And no matter how great the games are, no matter how cheap they are, or whatever the reasoning is for selling the game elsewhere, I will not buy the game, unless it’s on Gog. I did make some purchases on Steam, and its satellite stores like Humble Bundle, Indiegala and Fanatical, but that was in the past. My main library in the last two years is on Gog. Every bit of the income is welcome, and selling your games on Gog can’t hurt, but help. Your games will be released via Torrents eventually, no matter whether they were cracked (non Gog), or shared directly (Gog), such things will happen. But those of us who want to receive the constant updates will buy the original games. Hackers don’t crack every single minor update the developers make, sometimes those minor updates might mean addressing game-breaking bugs, thus most Torrents have outdated game versions, unless the support cycle has ended for the individual games. Only the titles the gamers are the most passionate about, like The Elder Scrolls series, Titan Quest, Call Of Duty series and such, got regular cracked patches.
Look what happened to Gwent. I have played that game when it was in beta, and since I am not a fan of the card video games, nor am I into The Witcher franchise, I have passed that one. Just read reviews on its store page. CD Project Red has screwed up that one. They have turned the Gwent into the Thronebreaker, and people got massively pissed off. That game alone could have made sustainable income from the microtransactions until the Cyberpunk 2077 comes out, but nope, you had to blow that one up. Hurry up with Cyberpunk 2077 already, people are waiting, there is money to be earned.
Gog team should fix the cracks in their own store and business decisions, and prevent the further money leaks. I like that you are upfront about this decision, but I am not going to feel pity for you. This is the world of business. Fix your internal issues, and you will do fine.
Post edited February 27, 2019 by Wishmaster777
