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satoru: [snip]
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rjbuffchix: 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.

"SOrry I made an ad hominem attack, didn't verify the claims, and have no idea what kinds of moderators they are but hey I'm still right!"

Welcome to "intellectual Dishonestly"
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rjbuffchix: 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.
Wholeheartedly +1
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satoru: snip
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.
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satoru: 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.
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.
Post edited March 01, 2019 by user deleted
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USERNAME:satoru#Q&_^Q&Q#GROUP:4#Q&_^Q&Q#LINK:1231#Q&_^Q&Q#snip#Q&_^Q&Q#LINK:1231#Q&_^Q&Q#
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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.
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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.

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.
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
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satoru: 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.
Hi satoru

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

thanks.
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satoru: 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.
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.

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satoru: 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.
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?

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satoru: 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
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."

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satoru: 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.
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.

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satoru: 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.
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.

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satoru: 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.
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.

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satoru: 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.
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.
Post edited March 01, 2019 by user deleted
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lazydog: I'm not moving the goalposts but I'm making a nuanced point
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
That you are so hung up on the semantics of me using "Steam" as shorthand for the ecosystem (including developers),
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.
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?
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.
Please answer without saying the usual canards of "well, being DRM-free isn't working",
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.
. 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.
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"
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.
Oh look more ad hominem attacks. Its so quaint, are you running out of bad ideas?
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morrowslant: If people are trying to get this thread killed, drag tinyE in here.

Nobody explained what Aeon of Sands was or why it got rejected from GOG as well.

Grimoire is still being patched for "micro-issues" for the past 15+ months, which is good but makes for a disjointed game experience. Waiting for Grimoire V2 to be stable with a reliable defintions of what stats + skills actually DO in game before buying it.
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RWarehall: Because virtually no one has actually played it, just like Grimoire. It's yet another example of a game that doesn't sell on Steam, patterned after games of 20 years ago, which no one buys, gets rejected, and the usual people talk about how great the sales would be here "because GoG". I checked Steamspy the day it was mentioned here. The day prior it had a maximum "1" concurrent player on Steam.

Let me check how it did yesterday...hey look...interest is growing: Peak concurrent players yesterday: 2. At least Grimoire had 11.
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.
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RWarehall: Because virtually no one has actually played it, just like Grimoire. It's yet another example of a game that doesn't sell on Steam, patterned after games of 20 years ago, which no one buys, gets rejected, and the usual people talk about how great the sales would be here "because GoG". I checked Steamspy the day it was mentioned here. The day prior it had a maximum "1" concurrent player on Steam.

Let me check how it did yesterday...hey look...interest is growing: Peak concurrent players yesterday: 2. At least Grimoire had 11.
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morrowslant: 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
Post edited March 01, 2019 by satoru
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kohlrak: The issue is, if he was affiliated with GOG, the controversy that he brings would more than likely be his opposition to some presumption about GOG, not GOG saying "yeah, we'll even host Alex Jones 'cause we're for free speech." Instead, it'd be fodder for someone like Kotaku to write more hit pieces. It'd be trivial to blast him and GOG at the same time, or even just side with him for once and blast GOG, which gives them incredible amounts of money, but then the board is in an uproar, because they're worried about their stock in the game falling apart due to the negative press coverage. And the people that just hate gog would then have more fodder to throw at people for why they should use steam, epic, etc instead.
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rjbuffchix: What "presumption" about GOG, though? And, wouldn't it be valuable to correct whatever negative presumption about GOG there is? Currently, there exist presumptions that GOG or at least the curation team is being run by "SJW" and that this is directly why the curation system is the way it is. The board of investors is likely not aware of these presumptions, but the presumptions are affecting many purchasers' decisions in the meantime. In addition, there is mainstream backlash against a lot of alleged "SJW"-ness...so, if anything, bringing on someone like this dev may galvanize GOG. Personally, I don't care for politics, it's about the games for me. That is also how I would hope GOG spins it..."this game is here due to its merits as a game", not because of any perceived political messaging.
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.
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satoru: I mean GMG didnt really 'relaunch' to do thier publishing thing. They just kinda showcased their published titles more on the store. Publishing sorta falls at least in line with how their existing curation works anyway so they'd probably be in slightly better position to do it.
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.
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satoru: Other htan basically Australia and NewZeland basically no store is legally obligated to provide you a refund

The EU laws ENFORCE the fact that your right of refusal expires the nano-second teh game hits your library. Period. Once the game shows up in your library, you have no right to a refund legally under EU law. Steam and GOG offer refunds OUTSIDE of the legal requirements, but they are not legally obligated to their voluntary refund policy. You click "buy" and you immediately give up your right of refusal on the game, and this is enshrined in EU law.
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satoru: [...]

North america has no legal framework requiring refunds

EU has some but again most are grossly mis-informed about that

Only Australia and NZ have that

You claimed that they are 'legally obligated' to provide refunds. When that's obviously not the case for 99.999% of the world
[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]:
1. Save where the exceptions provided for in Article 16 apply, the consumer shall have a period of 14 days to withdraw from a distance or off-premises contract, without giving any reason, and without incurring any costs other than those provided for in Article 13(2) and Article 14.
Let's look at what Article 16, Exceptions from the right of withdrawal, says about digital goods [emphasis added]:
Member States shall not provide for the right of withdrawal set out in Articles 9 to 15 in respect of distance and off-premises contracts as regards the following:
[...]
(m) the supply of digital content which is not supplied on a tangible medium if the performance has begun with the consumer’s prior express consent and his acknowledgement that he thereby loses his right of withdrawal.
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]:
In the EU (in this case, the 28 Member States + Iceland, Lichtenstein and Norway) you have the right to return purchases made online or through other types of distance selling, such as by phone, mail order or from a door-to-door salesperson, within 14 days for a full refund. You can do so for any reason – even if you simply changed your mind.

The 14-day cooling off period does not apply to all purchases. Some of the exemptions are:

[...]

* online digital content, if you have already started downloading or streaming it and you agreed that you would lose your right of withdrawal by starting the performance
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.
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satoru: Make galaxy mandatory
And there you have taken the piss.
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morrowslant: 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.
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satoru: Basically think of it as "Wasteland 1" but if it was made more around like the mid 90s
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.