Good on ya, mate!

Herein lies an important observation from Timboli.

Itch.io is an interesting site to poke around through the content "shelves" of basic, proof-of-concept level shenanigans... and once-in-awhile come across a title that's completed enough to play... but IMO a TERRIBLE place to find complete experiences you'll feel are worth the money. IMO it's more paid archive of experiments than store.

And while I would implore GOG to accept more complete games into their releases, neither Steam nor Itch.io are good representations of where GOG should move curation.

As to the greater question of...

"Can a DRM-free store be profitable?"

It can be modestly profitable... with emphasis on "modestly." Most of the gaming world doesn't care about DRM-free and would not move away from stores that sell DRM product...

... unless...

... something BIG happens in the industry that suddenly makes all gamers think about ownership of their games. That hasn't happened...

... yet...

... but I think we may be on the edge of it.

Why?

We are on the edge of a world-wide financial crisis that IMO is going to effect every aspect of our lives. Ownership of products and assets is going to be everything. While games might be the least of our worries...

... ownership of products (games) may become seen -- by the majority -- as necessary.

GOG may or may not be around one the other side... but I suspect that ownership (and DRM-free) will potentially become the new default driven by consumers, not corporations.

But what do I know?

Nothing is better than a DRM-Free Library where you can FIND anything that crosses your mind at any moment. DB Search engines are not new and GoG Galaxy has one, unfortunate for some people that don't know how to use a simple search bar, this is not Google, you will get accurate results on first page most of the time. Update User to 2023 Version.

Yep, I don't love Itch.io, but I do appreciate them and have gotten hundreds of games from them.

I never browse for games at Itch.io, using filters or not. I go there for a specific reason. I find Itch to be too overwhelming and messy to browse.

The same for Steam, except I am even less enamored of Steam, it being a DRM based store ... though it does have lots of DRM-Free Lite games.

I could even get overwhelmed by what GOG has, except I have done my homework over time, and now keep up-to-date pretty much on new additions to the store, which unlike with Steam and Itch isn't overwhelming at any one time ... another reason to prefer curation over opening the floodgates.

In a perfect world we could dispense with curation, but the world isn't perfect, the game stores aren't perfect, game developers and publishers aren't perfect, and neither are we.

Sigh, why do people keep arguing this itch.io & steam straw man.

Same people who also apparently want curation but refuse to use filters? Lol.

By any measure, itch.io's curation should be much easier to keep up with than GOG's because they pass far fewer titles. That's what I'd want from GOG too: stricter curation but allow the uncurated entries as well.

I brought hitman up with the specifics PRECISELY because details matter. I want curation to be limited to objective verification of the presence of DRM and needless online connection requirements. Whether or not a game has DRM, or if a single player game works offline, as per the GOG ad on every game page, can be verified objectively. There is no doubt there.

All other forms of curation are subjective. What the curator may find bad, I may find good. What the curation may find good, I may find bad. No one can make that judgement for all. It's like trying to curate food. Curate whether its expired or not, don't try to curate taste!

Yes there are other DRM-Free stores out there, but they are far less known and far less feature-rich. GOG offers a blend of modern features and DRM-Free sense of ownership, and preservation via offline installers, should the unthinkable happen. The competition only has the latter. Can I get cloud saves, achievements, or easier game downloads on Itch, Zoom and Humble Bundle? No. So while I highly appreciate their efforts, they still have a long way to go before they can measure up to GOG in terms of service and feature offerings.

I want as many games to come to GOG for the same reason that most people want most games to come to Steam.
These platforms are the largest and most feature-rich within their respective markets (Steam's most popular in the general audience area, while GOG is the most popular in the DRM-Free audience).

I do want GOG to be "flooded", because that's a good thing. People often point to Steam and tell me it's an example of a market flooded with junk. I am aware that there's junk there, but I don't see it for myself. I don't get junk offered to me on the front page, nor do I have to sift through it to find good games. The store gives me offers based on my purchases. So if someone finds Steam flooded with crap, dare I say that it's probably because they tend to buy that very same crap.

itch is a bad example, because that store has hardly any big-budget productions. Everything there is extremely indie and low budged. It's filled with prototypes and proof of concept ideas. There are no AA or AAA games there to shuffle the store with. Steam has all kinds of games to shuffle the store with. So does GOG.

Steam has curation. The best kind of curation. It's the community curation (look it up). You can subscribe to many of the community curators available on Steam and that will alter the ads that you see on the store, with the curator's recommendations. You can find a curator with similar preferences and mainly see those kinds of games, without blocking entry for other games. I will NEVER accept arguments that forbid entry for games. It's easy to be pro-barring until something you wants gets barred too.

It's hard enough to convince developers to go DRM-Free, so the last thing we should do is bar willing ones. Every game deserves to come to GOG and GOG's criteria should focus only on determining whether a submission meets the DRM-Free requirements for games as well as offline play for single player games.

Everyone likes different things. The only way to satisfy everyone is to allow all kinds of games, while providing improved filtering and community-lead curation, which are also filters in a way. Have some empathy. if I were to turn my empathy off, I'd start an anti-sports game campaign, because I think they are all copy-pasted garbage. The fact that they are based on real life games with set rules means that they cannot be anything other than copy-pasted garbage. That's just my personal opinion though and there are plenty of people who like sports games. Heck, EA wouldn't be so rich if there wasn't a market for it. I have empathy though and because of it, I will fight for all sports games to be allowed to GOG, despite personally hating every single one of them. It's not for me to judge, nor for anyone else. All we can judge is the presence of DRM.

And this view of mine will not change, so we may as well agree to disagree on this.

You are posting this as if it would be a fact - but nothing is "proven" here - it simply is your very own valid opinion. If I browse through my own library however I will find the opposite. The majority of games that were really fun to me were indies. Indies in most cases try to do something new, artistic or different while AAA games are made to appeal to the masses. Take a game like BROK The Investigator. It's a point and click / beat em up hybrid. Afaik this has never done before and I had great fun playing it. I would never get such a game from AAA devs because the concept in itself would be considered to be too much of a risk when it comes to sales.

Indiana Jones 3 and 4 have fighting sequences which depending on the play style can be avoided however.

And yes, I know, it's somewhat different.


And I agree ... I know a log of indie games that are great. These days not everyone needs a publisher for his games.
Even if No Man's Sky had a rough start, it turned out to be very good game. Frostpunk, Everspace, Wadjed Eye's Adventures (and many more, Voodoo Detective, Chinatown Detective Agency, Born Punk, Gibbous, Randal's Monday) are often better than what the big companies produce. Are these games 'smaller'? Yes, most of the time. But bigger is not always better.

Chinatown Detective Agency features a interesting combination of game and real world. You sometimes get hints about a location in the city, then you need to look these hints up in an internet browser to find the solution.

Sadly the vaste majority of indies available on the big indie platforms just look as if they were too chintzy to hire someone to do the graphics. The pixel art hype is long over, now it looks just silly.

The majority of games that were really fun to me were indies. Indies in most cases try to do something new, artistic or different while AAA games are made to appeal to the masses. Take a game like BROK The Investigator. It's a point and click / beat em up hybrid. Afaik this has never done before and I had great fun playing it. I would never get such a game from AAA devs because the concept in itself would be considered to be too much of a risk when it comes to sales. https://www.pakshaheens.com/navy-education-officer-branch/

Thinking on this more...

... it would seem that GOG is in a pickle.

GOG's curation was initially advertised as creating a boutique experience, but a boutique experience in the brick-and-mortar world, is one of perceived superior taste and exclusivity.

With no exclusive games -- other than a few old games (niche) as exclusives -- and a number of mediocre to poorly rated games released over the years (most recently with seeming asset flips), GOG cannot easily claim either "superior taste" or "exclusivity."

And with no strategy for adding extra value to their proposition (physical goods, etc.?)...

... the entire "boutique experience" curation seems more gatekeeping than sales-making. And if it's not primarily sales-making...

This makes me wonder if the entire curation process is less than honorable? But let's not dwell on that...

This is purely speculation...

... but...

... one would think a store with no exclusives and difficulty in getting DRM-free content...

... would jump on absolutely every completed DRM-free game!

Yet that doesn't seem to be the case.

Don't get me wrong...

... I quite like a number of titles GOG has been releasing... including Wartales, which I mistakenly never in a million years thought would make it to GOG...

... but...

... GOG came out swinging with ambition and attitude... but seemingly hasn't changed that attitude to suit market reality. I still think their initial strategy was to build on CDPR exclusive product, but when that didn't happen...

... it's taken them forever to pivot to a more market-oriented stance. And in my opinion -- at this point -- a scaling back of curation to allow for more consistent complete DRM-free games releases would seem warranted. But then I would have scaled back curation long ago in favor of actual people in customer service! But that's another can o' worms.

The DRM-free "genre" is not an easy one. It worked well initially for customer good will, but over time -- as the industry has become more DRM-ridden -- it's certainly become tough for GOG.

I have no perfect solution(s), but customer service, added value strategies, and as many complete DRM-free indies as possible would be a start.

And with that I'll bow out. I think I've said all that's in my head and anything more would just be to hear myself talk.

Fingers crossed GOG. Most of us want you around and strong for many years to come! But also I'd warn that you shouldn't push indie devs away (as I've noted in other threads that some devs are uncertain why they were rejected and have decided to forego future GOG releases!). Make things easier... not harder. ;)

THE FACT that Indie Game makers (name one) are not half as rich as Bethesda or Bioware (before EA), all of them put together. Prove my point is real.

But on the flip side, this gaming market may change in favor of Indies, as all big names have gone Complete Woke & Double & Triple Down. I may have to find some good one.

Why do you equate sales with enjoyability? Maybe I am misunderstanding, but is this the argument that "McDonald's is the pinnacle of all hamburgers" argument? I do understand that you could say, the more sales means the more people "enjoyed" it, but I think this is neglecting a lot of the nuance of the situation. As an example, a person could "like" a AAA game well enough (I honestly don't see how with these modern always-online crapfests, but stay with me...), but they could really "love" an indie game which is a more niche work but more appealing due to the risk-taking, additional flavors, etc. that aren't provided in AAA games. Thus a niche game could produce more total enjoyability if its audience absolutely loves it and the AAA audience are just churning through the trendy game of the month.

Mind you, at several points I have been very difficult to impress when it comes to indie titles. I am not biased in favor of them; if anything I think there are way too many pixel indies and they should look like PS2 games, at minimum. My favorite titles (while often fitting the technical definition of "indie") are "AA" sort of titles where they do not have the big budgets of the AAAs, but do have higher production than most other indies, and provide full sort of experiences with interesting twists not found in AAAs. That is the heart of it for me: I want amazing and immersive worlds in games. Many AAA games fail this standard and many indie games (usually built around a singular mechanic or concept, or meant to be "bite-sized", etc.) also fail this standard.

I am not a "status quo ideologue" so it is best I don't address the latter point of your comment.

I find AA the most enjoyable these days too. It's the perfect balance of reasonable budget with decent production values and creativity with integrity. These days, AA feels like AAA from a decade ago. A great experience, that's not overly-bloated with pointless collectibles or grind, nor filled with micro-transactions or pointless online requirements.

Sure, I do still play some AAA or low-budget indie titles every now and then, but AA have really hit the sweet spot at this point.

I feel the two areas GOG should work to correct are their lack of Japanese titles and retro/arcade-inspired indie games. The former is hugely untapped, with some heavy-hitter titles from Capcom, Konami, From Software, and Sega entirely absent. These are companies that spearheaded gaming's golden age, yet they have very little to no representation in GOG's library. It almost feels like dumb luck that Dragon's Dogma and Metal Gear Solid got on here.

I believe there was an interview recently where a staff member said that companies rarely approach GOG themselves, so where is the push for these games?. Are they trying at all?, are they not?. It would be nice if the company would make things clear to their customers so that we aren't dishing out flame posts when it's not necessary.

GOG is losing money by not having these games on here. Millions of gamers look back on these games with great fondness.