...meanwhile, itch.io already has a section with over 500 ebooks:
itch.io/books

A lot of it is sleaze like "Futa Werewolves of the School Sorority" but there's also more serious stuff like this massive collection of essays about roguelikes: @Play: Exploring Roguelike Games

There's no point in a game distributor doing that. It's like Starbucks branching out into car repair. If there was a big demand for it they could branch out with a new company handling Ebooks but otherwise, no.

EPUB would be the way to go, as it is just a bunch of glorified web pages anyway ... Text and Images and CSS..
And the MOBI format for the Kindle is not greatly different.

Whatever the format, if it is DRM Free, then the great open source (Number 1) program calibre, can convert very easily.

Are you serious, it is nothing like that.

Ebooks about games, or even more importantly Game Guides, are GOG business. It is already happening here at GOG big time, just not usually as ebooks. A lot of the stuff that comes up in these forums, could be better dealt with in some ways, by ebooks. Nothing beats advice from the experts, as compared to advice by someone with an opinion, or limited knowledge or hearsay, etc.

What an absolute waste of resources and a huge extra cost to do that. GOG already have in place most of what they need.

Are you high? Because I sure could use some advice on what NOT to smoke.

I remember some of us advocating for a DRM-free eBook initiative way back when GOG's movie efforts were gaining steam. It's not like there isn't a market for it: StoryBundle's Video Game-themed bundles have been fairly successful, with fresh and interesting content.

However, I guess with Tor.com pretty much the main source for DRM-free SF/F, Humble Bundle being the place for DRM-free comics, and StoryBundle being the place for DRM-free video game-themed literary content, there wouldn't be much of a place for GOG to grow into.

I would be down with ebooks on GOG. I have picked up a few Humble Book Bundles but always found something lacking in the presentation of the PDF files. I feel that GOG would probably put together products that had just had a little more polish.

The market for DRM-free ebooks is already in motion.

Most technical IT books are sold DRM-free in ebook format (O'reilly, Manning, InformIT and a couple of others).

DrivethruRPG sells DRM-free ebooks for pretty much any roleplaying game you'd hope for (and for the few that are missing, you're likely to find DRM-free ebooks directly on the publishers' website).

They also have the DriveThruComics sister site for comics (probably not as complete a selection as the RPG one, but still some cool stuff).

Then, you got other kinds of ebooks that are DRM-free with various more obscure publishers (mostly non-mainstream stuff mind you).

The main players that have yet to join the DRM-free ranks:
- Academia (university-level textbooks and the like, wouldn't have minded getting my hands on some of my university stats textbooks in pdf format....)
- Mainstream novels and non-fiction books
- Comics from the big guys (Marvel, DC, etc)

So yeah, still a lot of inroads to make, but the DRM-free ebooks market is not exactly a virgin land ripe for the taking by a company that has never sold ebooks before. Other well established players are in a far better position to grab what remains.

I'm not against it, just uninterested mostly. I do think GOG shouldn't stretch themselves thin though; they already have the site, Galaxy, updates, etc. to worry about.

It'd certainly work better than this awful dead movie section GOG has.

*sunglasses* YEEAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH

Drivethru books have watermarks. They can fuck right off.

I think it would look pretty much the same. When I look at the wishlist for movies, I get the impression that GOG's customers seem to be primarily interested in games.
Granted, I have very little insight in the decision making process behind which games get onto GOG and which don't. But what I know is: It takes quite a while and the community will complain about their favorite game not being on GOG yet at any given opportunity. ;) Based on that information, I would assume that this is a task that hasn't had as much employees dedicated to it as it maybe should have. Being already swamped with games to look into, that team probably doesn't have the time to look into movies - which probably make barely any money, compared to the games.

Now checking out a single movie might take around 90 minutes. Checking out a book with 405 pages might take a little longer than that.

Timboli's summary of the other thread contains a lot of strong points and include things that I wouldn't have thought of before, like out-of-print game guides one might not (legally) find anywhere else anymore.
One of the strong points that speaks for GOG is quality control. While I could immediately name two examples for games that got such low ratings and reviews that they should have been removed, I did describe GOG's game library in general as "good" and "noticeably above average" in the past. I think they could pull it off, but I don't think they have the resources to do it right now.

And personally, I only buy books locally and in a format I can still read after civilization has ended.

I think it probably fair to say that GOG are very busy indeed, but I very much doubt the missing games from their library here, are due to any lack on GOGs part ... other than whatever deal they provide to game publishers.

I reckon it would be mostly down to game publishers, whether a game turns up here or not. Not all are enamored with DRM Free, even some of those who hedge their bets and still provide here. And I reckon for sure, it is also why Game Updates (fixes, improvements, extras, etc) take so much longer to appear here in many instances.

I bet many game publishers are surprised at how long GOG has lasted, and perhaps that has even encouraged more to gradually come on board, and why GOG is still slowly growing.

Going the DRM Free route for many of them, means taking a leap of faith, and some don't have the same philosophical or ethical view as those who felt a store like GOG was needed.

It's all about the customers really, not the place as such.

GOG has a lot of customers come through here, that are interested in games, and who buy games.
Why would they also need to go elsewhere to buy other game related content?
If they are here and see an ebook they want, and it is a fair price, then why would they go and buy it from Humble Bundle?
And really, what the world needs is not another monopoly. Steam is or was bad enough.

I see stuff at Humble Bundle all the time, that I am interested in, but I only ever grab their freebies, as I am not interested in supporting Steam or anyone that supports them.

I spend my gaming money at GOG. I think it imperative to do so. Many who come here, take an awful lot for granted, and it wouldn't do to say one day that you should have supported them more.

GOG is a long running experiment, that a big number of us don't want to stop or fail.

So if they get DRM Free Game Ebooks here, they will get my money for them too, not Amazon, not Humble, etc. And many others here will do likewise.

Never put all your eggs in one basket .... diversify.

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GOGE .... pronounced Goggy ......... Good Old Game Ebooks. :P

True, although you can use text-to-speech which means that you can check out a book as audio while doing something else, so in terms of grabbing one's attention books might require less work than movies, not to mention games which require interaction.