Wholeheartedly +1

Yea I'm jut going to say this, you seem very eager to lay out a butch of baseless claims, with zero inside knowledge based on a news article and some facial reports that again you have no direct inside knowledge of, to paint a grim picture of GOG's outlook, which to be honest, doesn't really look as bad as you yourself want to paint.
This... isn't that uncommon. This doesn't mean somebody isn't overseeing the project. Matter of fact, Venom and Destro seem to be the main leads on it. I've worked in web development, and the company I was working at was looking for head manager for our projects for a long time but work still went on.

And feel free to lay out what 'baseless claims' I made

The post you're even talking about simply stated that GMG didnt relaunch their site to go into their publishing phase. So please by all means tell me what part of this is 'baseless claims'. Oh wait you didn't because you can't.

You mean there was a news article about GOG laying off employees? Something GOG themselves said was true. Wow what a baseless claim to take GOG at their word that layoffs happened. Yes entirely baseless.

Grim outlook of GOG? Yes totally baseless and not based on you know

1) Q1-Q3 financials from CD Projekt. I mean did GOG make up its own 'baseless claims' that they bled money in Q1-Q3 of 2018?
2) GOG verified that they laid off a bunch of people. Again more 'baseless claims' coming from the actual source
3) That GOG is currently looking for a lead technical person for GOG Galaxy. Yes another 'baseless claim' from you know their careers page

Does this sound like the workings of a company in good health? Because it sure doesn't. But hey you know just ignore all those 'baseless claims' form GOG directly right? GOG is obviously lying in their financials, their interviews with news outlets and on their carrers page. Indeed look at all these 'baseless claims from GOG" that I'm using.

Note that CDProjekt itself said that the GOG audience is too small. So like if they themselves admit to that, what else rae you gonna say.

This data isn't in isolation either. Its in conjunction with all sorts of other corroborating data from other indie devs that show the % sales on GOG are 'charitably' in the 10% range of their sales. Its simply another datapoint confirming what everyone already knows. GOG is a minority player in the space. You're confusing GOG and CDProjket

If you buy the Witcher 3 on Humble right now, you get a GOG key. You pay Humble, and activate the key on GOG.

Guess how much money GOG gets

NOTHING

now of course CDProjekt gets money because they're the IP holder. But CDProjekt is not GOG. GOG does NOT get money when you buy a game off of Humble/GMG/etc. Thus the $42 per key that is sold on Humble, does NOTHING for GOG. Only purchases on GOG itself are actual revenue for GOG. GOG gets $0 of that $42.

If your business strategy for GOG is "I sure hope CDProjekt makes a good game so we can sell it on GOG every 5 years" is a bad strategy. The point of my post was to show that sales on GOG directly are poor even for their tentpole game. GOG can't just rely on "God I hope CDProjekt can keep making Cyberpunk sequels" to stay afloat

Hi satoru

would you kindly answer the direct questions posted to you above by rjbuffchix

thanks.

I was referring your comments in general, not to a specific statement. But making claims like "GOG's gonna make a lot of hard decision" are indeed pretty baseless coming from an outside individual looking in. You didn't even sugarcoat it with a "In my opinion...". Or making claims about about what GOG looking for a "Head of Development of Galaxy", which you referred to as "rather disturbing", when things like this is actually rather common in both software development and business.

You mean the same article where they said they were hiring too, and even stated they have hired more people in the last few months then they have laid off due rearranging certain teams. A fact you seem to want to ignore?

When you ignore facts like GOG is more popular today then it has ever been, that sales of games appears to have actually increased, that GOG has made significant investments R&D development... then yea your grim outlook is looking pretty baseless. It's even noted in the financial report:

"Referring to other activities of the GOG.com segment, it is worth noting that the first nine months of 2018, as well as the third quarter of the year, represented the best periods in GOG.com’s history in terms of revenues from sales of videogames licensed from external suppliers."

Sounds like a company investing in their future, in future growth, and trimming fat where it needs to be trimmed and cutting teams where they need to be cut and forming new ones where they need to be formed. Obviously when that happens, not all people will easily transfer simply because they don't have the skills needed.

It is small when compared to Steam, that is a no brainier. Doesn't change the facts that a) marketing was bad and b) the game had no potential to bring in non GOG users. Those to facts together are a recipe for disaster. This was entirely CDPR's fault.

This is really irrelevant when talking about a game both releasing on Steam and GOG, most people will pick Steam when given a choice no doubt about it.... even if they use GOG too.

And this probably all that matters to CD Projekt because GOG was a backend to support that (as well as their game), and it also probably increased purchases of other games on GOG and we have no way of knowing how much GOG sold vs third parties. If I remember correctly GOG gave lots of incentives to buy directly on GOG. We also have no way of knowing if GOG included sales from third parties when they put out there claim of how many were using Galaxy to play, it's an assumption to assume they did even if it's probably a logical one.

You didn't make a 'nuanced' point at all. YOu made a claim then have literally no data to back it up then are literally changing your point constantly when shown you're full of it.

You magically claimed that "Steam" are going to decrease pricing on steam vs gog.

I provided data that showed literally the opposite of that claim.

I also provided a factual basis that developers set prices on steam. Meaning that your supposed theory is not even possible at all. But you insist on bringing it up literally in the next paragraph, more or less showing you literally have no idea what you're talking about at all. So we're shifting the goalpost BACK again are we despite the fact that this is utter nonsense

As I told you, previously, this is impossible because DEVELOPERS SET PRICES ON STEAM. Thus it is literally IMPOSSIBLE for this situation to occur. Steam cannot undercut other stores because they don't control prices. Which I already told you previously yet you seem to magically insist this is possible. May I recommend you actually stop making stuff up you have no knowledge about and stop ignoring facts. And again, your supposed 'nuanced' point I already told you was not possible, yet you bring it back up AGAIN.

Repeat after me because apparently you can't read

Developers set pricing
Developers set sale pricing

If Gog is being 'undercut' then the developers are doing that. Not Steam. oh sorry are we now literally just making up words and definitions? "oh sorry I mean developers not steam haha why would you think i was talking about steam". Like this is not 'semantics' this is literally 'changing definitions'. You cannot say "Steam is undercutting GOG" but then turn around and magically proclaim "oh wait sorry I meant developers I mean they're basically the same thing right! oh its just semantics!"

Like the utter and total intellectual dishonesty required to even utter that statement is just incredible. I mean I've articulated many such reasons. You dont' seem to want to read them. But that's also a straw man. I never said they should compete with steam. I brought up ideas so they could just SURVIVE. The 'we can compete with steam' train left 3 years ago when they screwed up the Galaxy rollout. They're not going to compete with steam, they can't compete with Epic. They're screwed. So they're gonna have to find a way to be 'not dead fighting for 3rd place over the scraps'. Survival is what GOG needs. Competing with Steam is a fever dream. Oh sorry are facts not allowed now? Because you know apparently bleeding money for 3 quarters in 2018 is something we're not allowed to bring up right? Because if that was 'working' then you know maybe you wouldnt have a profit drop of 15 million PLN Year over Year. Or you know the problem that their cut of sales is going to be less now because of Epic which they stated as fact in their Fair Pricing cancellation announcement, making their revenue stream even WORSE than it was in 2018 when they were only competing with Steam and a full 30% margin on revenue.

Nothing about their financial situation is good, that would have been bad enough without Epic coming along. Now they got a double whammy of unprofitability just trying to exist, and Epic coming and making their revenue even worse. What is their 'place in the market' because you know that stuff wasn't working in 2018. And 2019 is not better. Tell me where GOG finds all this extra revenue? Or how they cut costs? Where do you think they find the tens of millions of PLN to cover their losses other than "I sure hope Cyberpunk comes out in 2019" Oh look more ad hominem attacks. Its so quaint, are you running out of bad ideas?

Ironically, no one has said exactly what kind of game Aeon of Sands is and/or what it plays like.
Right I'm thinking: orginal prince of persia sidescroller or early rts game ala dune/dune 2 or kohan series.

Basically think of it as "Wasteland 1" but if it was made more around like the mid 90s

You expect much of a guy who has already said that GOG is run by SJWs (which we have demonstrated, it really isn't, even if it acts like it is), and uses "SJW" in the same manner as Hitler used "jews," yet even more frequently, really. You disagree with the guy, you're automatically a far-left loon. I'm definitely right of center, but i'm sure if he's reading this stuff, I'm already an SJW as well in his book. He knows that SJW is a powerful pejorative these days that sticks really well, so he's using it to his advantage. The guy, ironically, acts like one, himself. He's just completely out of control. This is not going to bring more devs to GOG, but essentially piss off any dev that GOG rejected. GOG's general curation policies are enough.

TBH, I'm sort of surprised that even itch.io is doing business with him, 'cause of the risk, but, hey, at least someone has the power to get his game DRM-free. I'm all for choice, I just don't think doing business with this guy is particularly wise, not from external pressure, but from the fact the guy likes to leverage anything he can get on people he does business with, and would certainly try to blackmail gog.

No, but my point is that if you're going to drop your only USP then you might as well be relaunching since you're going to have to get a new userbase after shedding the old one.

[emphasis added]

The one grossly misinformed about EU consumer rights legislation is you, and yet here you are making absolute statements as if you were an authority on the matter.

[url=https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:32011L0083&qid=1403274218893]DIRECTIVE 2011/83/EU OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL[/url] on consumer rights applies to distance contracts, and details the Right of withdrawal in Article 9 [emphasis added]: Let's look at what Article 16, Exceptions from the right of withdrawal, says about digital goods [emphasis added]: The site that the the European Commission maintains further clarifies on the "performance has begun" part within one's right to cancel and return an order as following [emphasis added]: Even Steam acknowledges that residents of the EU have a statutory withdrawal right of 14 days; they even have the relevant legal text posted on the link I provided.

Do you understand the concept of statutory right? It means the companies are legally obligated. The only part of Steam's refund policy that's voluntary is that 2hrs play window, something they clearly state. GOG offers a few other voluntary refund options, and has the statutory withdrawal right extended to 30 days instead of 14.

Now, please provide official source(s) that disprove what I've posted, and prove what you claimed.

And there you have taken the piss.

Ah, thank you.

I guess I'm not going to get a response? Still trying to figure out how GOG has both a grim future, while also having the best year of selling games in their history last year.