Absolutely and 100% correct, yes.

What we're looking at in some naive descriptions of market control nowadays is the influence of traditional economics - which was based on the elementary principle of the scarcity of goods. In digital distribution, these principles have no meaning whatsoever. The traditional monopoly meant exploding prices - the modern monopoly however can undercut any competition and even go so far as to give away their product for free in a larger scale. Which is what has happened for years now (remember all that "free Steam keys for developers" bullshit?), and of course no alarm bells of the PC game community have been ringing at all... :(

Koch Media has recently announced a Broken Sword 5 special edition for the German market. That's a game that's already available DRM free, a Kickstarter game. Aaaaand guess what Koch Media forces on their customers. I have no idea why they would do that. But they WILL give money to Valve for this retail special edition for a game that was available DRM free right from the beginning. If that isn't an absolute control over the market, I don't know what is.

And I absolutely despise how they dare to sell a game in such utter digital publisher chains that people have SUPPOSEDLY liberated by giving money on Kickstarter and via PayPal.

http://crowdtamers.com/about/about-trevor/marketing-maestro-for-hire

Snipped just to save room, but I want to say that I agree broadly with all that you posted here. DRM-free is definitely a huge component of GOG for me as well, and frankly if they drop it then I am likely to abandon PC gaming as a hobby once again, or at least scale it back to just what indie developers I can find who still embrace it.

I also agree that GOG probably cannot sustain their business solely on old games, which is why I have no problem with them selling new titles and indies. Indeed, I have been very happy with many of the new game discoveries they have brought to light here. That being said, I do believe there is still a rich vein of old games to be mined, though the work of rights ownership research team has uncovered many of the difficulties involved in securing those rights.

So yes, we are on the same side here. GOG should definitely focus on what can enable them to survive and prosper while also holding onto those principles which attract us to them. It will be interesting to see how today's announcement fits into that overall scheme.

Yeah I think people just don't understand anymore what a monopoly is. It has become so normal for most of us.

Koch Media just confirms the trends then. Really bad. I think they just wen't with the flow then. It was already mentioned in the Kickstarter that they will probably do steamkeys.

You're right. It is nothing - just my rotten memory :-P
Great movie - althought first time I watched somehow 'censored' version in which they cut some 'sexual-related' scenes making Leo-Matilda relationship more ekhm...appropriate. :-)

side track for non-anti-Steam users..... Sniper Elite 2 is being given away free for a few more hours.

I'll see if I can find it when I get back from my appointment this morning. If I recall it was a single sentence in another GOG post, an almost throwaway line about "along with the impending departure" or something similar. It was a thread started by GOG if I recall, and a recentish one at that.

Never mind.

Don't sweat it, the scene still came to mind the moment I read it.
Not only a great film, but perhaps Jean Reno's best role as well.


I assume that you didn't read my post as I mentioned it as being posted by jkiiskinen - I'm asking for a link to what IAmSinistar said.

You sure it wasn't this one, from AGB?

Thanks, but I think HL wanted to see the post I was talking about here on GOG. There was a sentence in an otherwise unrelated post that hinted someone was leaving. I thought at the time the bluetext leaving was G-Doc, as he was on a long leave that seemed like it may have been something else.
Bingo, that's exactly it.

I suspected that AGB might have been an alias for a bluetext, since they were very generous with the games. But I confess I don't know who they actually are, and their generosity was laudable whatever the origin.

Just saw the link to TeT's blog where he announces that he is available for hiring. I wish him to find a new job well and I can say that he was the face of GOG for a long time and overall did a good job. Customers were certainly used to him. I also hope this is not a sign that GOG is in difficulties.

Can you post the link of TeT's blog? I couldn't find it. It's really a pity if it's a true that he is no longer a GOG member.

http://crowdtamers.com/about/about-trevor/marketing-maestro-for-hire