Totally agree on that. One can collect funny cat videos downloaded from Youtube.

Indeed.

I have huge Epic, Steam, IndieGala, Itch.io collections. I even have fair sized collections for other stores ... Humble, Microsoft, Big Fish Games, etc. The huge majority were free games though.

I would define a collection, as something that far exceeds your regular use or ability to use on a regular basis, and that keeps growing in many cases. I have a Humble store collection of games, even though it stopped growing a few years ago. Somewhat similar for Microsoft Games, though I could still potentially add to that collection from time to time.

Some of my game collections only happened because of COVID, when some stores were giving away freebies in large numbers.

P.S. Whether you truly own a collection, is of course another matter. With DRM-Free it is possible.

That would not, could not. have lasted very long, not with intent to make profit and survive.

The well of customers would have gone dry eventually.

You'd have to ask GOG how much money they expend on costs to get a game working on modern OS, but depending on the game, it could be significant, even with all the tools available, and from what I have read in posts made by GOG, they have had to invent their own tools.

For the well to not run dry, when it comes to games, so that old customers keep returning, you have to continue acquiring them, and spending money on them. Acquisition of old games can be a slow and lengthy process, and often is according to GOG.

No new games (old or newer), means no returning customers. And eventually those interested in the few games you have start to dwindle when it comes to new customers. As a store you would be relying on attracting notice for starters, and if you remain niche, you don't get much.

As much as I like some of the games at ZOOM Platform for instance, I have only acquired a small collection of them, though I still check their offerings regularly. If GOG died, then I wouldn't necessarily spend more money at ZP, not unless they took advantage by growing their games enough and lowering prices. It would remain to be seen if they could do either of those things well enough or even desire to.

I also suspect that ZP owe a degree of their continued existence to GOG. GOG has made many gamers bother about DRM-Free as a significant option. That would have had a flow on effect to other stores who also provide DRM-Free.

You cannot really compare any of them to GOG, and certainly not Epic, who have a big long term goal and plenty of money behind them and continued revenue from other gaming aspects, not least the Unreal engine. Many of those revenue aspects would certainly not be welcome to many GOG customers.

And like I mentioned in my last post, many DRM-Free stores owe their survival to GOG's impact with DRM-Free. So you cannot look at them in isolation. And I have already explained before why I don't spend much money at ZP and haven't for ages now, and I haven't spent a brass razoo at FireFlower games, despite grabbing a few of their freebies. Looking at what FF has available, and their pricing, they are just not an option for me, and I suspect many others, or you would hear about them more. That would not change for me with GOGs demise.

Both FF and ZP appeal to a certain demographic when it comes to customers. For FF especially, it is not very similar to the GOG demographic of customers, and with ZP it is very limited.

The market is very different now to what it was 14 to 15 years ago, which means niche stores like FF and ZP can sort of survive now, though it is not clear on how well.

We are yet to see the result of Epic's big experiment and gamble.

I don't think you can really compare a collection of stamps to a collection of games, unless the stamps were virtual and easy to duplicate and share at the very least. Not that I am suggesting we do that with GOG games, though I will certainly be doing so for my kids.

Games are certainly not just for looking at their cover, they have a significant practical application as well.

The value of something you collect, plays an important part obviously. So for many, stamps would hold value because of what they could be sold for. With games it is very different, certainly on a personal level, for what you can get out of them, entertainment wise etc.

P.S. I have a pretty good stamp collection buried away in my storage room somewhere. It used to hold a lot of meaning for me, when I was young, many decades ago, but eventually bored me, despite being cool to look at and wonder about some of the places. I dig it up every ten years or so and show my kids or remind them I have such. None of them have ever bothered to continue with it. I suspect some of the stamps would be worth quite a bit now, but I am just not interested. It holds more value for me as nostalgia.

P.S.S. I have a large collection of games on disc ... or I should say large collections, if we include some console variants as well (N64, Xbox versions, etc). So cartridges as well as discs. While there is a lot of them, I don't consider they are worth much, and so would not even bother to attempt selling them, for so little return. They might be worth something to a niche collector, but would they be willing to pay enough, and what kind of guarantees would be expected of me. I'd rather keep them for the nostalgia of my kids.

Timboli has a legitimate point that many and/or most GOG customers probably have backlogs of games that are far too numerous for them ever realistically to have time to play all of them.

They could reasonably be called "collectors" even if they don't identify themselves with that label, and even if they've never even thought about the fact that their massive backlogs consist of a collection.

So ... in conclusion
Collectors alone won't do.
Without collectors GOG would have died.

So if we expect "standard" customers to thank us collectors, we should also thank them.

In all reality we should thank all those who have helped with GOG's survival. As a collector I certainly are grateful to the customers and game providers and of course GOG staff who keep coming up with the goods ... not saying that things couldn't be better, but they could sure be worse.

I still think it is rather telling, that we are now here, because of the impact of collectors in GOG's early days. At the very least they would have given GOG a vote of confidence, a type of guarantee. Not enough to make enough profit, but to encourage continuation and survival.

Maybe some people here misunderstood my comment.

Of course a "collection" of lots of zeros and ones on a HDD is also a "collection"...viewed from a pure technical standing point.

But I dare any of these "collectors" to go to an actual collector's meeting, and - when asked what they collect - to point to their HDD(s) and answer: "I collect video games...and here is my huge collection!"

I guarantee you: the looks, that that statement will earn you, will be worth the attendance fee a thousandfold.

Absolutely not.

Without a steady stream of day-one releases (indie to AAA), I'd guess most of GOG's sales are from "good old game" collectors and double-dippers. That is a niche market, but a market nonetheless.

Most of the games I own on GOG, I've purchased on other platforms in the past. Sadly, this often means that I've already played each game in question and therefore I'm more discriminating on price a second time around. Still, I'd love one day to have duplicated my most-loved games -- those available here -- with GOG copies.

They are worth more than the zero the collection is worth when you die.

Maybe i'm not expressing it well enough. You buy games on GoG or Steam. The games you get a 'license' for you to play and have said game, but it's non-transferable (but it should be).

Ultimately what does that mean? It means a database somewhere has an entry that gives you permission to access said file(s), it's less than 1k of data that you're spending dozens or hundreds of dollars to be given 'access', but is DRM in it's own right where the companies would rather flip you the bird rather than let you having invested hundreds of thousands of dollars on games to give to someone while alive (or after you're dead). Might as well /dev/null the entry because it's the same thing at that point as it's treated. You might have an email that said you once paid for something that no one has the right to and your rights to it are pretty close to zilch too.

Maybe a cartridge copy of Super Mario Brothers for the NES is worth oh i don't know 25 cents; But that's still more in value than an entire $1,000 collection when no one else is allowed to access it either while you're alive or after you're dead.

I definitely don't think so.

... and btw. I think most "double-dippers" are collectors. :)

Some people collect for reasons other than social clout or your approval. "Collector's meeting"? Ha! First time I hear of such a silly concept.

Also who's to say we don't have some physical games or physical "Collector;s Editions" as well? Most PC physical releases became useless paperweights the moment they swapped disc-based DRM to Steam keys. I don't collect those any more, unless they are "Collector's Editions" with some extra junk.

I collect things that do not require mommy and daddy's permission to access. Old Disc-Based-DRM PC games as well as GOG games both fall into that category.

Well, while the EULA says the account is exclusive to you and can't be transferred, there seems to be evidence that it can be "inherited" on GOG.