GOG is not making money with thier existing 'pro consumer' strategy. So they're gonna have to come up with SOMETHING to make money. They 'claimed' that Cyberpunk wasn't going to be GOG exclusive. I wouldn't bet the farm on them keeping that promise. They already back tracked on fair pricing.

Investors care about money. And GOG is losing money. Money investors are not happy about. And investors dont care about 'pro consumer' strategies. They care about 'money making' strategies. How long do you think the holding company can hold out against investors being unhappy about GOG before they're forced to make changes. Changes users are probably not going to like.

"maybe" they go with a pure honor system instead. Who knows. But they honestly really just need to get out of the 'we support games' part of their business. Its not worth it.

lol, expert opinion!

Keep winning, brother!

Have you watch one? I guess not...I've already covered exactly why this game is a turd in earlier posts. 30 minutes for a combat. Boring combats. Ridiculous character creation and options that make little or no sense. Having 30 races and 30 skills and 30 weapon bonuses. Throwing the kitchen sink at character creation does not make a good game. Variety is one thing but silly overkill of nonsense is another.

I watched an hour Youtube video and that covered character creation and 2 combats, the second wiped the party...what a fun game...

As dtgreene already pointed out, making Galaxy mandatory would destroy their remaining USP and alienate their users. At that point they would just be an inferior version of Steam that might as well not exist.
Whatever changes investors might insist on, your suggestion seems guaranteed to lose them even more money.

I dont disagree with that sentiment, but I mean GOG's gonna make a lot of hard decision. And given that "DRM FREE" as a USP isnt really working out, I honestly wouldnt be suprised if they moved that way

One counter point to that is the rather distrubing fact that GOG has a open job position for "Head of Development ofr Galaxy". So while I did say making Galaxy mandatory could be a solution, their techncal back end to pull that off seems to be in dire straits without a technical lead on the project. Probably don't expect a Linux version of that anytime soon either.

If they did elect to abandon DRM-free as a USP, they'd basically have to relaunch with some big new USP to draw in a whole new audience. What that could be I have no idea. I doubt it could be enough for me to stick around.

Thats kinda why i feel like they should honestly dump all their DRM free, support, etc and just become an basic online store.

Is it sexy? No

But I mean GMG isn't bleeding money like its going out of style either. How long do tyou try to be 'unique' before you're out of business?

Heck go with the semi publishing route. GMG and Humble are now semi-publishers. That might be a way to go too.

If they did that, they'd basically have to relaunch. I don't think starting a new "basic online store" with no USP is a particularly sound business proposal, but maybe that's just me.

I don't need to watch a fucking youtube video, I have the game on Steam.

I was forced to buy it there because my retailer of choice refused to carry it.

Wow, failure states in a video game! What is the world coming to?!

Seriously though, maybe this game just is not for you. But that's ok. No one's forcing you to buy it. Hell, most of the stuff gog DOES release doesn't appeal to me either. But I don't make it a point to go from thread to thread telling them how I think this game I never played sucks and how, judging by some screenshots and maybe a youtube video I saw, it shouldn't be released here.

But you DO go around chastising GoG and anyone who disagrees with whatever game you think GoG is dumb not to carry. Frankly, maybe you should get over yourself. I'm not the one who makes dozen of threads complaining about GoG's curation to cover each and every rejection of games which aren't selling well anywhere else...

Sorry. But I'm a user here too. And I have every right to state my own opinion rather than be bullied by the likes of you.

Is THAT the best you can do to back up your "opinions" on this game?

Bullying - are you for real?

Whatever, keep being a jerk...
I suggest anyone to pick any Youtube video. I'm not even pointing people to any particular one, watch it and form their own opinion. I feel the game flaws should be rather obvious. It should be clear that there is nothing special about this game.

Yea people keep saying this as an indicator that the game was failing on GOG (in an attempt to point out that GOG isn't that big) but the truth is the game was a) primary a card game was never going to be a big seller and b) had very shitty marketing. Nobody had a clue what Thronebreaker was or even that is was related to Gwent, CDPR basically started their marketing like month before release. CDPR handled the marketing for the game very poorly, and quite frankly basically laying the blame on GOG then releasing on Steam was a dumb statement, especially when all they had were GOG sales. No Steam, no consoles, nothing... yet already deemed sales for the game to be bad.

The game doesn't even appear to be a big seller on Steam based on reviews... 2.5K on Steam vs about 410 on GOG currently. And when you factor in Steam's 30% cut, GOG and Steam probably isn't far off each other sales wise.

If Cyberpunk was released exclusivity on GOG, I would bet money that is would find huge success here. It has the hype, huge marketing, and pull potential to get gamers on GOG. And even if if it sold less then Steam, with the 30% cut it probably wouldn't matter as much, especially if it was a timed exclusivity. Even though I am aware there are reports that they don't plan to make it GOG exclusive.

No, the only blame there is for how bad Thronbreaker did on GOG (and in general) was because of CDPR.

Doesn't matter really. To get those keys, those third parties had to pay for them. Maybe not at full cost, but they didn't just get them for free. They probably paid what retail pays, before markup. So assuming a $60 game, and a 30% markup, they probably at-least paid $42 per key.

I'm not moving the goalposts but I'm making a nuanced point. You posted an irrelevant list of prices in response. The point I am making though is that if GOG were to try and become a direct competitor to Steam, such as by embracing your propaganda suggestion to make Galaxy mandatory, the prices on Steam can be reduced to undercut GOG and drive GOG completely out of the market. They already do undercut try to GOG to some degree, and past Steam sales have offered some discounts that GOG could not likely ever afford to do (e.g. Square Enix bundle of almost 50 AAA games for $75). The developers allow that to happen, too, don't they? (rhetorical question).

That you are so hung up on the semantics of me using "Steam" as shorthand for the ecosystem (including developers), or hung up on other people in the other topic saying "Steam is DRM" meaning "the Steam ecosystem is DRM" is telling when the points are relatively obvious. You really don't see why games would be able (thanks to the store, thanks to the developer giving their blessing to the store) to be sold more cheaply on a bigger and more popular store versus a smaller one? That they aren't at this current point in time is not saying much to the point being made about the hypothetical future of GOG trying to compete more directly with Steam.

If GOG's "best" experience is to be a little-brother store of Steam, people have no incentive to buy on GOG. This also doesn't even get into people who have built libraries, achievements, community interactions on Steam already. Can you explain in a direct fashion why you think GOG becoming Steam-lite is the road to compete with Steam for the long-term? Please answer without saying the usual canards of "well, being DRM-free isn't working", because that doesn't mean GOG becoming DRM works either. In fact, I and several other users have pointed out many times already why it is unlikely GOG becoming DRMed would be a viable strategy *for GOG*'s place in the market. On that note, maybe you will now care to respond to a point that I have consistently made every time you bring up your "GOG is going to have to make hard decisions, therefore GOG needs to make Galaxy mandatory" propaganda. I see it didn't take long before you started spewing it in this topic too. So let's start off anew; why are you jumping immediately to this conclusion of "mandatory Galaxy" when GOG could alternatively sell DRM-free alongside DRMed games (you know, like you would claim your beloved Steam does)? Never mind the fact that Galaxy is essentially presented as the "default" or "best experience" throughout the site already, so those not already using it are making an active effort to avoid it.