heavy curation
archaic systems
archaic contracts
"bad" rep re. communication
and so on

GameStop?

I doubt it, people don't want to have 10-15 different storefronts for each publisher to have their own. I will never use the windows store, and anything that looks like 'games for service' I actively avoid. Steam is by far the more popular and best(despite how terrible it was when it first started) storefront, any company that doesn't take advantage of the potential sales volume there is bound to lose a lot of money.

Fallout 76 is not interesting in the least to me. 'Online' 'multiplayer' 'action' role-playing video game, indeed. Everything in the quotes from this game description tells me I will not enjoy it. It's probably the death knell of the franchise.

The future is absolutely every major company having their own client and Steam mostly being for indies and smaller companies. I think that's 100% likely, and a good thing.

I think it's inevitable that the larger publishers will choose to have their own client, both to keep all the revenue and to retain total control over their products. Some people may bitch and moan, but when it comes down to the choice of not playing the latest game or putting up with another client, the vast majority will just buy wherever they have to.

Hear, hear!


You're right that they weren't anywhere similar, as the GOG version actually has value :p


Would you care to explain your reasoning? Because to me, moving from one monopoly DRM service to many individual DRM services is not necessarily any progress at all. The root problem isn't being addressed.

I believe that Scheme itself will continue to infest gaming, though. If anything, it is the large publishers that will struggle first, imo. One can argue that the big hit games these days are indies and smaller companies. Assuming the next "Fortnite" is on Scheme, people will flock in droves whereas say, Assassin's Creed sequel 1209340293106 will not cause them to race to the respective service it is on. The big publishers are having less and less to offer, and what they do offer is overly produced "safe" focus-group stuff designed to appeal to lowest common denominator. This is part of what makes indie gaming attractive to people. Personally I think it is a false dichotomy between major vs indie, because I'm not satisfied with today's major publishers or most of today's indies. I long for the days when big developers were not as much explicitly about chasing max dollars. Hence why I support "good old games" :)

How is that better for the customer? Don't know about you, but personally I have absolutely no desire to install and use a new client, each time I want to play some new AAA game. I'd rather see big publishers offering their games on all available platforms, including GOG, and leave the choice to the customer, so they can pick the platform they prefer, instead of being forced into something inferior which only benefits the publisher.

I can. Very easily. But again, my expectations about the little world of videogaming are fantastically low, so, this explains that.

I think Steam will eventually lose all the big publishers but there's still a long way to go. I understand why Bethesda is doing this because if I remember correctly, Steam takes a cut of every game/item sold, right? Was it 30%? This is no small matter. They also probably want full control because of Creation Club.

Maybe it will be rough for Bethesda in the beginning but they've got enough games to start their own store. Would be nice if they first released their future games on their site for a period of time and then release them on Steam.

I'm just gonna sit back and enjoy watching how this ends. I don't usually play online multiplayer games, I play one online game. Dota 2 and that's it. Singleplayer all the way so I probably won't be getting Fallout 76, so this won't have an impact on me. I don't mind having multiple clients installed as long as the games are of high quality.

Valve doesn't need big publishers anymore .

https://steamcommunity.com/market

And don't forget : another Valve money making game willl launch in November .

https://www.slashgear.com/valves-artifact-card-game-launches-in-three-months-pc-first-01539805/

For both of you: it's simple, curation. As i said, devs and pubs don't like platforms that minimize their success. Steam has too little curation for most tastes, but GOG has way too much, to the point of rejecting games and having to apologize later when they find out it wasn't smart.

Speaking of which, despite the success of Huniepop here, where are their other games? Steam just threatened them, so you'd think that they'd be trying to push their games here, right? So where are they?

The kicker is, Itch isn't a DRM platform, so it's not about piracy or anything.

What concerns me the most is the desire to control how customers feel about games. Sure, there are trolls, but there's also the controversy regarding companies deleting negative reviews. GOG has been under fire in both directions over these two issues.

Isn't any CDP game their line of games?

Not exactly, GOG and CDPR are sister companies owned by the same holding company

To be fair, GOG publishes directly a few old games now, like the "- General" series and some Warhammer titles.