Bear in mind that, even though they went public, the original CDPR founders between them hold a majority share of the company. Therefore, they are still the de-facto owners. What they say goes and they cannot simply be booted out by the minority shareholders.

Therefore, I disagree. Even though they went public, this is not about survival, it is about greed, pure and simple.

Agree to disagree.

The free float percentage for CDPR is around 65%...which means they do not hold a majority share of their own company
(sidenote: going public and getting in with "venture capitalists" are two of the worst things some companies can do, imo)

Ok. I thought I had seen it mentioned in another thread that they still had an overall majority. I guess I was mistaken about that. So, it may be partly about survival then, although selling out that much in the first place is all about greed.

If there is any evidence supporting those claims I would like to see it.

And what kind of 'investors' are these supposed to be?

Yes but what kind of threat do those 65% pose? What kind of control do they have? Just look at the board members - they clearly show that free float has approximately no control over the company:
https://www.cdprojekt.com/en/capital-group/board-of-directors/

Edit: "In 2009, CD Projekt's then-parent company, CDP Investment, announced its plans to merge with Optimus S.A. in a deal intended to reorganise CD Projekt as a publicly traded company."
All members of the board were affiliated with CDP before that date (2009).

Publicly traded companies are at the mercy of shareholders. When you get investors buying stocks, disappointing them, despite actually making money, can cost a company a LOT of money. Look at the financial reports for CDP, for EA or Activision. There are times when a game sells millions of copies and turns a profit, but doesn't meet sales quota expectations and investors start selling, causing the value of the company to tank, and actually losing them money in the long run. It's the way the market works. Once a company gets big enough and becomes publicly traded. They aren't making games for you anymore. They're making games for the investors. Since GOG falls under CDP's umbrella along with CDPR, then the goings on at GOG are also influenced by investors, as they will want to see certain levels of growth or they will pull out investment. Its not about sitting on the board, it's about not dropping that value which could lead to a spiral of losses.

Of course

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Besides what Paladin said in post 171, look up "vote of no confidence".

In essence they can, among other things, sometimes get higher ups in companies replaced.....etc etc.
(dunno if that includes the founders, though)

In particular, I would love them to add the following categories for their multiplayer/co-op:
- LAN
- Hot Seat
- Self Hosted Multiplayer (ex: Factorio, Terraria)
- Galaxy Multiplayer

It would definitely influence some of my purchasing decisions.

What are you referring to? (I mean something which actually applies to CDP and not some other company.)

Yes "sometimes" in some other company this kind of thing happens. I am questioning here whether there is any proper evidence that this kind of thing played a role in CDPs perceived ethical 'fall from grace'. Show me the evidence. They are publicly traded and thus there is for the public (including you) the advantage that a lot of information is publicly available on their website. I have yet to see any evidence that any of those "investors are the ones pushing the company in the wrong direction" claims is true.

And the way they are messing with their shareholders (see the lawsuits(*)) may that even make a real possibility. But that which those suing shareholders complain about has to do with the management NOT doing what they want (like not being lied to) - so from my POV its rather the other way round. The management mistreats both shareholders and customers. (And I consider deceiving shareholders as part of that 'ethical downfall'.)

(*) https://www.gog.com/forum/general/cdpr_faces_4_lawsuits_from_investors

I totally agree. The same goes for locked cosmetics and other SP items. If GOG's policy is to tolerate these things on their store, the least they can do is to clearly mark which games are affected, for those that would rather avoid them. And I mean not just with some easily-overlookable small print below the system requirements.

CDP(R) tells their shareholders that "priority: gamers" and "honest and direct communication with players" is part of their business plan(*).
And their developers "consistently prioritize quality" (*).

So from my POV its obvious that CDP is not doing this "selling out" for the (perceived) sake of their shareholders. In fact they are doing this "selling out" in such a manner that they are dishonest with both their shareholders (see this here, also see previously linked lawsuits) and their customers.

(*) https://www.cdprojekt.com/en/capital-group/business-model/
https://www.cdprojekt.com/en/wp-content/uploads-en/2018/08/management-board-report-on-cd-projekt-capital-group-activities-in-h1-2018-1.pdf

I don't understand the intent or business plan of the investors. Sadly VC money and public trading are a fact of life for many companies looking to grow. What's confusing is how they intend to grow.

So you just bought enough shares in CDRP to have some say in how things are run. They want to develop AAA games. Sure that seems like a good plan. They also have this storefront called GOG known for DRM-free content and older software. It doesn't have tons of market share but it has a niche appeal. Do you:

A) foster the unique things about the storefront and try to increase awareness of the benefits offered drawing new users and increased sales, or
B) eliminate the aspects of the store that drew it's niche following and attempt to compete in the wider online market against other stores(there are multiple but we all know I really mean Steam).

The investors (or whoever is calling the shots these days) seem to be leaning towards B. They are free to do so but I think unless they have a fortune to spend and a ton of deals/connections they're going to end up an also-ran. A decent storefront that can't offer the library size of others, won't define a solid set of guidelines on what DRM will be allowed, and lacks some of the functionality offered by other platforms. If I'm missing something feel free to point it out. I'd love to be wrong on this.

The fiasco with Cyberpunk 2077 hasn't been what they envisioned (I can't run it so I have no real points to make but it's impossible to ignore that things didn't go entirely according to plan), so why mess with GOG right now? I can't imagine profits have massively increased from the choices made. I have no numbers to back this up but all I've seen is behavior that alienated some users and didn't bother others. Nothing that would caused swarms of new users and purchases. Maybe it isn't even a plan and these things that have agitated some of us are all random unrelated decisions. Somehow that's even worse because it means they've angered some of their user base without any real roadmap of how to replace it.

If you are trying to imply that "investors" (I am assuming this means shareholders as I have yet to see evidence of some other type of 'investors') have a business plan or even know enough about the real business plan: Do you have evidence for that?
(CDP keeps critically important parts of their business plan secret from the public which includes the ~66% free float. Just look up investor calls and the vague statements on their web page about future games.)

Far as I know management/board (same people mostly, also control ~33% of shares) are calling the shots.

Yes you are missing something. There is another purpose of GOG: To support future CDPR games (presumably microtransactioned DRMed MP games). This is even sort of in their business plan/s on their web page.

As I have just said. I dont think they are doing the GOG things they are doing for the sake of GOG but for the sake of future CDPR games. Consider here that (IIRC) CDPR makes >95% of CDP profit and GOG makes almost no CDP profit.

What I said and what paladin said, of course.
(and yes, they do apply, as CDP/CDPR is a publicly-traded company)

Some of us already provided information/etc on this topic....you are free to believe or not & use that info as you so choose.

Those are vague PR-speak buzzwords that they could shape to mean anything.

Well of course......GOG(store/site) allows them an avenue to sell those games in various countries while keeping most if not all the money from each sale(vs the cuts that Steam/Epic/etc take).

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Agreed 110%