It seems that you're using an outdated browser. Some things may not work as they should (or don't work at all).
We suggest you upgrade newer and better browser like: Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer or Opera

×
Community
General discussionGOG simply does not make enough money and may never(132 posts)(132 posts)
(132 posts)
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
This is my favourite topic
Posted December 20, 2024
I've been saying this for maybe a decade now already, but, as an independent company, with the amount of money it makes (or rather, doesn't) GOG probably would've gotten shut down ages ago.

The only thing keeping GOG afloat is the fact that the owners have their own BIG IP's where they can save a serious cut of the sales by selling through the GOG store. If it wasn't for those GOG probably would've been a distant memory already.

I still laugh every time I see the Steam forums get flooded with all these Denuvo haters complaining about it because DRM BAD, and pretending it's all about DRM and preservation instead of it preventing piracy, and then I look at the state GOG is in. Disingenuous bull. If that many people actually cared about DRM GOG would be in a much better place.

Fact is, most people just don't care (enough). Convenience, savings, social features or gamified store meta are more likely to sway people's opinions than DRM that affects people maybe once in a blue moon and even then they only care till the issue is solved.
Posted December 20, 2024
high rated
avatar
Pheace: Fact is, most people just don't care (enough). Convenience, savings, social features or gamified store meta are more likely to sway people's opinions than DRM that affects people maybe once in a blue moon and even then they only care till the issue is solved.
Perhaps, but you are preaching to the wrong people, because most of us who are here, and have been here for a while, do certainly care quite a lot about (the lack of) DRM.

The fact that GOG isn't making enough money (vs what they are burning) is a consequence of some bad decision making on their end IMHO. Instead of focusing on offline installers and staying in a DRM-free niche, they felt the need to become part of the gaming client crowd and trade blows with Steam and/or EGS, becoming the better alternative. That's simply never going to happen.

Fun comparison btw, since EGS is much much more of a massive money sink-hole and could definitely not have kept going without a huge inflow lifeline from Epic.
Post edited December 20, 2024 by WinterSnowfall
Posted December 20, 2024
avatar
Xeshra: Nah, regarding the GOG revenue it seems almost a draw. They are in average able to sustain no losses but there is as well close to no profit... so we could say in this term it is a "non profit company". Which company could actually honestly say this? Almost no company... other than GOG. Perhaps EGS as well but... EGS is "sponsored" by a single rich owner only (almost) and the main wealth is probably coming from the UE5 engine profit. So the situation is kinda different...
EGS is payed only by Fortnite and this year Epic got another 1.5 billion from Disney.
The UE5 margin is said to be not that high, but for paying even less for the engine you can go for Epic (time) exclusive.
In fact, not only EGS will rise and fall with Fortnite, whole current Epic Games will. Very likely UE5 is not able to keep current Epic Games (minus Fortnite Dev Part) alive on its own, even less with current pricing model - that is kinda build for dragging games to EGS though.

In the end, EGS is a vanity project that started out as loose money to become as big as steam to attack steam - and years later it still is...

GoG is a vanity project on its own, but in a different way. Because the heads of the parent company do care about the old games and the none DRM stuff (and they still do). For sure they would like to see GoG being bigger, but as long as it does not loose them tons of money, they go with it.
That is the small difference, that GoG is kinda self sustaining most of the time and does not need infusions in the billions from other sources.
Or better said, it doesn't get those - that it could "need" those is another topic.

But as EGS shows, even burning through shitloads of money can't make you the biggest fish.
It is even very likely, that EGS would implode if it would have to stand on its own feets. They cut down in exclusives and giveaways a bit, but only a bit.
At last for GoG most people who got a game here have used money to get it. Epic on the other hand has a huge problem of turning "customers" into people who actually payed money.
Post edited December 20, 2024 by randomuser.833
Posted December 21, 2024
avatar
Pheace: Fact is, most people just don't care (enough). Convenience, savings, social features or gamified store meta are more likely to sway people's opinions than DRM that affects people maybe once in a blue moon and even then they only care till the issue is solved.
avatar
WinterSnowfall: Perhaps, but you are preaching to the wrong people, because most of us who are here, and have been here for a while, do certainly care quite a lot about (the lack of) DRM.

The fact that GOG isn't making enough money (vs what they are burning) is a consequence of some bad decision making on their end IMHO. Instead of focusing on offline installers and staying in a DRM-free niche, they felt the need to become part of the gaming client crowd and trade blows with Steam and/or EGS, becoming the better alternative. That's simply never going to happen.

Fun comparison btw, since EGS is much much more of a massive money sink-hole and could definitely not have kept going without a huge inflow lifeline from Epic.
It could help if GOG had the same library as Steam, but most developers don't want to give up their DRMs. Sometimes there isn't anything GOG can do about it. Maybe someday, but that's neither here or there.
Posted December 21, 2024
avatar
Unreal_Reality_2: It could help if GOG had the same library as Steam, but most developers don't want to give up their DRMs.
Sure, but having a client like Galaxy doesn't address that problem at all, only increases the maintenance costs. You could argue there are some people who want DRM-free content AND a modern delivery platform that auto-updates, has achievements and so on, but IMHO these two user requirements don't overlap all that much.

In any case, it is what it is, the milk won't go back in the jar now.
Posted December 21, 2024
i wont go back to steam
Posted December 21, 2024
I mean it would be nice if you could get past versions of games on GoG.

I doubt they have the harddisk space though.
Posted December 21, 2024
avatar
Geromino: I mean it would be nice if you could get past versions of games on GoG.

I doubt they have the harddisk space though.
Curiously, you can roll back to a previous version on galaxy and make your own rar to keep in most cases, so the versions are here. Why they do not implement this with the offline installers is another gog mystery.
Posted December 21, 2024
avatar
Unreal_Reality_2: It could help if GOG had the same library as Steam, but most developers don't want to give up their DRMs.
avatar
WinterSnowfall: Sure, but having a client like Galaxy doesn't address that problem at all, only increases the maintenance costs. You could argue there are some people who want DRM-free content AND a modern delivery platform that auto-updates, has achievements and so on, but IMHO these two user requirements don't overlap all that much.

In any case, it is what it is, the milk won't go back in the jar now.
I just thought if the two platforms had the same library, people could go to GOG instead of Steam for their games, and GOG could make enough money from that for maintenance. Though, that was very wishful thinking on my part. Thank you for clearing this up.
Posted December 22, 2024
It is all too easy to get carried away with assumptions when it comes to GOG and DRM-Free, and how many of their customers care about it.

There are just so many things we don't really know, and GOG chooses not to enlighten us.

How many folk download Offline Installers?
How many just use the direct download & install process with Galaxy?
How many backup their games, especially properly?

How easy is it for GOG to get enough new games to sustain themselves? Especially old games.

GOG for sure, need an influx of two things ... new games, new customers.
They cannot keep selling the same games to the same customers and hope to survive for long.

And while games are getting older all the time, the really old games are limited in number, and many have issues.

And GOG have proved to the world, that there is money in old games ... hell, we have even started to see ridiculous high prices for many of them now, when before they had no perceived value or very little in most cases.

And how much do those in charge of GOG really care about DRM-Free?
Or is it just a selling point that is somewhat unique enough to seemingly maintain a sizable customer base ... if done right?

How many compromises have GOG had to make, and what are they?
Where are GOG ultimately heading?

etc etc
Posted December 23, 2024
avatar
Pheace: Fact is, most people just don't care (enough). Convenience, savings, social features or gamified store meta are more likely to sway people's opinions than DRM that affects people maybe once in a blue moon and even then they only care till the issue is solved.
avatar
WinterSnowfall: Perhaps, but you are preaching to the wrong people, because most of us who are here, and have been here for a while, do certainly care quite a lot about (the lack of) DRM.
I think Pheace is on these forums mainly to troll GOG users. It appears as if he is annoyed GOG is still around as he has been predicting the death of GOG for so many years.

avatar
WinterSnowfall: The fact that GOG isn't making enough money (vs what they are burning) is a consequence of some bad decision making on their end IMHO. Instead of focusing on offline installers and staying in a DRM-free niche, they felt the need to become part of the gaming client crowd and trade blows with Steam and/or EGS, becoming the better alternative. That's simply never going to happen.
Hard to say really. It seems quite many GOG users use the Galaxy client so it may well be there are lots of GOG users that do care about the existence of such client, even if at the same time many of them also appreciate the possibility to download and install offline installers without the client, if such need emerges (something that Pheace obviously doesn't appreciate, and may be annoyed if other people appreciate it).

While I don't use Galaxy much at all myself, I do think many people, who got a free GOG code for The Witcher 3 or Cyberpunk with their graphics card or whatever, might have been very annoyed new GOG customers if there had been no option for a Steam-like client to download and play the game. Then, maybe in time, some of them learn also about the ability to run the game without the client, and think that sounds like a useful option that e.g. Steam nor EGS do not provide (officially at least).

avatar
WinterSnowfall: Fun comparison btw, since EGS is much much more of a massive money sink-hole and could definitely not have kept going without a huge inflow lifeline from Epic.
From the end-user point of view, at least GOG offers something extra in the service over Steam, something that EGS does not offer. Yes. the optional DRM-free offline installers.

With EGS, from the end-user point of view, it is hard to understand why one would buy a game on EGS instead of Steam, unless it was a (timed) exclusive to EGS and you don't want to wait until it appears on Steam.

In GOG, at least there is such a reason to buy a game from GOG, instead of Steam. It is debatable of course if it matters enough for enough people, to keep GOG afloat, but at least it is something to justify the existence of GOG.

avatar
Timboli: It is all too easy to get carried away with assumptions when it comes to GOG and DRM-Free, and how many of their customers care about it.

There are just so many things we don't really know, and GOG chooses not to enlighten us.

How many folk download Offline Installers?
How many just use the direct download & install process with Galaxy?
How many backup their games, especially properly?
And even if we knew those figures, we still wouldn't know how many of the Galaxy users still also appreciate the option to download offline installers, even if they are not using them actively at the time. Not actively downloading the offline installers is not a sign of not caring for the ability to do so, if the need emerges.

Many people may appreciate the ease of use and extra features that using the Galaxy client provides, like one-click download and install, achievements, cloud saves etc... but at the same time also appreciate the fact that they have the option to back up their games in the form of DRM-free offline installers, even if they haven't used that option yet actively.
Post edited December 23, 2024 by timppu
Posted December 23, 2024
avatar
WinterSnowfall: Perhaps, but you are preaching to the wrong people, because most of us who are here, and have been here for a while, do certainly care quite a lot about (the lack of) DRM.
avatar
timppu: I think Pheace is on these forums mainly to troll GOG users. It appears as if he is annoyed GOG is still around as he has been predicting the death of GOG for so many years.
What a poor attempt at projection.

I've never predicted GOG's death. I've always said the exact same thing. GOG is still here because of the CDP IP holder/games propping it up (because it saves them a ton selling their own games here). That hasn't changed, so there's no reason for GOG to be dead.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
This is my favourite topic
Community
General discussionGOG simply does not make enough money and may never(132 posts)(132 posts)
(132 posts)