Do remember to take your medication - especially in these Corona times.

DRM free is the only thing that makes GOG unique. Without it, GOG would become irrelevant.

Yeah this person is a troll, probably someone's alt. some wanker ;)

Some weeks ago one of the oldest members of the GOG community came back to explain that he had abandoned the forums because he felt that the old spirit of the forums was gone.
It saddens me to see that this place is slowly getting more toxic. And filled with people who clearly don't see things the way us old "grognards" do.
Maybe that's the price to pay for GOG getting more popular, I suppose. More and more people see GOG as just another videogames store, while me and some others saw it as a project and a new business concept.

Fortnite + Weekly Freebies screams very young audience. Epic probably has the youngest demographic among PC clients.

Younger people who started PC gaming in the last 15 years don't know there was life before Steam. They often don't even understand what DRM-free means.

GOG clearly caters to a slightly older audience.

Ohh we got a wanker, maybe do your research first mr.Newbie? toxic community? really? the only one toxic here is you...im sorry but others may have already said this but you sir are a big no no troll lmao
...also do something about ur non existent GOG library before trying to fight an arguement so you at least have some sort of a chance of winning.

Why would you think that?
A gamer is a gamer, and most would get a game they want wherever they can at the best price they can, so what you say makes no sense. It is not like DRM-Free is a big baddie that will hurt them.

Thanks for all that info, good to know. :)

Your view completely ignores the bigger long term picture.
If giving away a game for free was so bad, none of them would do it. In many ways it is akin to spending thousands on advertising and promotion, because that is what it does.

Is Epic hurting GOG?

I hope so...

A lot of you folk are making an awfully big assumption about the numbers who buy games here at GOG and why. You might be quite surprised at how many here ultimately don't care that much about DRM-Free.

For sure, DRM-Free is a big drawcard, and many perhaps most would have a preference for that. But having a preference is not the same thing as hating the DRM model, and many here quite happily use Steam etc, and if DRM-Free disappeared would not be overly concerned.

I wonder what percentage archive their games though, onto hard drive or just rely on the cloud? It is generally the young who favor the cloud, and who I would imagine are the larger customer base here. And they tend to get what they need when they need and are not collecting as such. That is the modern mindset.

I archive to multiple hard drives, but I have still made an investment in the continuing success of GOG, for there are updates and patches and future Windows support etc to be considered ... then there is accidents and the un-predictable future.

Some of you are not thinking right, when you say, but the games Epic are giving away for free, are in many cases old games and have been at GOG for ages, and so already milked here anyway. One good portion of GOG's successful business model, is their old games, and many still come here for those.

I can really only speak for myself, but it makes a lot of sense that I would not be the only one, that for many of those old games I haven't bought at GOG yet, because they haven't been cheap enough, and then wow, they became free at Epic. I have grabbed a lot for free at Epic like that.

Do I feel guilt, for the many free games I have elsewhere, especially at Steam and Epic? Yes I do, but I also realize you should not have all your eggs in one basket. And part of that, is realizing that GOG above all, are a business, and so will do whatever it takes to stay alive or grow their profit ... or at least what they think they need to do ... and many don't get it right, over-extending and so forth.

DRM-Free in all reality, despite how much I agree with it, from a business perspective is a good selling point ... for now. It also allows GOG to compete with other stores, because they have something a little different to offer.

Yes, GOG also offer some unique games, but I doubt that would be enough to survive on.

Most of those who really care deeply about DRM-Free, are older gamers .... never forget that.

P.S. Some of you no doubt think I am a traitor to GOG and DRM-Free, because I have all those free games. But having them, is not the same as playing them. They are there mostly for that rainy day scenario ... or as I have suggested elsewhere, can be seen as a fully featured demo ... after which I might then decide they are worth the asking price at GOG, and or so I can get any of their DLCs here.

I've yet to download or install any of the Epic free games I have been collecting for something like a year it must be now, and longer for those from Steam. The only games I have installed from Steam have been a few of the Valve ones, not available elsewhere ... barely played them though, and they weren't free ... though extremely cheap when I bought them. Unfortunately, I had already bought into the Steam model of DRM accidentally, years ago and took too long to check and realize what a mongrel it was, especially back then.

Broken website forcing changes in browser used
old discontinued loved downloaders
the push for their steam-like program i don't want
Very infrequent free games of any kind
biased censorship that i've seen


Can't say i have a huge amount of love for GoG at this time.

Epic got a product that's giving them ton's of money, so they decided they could challenge steam. What i have tried of Epic's launcher/games is decent enough. Though even if Epic takes over, Valve/Steam has so much money in the bank it is doubtful they would have to do anything. Though the cost of maintaining servers is the only real factor, as i highly doubt their 'freetoplay' and lootbox games will be abandoned any time soon.

It's Gamerager. He's done this before. Just ignore until the mods ban him again.

Epic has not affected my purchases on GOG. I rely on GOG to buy mostly older DOS games and early Windows games that is not available anywhere else. Another important reason i buy a game on GOG is to be able to download and store offline on an external HDD. Epic has not affected either of these reasons why i shop here.

In fact, Epic giving free games is hurting themselves because i have not bought any game from them. All the free games that i have gotten, i never planned to buy on any gaming site UNLESS they were in a cheap bundle. Epic is just growing my backlog much faster for FREE, so i cant complain.

Epic has really shocked me with some of their freebies. Sure, i expected cheap indie games, but some of their freebies made my jaw drop. Just to name a few (Kingdom Come Deliverance, World War Z, Subnautica, Assassins Creed Syndicate, Mutant Year Zero, etc). They must be spending ALOT of money. Hopefully, its going directly to the developers, so they are properly compensated.

Well, it certainly has mine, that's for sure. Though in many cases, if the price here were right, that need not be so, as I certainly have re-bought many games I had on disc, just to get DRM-Free and updated. Many of those freebies have DLC though, so ultimately I would not want the DRM version of those, so an additional motivation to re-buy at GOG.

As have I, but I believe in being forward looking too.

On the face of it, it certainly seems that way, but they surely have a long term goal in mind, so I would be cautious about drawing too many conclusions.

I've not paid for anything at Epic either, and certainly don't intend to at this point. Still, I cannot forget how kind they have been to me .... all those free games ... so you never know ... maybe if something really exclusive grabs hold of me, who knows.

Yep, I don't know about shocked, but certainly surprised ... especially for how long it has now been happening.

Once again, we don't know the ins and out of the deals they make with devs and publishers. So we need to be cautious with our speculations.

That said, I can see it hurting, especially in the short term .... many of us have a hell of a lot of free games now to play through. Some could think ... that's all they need for years. Certainly with all I have at GOG and Steam etc, I probably need never buy another game for the rest of my life.

Maybe. I thought this was beneath him tho, but haven't seen him post recently either.

While I agree with some of what you say in essence, I also believe there would eventually be a silver lining ... DRM on games would disappear, probably forever ... because of trust issues, that would need to occur.

So yes, Steam dying would be terrible in the long short term, but it would also depend on how they died, and how the Devs and Publishers reacted, and whether records are available and trusted. And really, they would have to do the right thing for consumers, or suffer the back of the game industry being broken overnight.

In any case, I doubt it would ever happen, and probably be like governments supporting banks. Too many have a vested interest in ensuring everything doesn't go belly up. Because of that, at best, the GOG DRM-Free model can never win, only be managed very carefully and cleverly ... if it wasn't for the cloud and average modern mentality, things might be different.