She can suck out what you've had in the tank at 18 years old.

They're not doing the same. They take everything that's good about Steam (sales) while getting rid of the shit (DRM, regional pricing, near-nonexistent support,...).

Also, you should pay closer attention to Guillaume's words:
“Heavy discounts are bad for gamers. If a gamer buys a game he or she doesn’t want just because it’s on sale, they’re being trained to make bad purchases, and they’re also learning that games aren’t valuable. We all know gamers who spend more every month on games than they want to, just because there were too many games that were discounted too deeply. That’s not good for anyone.”

He doesn't say that big sales themselves are bad, he says that they're bad for gamers in that they're encouraged spend a bunch of money on shit they'll never even play. No one who has a Steam backlog of a couple of hundred games will argue the wisdom of those words.

Besides, that's just, like, his opinion, man.

That's what I was thinking. Maybe I missed it but I don't remember gOg saying anything directly negative about Steam. gOg have stated their positions on this or that stance, and those policies may be counter to Steam's particular policies, but I simply can't recall any time gOg have said "We're better than Steam because of X, Y, and Z."

-----

The good news of all of this: the OP realizes that Steam itself is DRM.

We're making progress!

On sale pricing, I don't know if that was gOg's policy to be anti-sale or if it was the position of one or two employees. Pretty sure that TET spoke against sale pricing but I think that was a personal opinion expressed during an interview a few years back, and I think he branded it as something of a 'necessary evil' in this marketplace.

Or maybe not: GOG with DRM would have nothing over e.g. Steam, hence it could be a suicide for GOG.

Proof is in the pudding: apparently GOG feels DRM-free is The Thing that keeps them on the market. :P

I really avoid getting into discussions that get long & drawn out, with the OP sticking to his/her guns regardless of what's presented to them, but here's the bottom line...

Adapt or Perish

This coming from someone who has been chasing the same bird for sixty years and while never even getting close, continues the endeavor. :D

Why I never took all the money I spent on Acme products & used it to order Omaha Steaks instead, I'll never know...

What is wrong with you people, all the OP is doing is point out some gog hypocrisy and what he gets are insults, mom jokes, spam and downrates.

Unfortunately not. prehaps like 80% of all gamers dont even know the meaning of "DRM", so how to drag theyr attention when they dont even know whats going on?

I think you somehow overestimated the general intellect of the majority...

Sure, GOG got a good user base, thats mainly those who had a bit more luck with mental conditions, so GOG was able to find a niche-market and may be successful on how they act. But majority is on Steam and in term someone is telling them "hey you got a DRM", they gaze at you with weird eyes and think "your a good inventor of crazy letters". The next day theyr PC may have big issues with stability and it may be much slower, and they may have in mind "some higher entity was punishing me, oh my bad luck".

Sorry once again, but just do not overestimate the intellect of majority, i know its harsh but its reality.

So, there isnt much publishers that are able to make "gog only" releases because in term they dont publish on Steam its most likely a commercial suicide. There isnt a single developer or publisher asking for suicide, else they simply stop to exist. GOG got a good intellectual user base able to provide a niche-market, but especially for MAIN STREAM GAMES GOG isnt suitable as a "single publisher-plattform", its just commercial suicide doing so.

The only games that may be able to be GOG only is the ones that ARE NOT mainstream. Those games are for example the REALLY OLD GAMES and prehaps some of the Indie games because GOG is like a magnet of the users with special interest, and that does include gamers of indie games and some other *non mainstream" games.

But in general, it would mean commercial suicide not to publish on Steam. The very best way on how to deal with is to release a game on Steam AND GOG and it got nothing to do with populism, thats just how the market works, its known as common sense when it comes to todays economics and how to serve a mainstream market.

I dont know why many of the people are unable to understand such basic rules when it comes to economics and that the general intellectual level of majority is unfortunately very low. So that means, the majority will set the rules and a minority will be able to set a niche-market but it will be hard setting a "general rule" as long as capitalism is part of our economy and everyone with solid intellect may easely understand the issue.

For example, Bethesda and Elder Scrolls is just a huge mainstream leecher, they dont even need to publish on GOG, it doesnt matter if they remove DRM or not because the mainstream simply dont care, they get it on Steam... me too because no other choice, Bethesda will become one of the most wealthy developers and thats it. They was even drawing back Fallout from the GOG plattform because they simply dont care. They can swim inside a pool of money every single day and stick a DRM on every single game they release, thats the hard but fun reality. As long as Steam is the money machine, not a single mainstream game developer is able to avoid, unless they like to do suicide. Because the mainstream market was accepting Steam as the "holy grail" and are praising it daily, it will be a challenge for GOG to compete, but nothing is impossible of course. Although, more likely related to "niche-supplier" (old games, indie games, users who want DRM free), but it will be challenging to provide a plattform equal to Steam for mainstream games. Why? Because majority of users and developers are not supporting it (at current time), its as easy as that, economics really is that simple.

Anyway, i dont expect any of the publishers not to release on Steam, its stupid not to do so. But i would enjoy when they release the mainstream game ON GOG TOO and at the SAME time such as the Steam version, that would be a wonderful action and one step forward toward the freedom of all the gamers all around the world. Its not populism (i truly dislike such political attached words when it comes to raw economics) but a truly innovative act toward everyones freedom because we all got the rights to get a software that isnt doing any harm to our computers, in a good shape and from a plattform many of the gamers simply enjoy.

I was not talking about end-users, but GOG, as a business. They probably haven't come up with DRM akin to Steam, Origin etc. because they know that then they would lose pretty much the only advantage they have over e.g. Steam.

Let's put it this way: if exactly the same game appeared both on Steam and GOG, and with DRM in both stores, what reason would people have to buy it from GOG? Even if GOG Galaxy client was already here?

Hence, amok's trolling about it making sense for GOG to introduce DRM to its store misses the mark beautifully. I don't believe it makes sense because then they would be like Steam, but worse and less known => people would opt to buy from Steam instead, including those of us for which DRM matters.

Like I said, proof is in the pudding: GOG still promotes the DRM-free aspect quite a lot (something that seems to irritate amok quite a bit, I don't know why), which suggests GOG thinks it is an important part of their business.

For deep discounts, it is the opposite. Maybe GOG would like there to be less 80-90% discounts because they feel it hurts publishers, themselves and the PC gaming market overall, but they also seem to think they can't afford not to offer the same deep discounts as the rest of the stores.

I hope this made it clearer for you.

I think amok was being facetious.

Meh, I was giving him the benefit of the doubt. But if he's trolling, you'll never find out the reason because there is possibly no reason.

Back on topic: I use GOG exclusively, mainly because of the smaller library, the QA, and the DRM-free games because I play offline for the most part. I had one game that used Steam (a retail copy of Mafia II) and it bothered me to no end. I basically felt like I was playing two versions of the same game, the offline, bare-bones experience and then the online, "here are your achievements but you have to put up with connection errors and advertising" one. In full disclosure, I did use Steam a while back to gift someone a game, but I haven't touched it since. The AAA titles on Steam aren't good enough for me. If I want those, I'll buy 'em for my consoles.
Yet, I haven't been as happy with recent games. The whole needlessly complex controller layouts and continued focus on multiplayer have pretty much made me cynical of the current console generation. GOG has given me plenty of single-player games and continues to do so. My PS3 will probably be the latest console I'll own and I'm happy to keep it that way (unless one of these damn consoles gets a new Harvest Moon).

Anyway, I think I derailed again. I'll go back to Sensible World of Soccer '96...damn World Cup getting me addicted to football :P

Oh, as for sales, I've bought a lot of my 400-odd games at full price, only recently have I switched to waiting for sales. Still, I bought Original War at full price recently.

A:
But the end users are part of what makes GOG successful, you cant separate the customer from the vendor, both are a very important symbiotic mechanism. In term it doesnt work on the level of "end user" it wont work for a business, no matter what business. So its hard for me to follow your "logics", when separating supply and demand.

B:
In term GOG would be competing with Steam (including Galaxy) and may have the exactly same offer considering theyr service, then its simply a "like and dislike". Steam will clearly win because it got much higher popularity, but on the other hand there is a much larger amount of games available to GOG because in term DRM is ENABLED and Galaxy too the publishers may be more likely to publish a game. But its more complicated: In term GOG is offering the exactly same games and service such as Steam they are competing on a offer that is already taken by a ruler, not just a ruked, the big ruler! The ruler is already "accepted" by majority and it would just make no sense to offer a second service with the exactly same products. Easyest example is Walmart; In order to beat Walmart someone will either have the same product even cheaper, or they will have to offer a product with special quality or shape (for example a locally grown organic product not available on Walmart). Anyone trying to compete Steam or Walmart with the exact same service is prone to fail nowadays, because Steam or Walmart already got a huge userbase and image... its useless to compete with the exact same products and in no way against a ruler.

So, INDEED GOG had to find another way or simply a different product, else there is no real success. But the point you are wrong is that GOG was founded in order to compete with Steam by supplying "non DRM products". GOG was founded in order to release a platform for GOOD OLD GAMES, thats where the name is coming from. The idea of releasing NEW AND SOON OLD GAMES was firstly introduced with the release of Witcher 2. that was the moment where the whole idea of "DRM free products" truly started. At that time GOG was still a "low rated" provider of "good old games" and there was close to no "new games" available. The founders simply was hearing the demand for DRM free and so they decided to publish Witchers 2 on GOG. There was no greed involved or other of the so called "dirty mentalitys", for example "providing DRM free in order to become dirty rich and wipe out the entire Steam market... that was unrealistic from the very beginning. GOG knew very well that 80% of gamers or so dont even know the term "DRM"; so it impossible to even challenge Steam. It will always stay a niche market and unlikely to be able to challenge Steam ever when it comes to raw sells. In term they truly are able to challenge Steam with game sells, i will draw my hat and deeply bow down in front of GOG directly at theyr HQ. So that matter is almost crazy even to think about, i would probably flip out in term it would ever happen.

GOG and project RED, even was handing out a free backup GOG copy, in order someone already got a Steam version. Do you think Bethesda would ever dare doing so? They would probably rather kill themself because they may lose theyr sanity, Same matter will apply for the developers of GT5. because "populism" is no matter to them, they are able to wipe out anyone trying to compete with them and with zero populism at all. The MAJORITY of the gamers arnt asking for moral or ethics, all they ask for is to get the junk they want to eat, and no matter the cost, gentech-Game is good too, as long as they get the correct corn (yellow in color and with lot of fat). Not a purple natural corn with low fat and without gentech (of course, most people dont even know if they eat gentech or DRM games... its well hidden and beyond knowledge).. and all the other weird junk. Thats how majority works, either face reality or dont believe it but thats my truth. GOG is provivind a niche market that may actually care for the ethical or special interests, but its very hard to wipe out other vendors doing so.

I did already read a lot of stuff from GOG and the devs most close to them "Project RED" and im certain they arnt just "clean washing" theyr image, they truly feel what they say and as a business you can barely be more ethical than that. Even the point that they think "ethical" at all is nowadays almost impossible when it comes to economy because majority simply dont care, they may soon even forget the meaning of "ethics"; most of them may consider it a useless attribute, Thats why so many people are pirating software (of course, we have very uneven income too, but weird enough that some still can buy a computer) and are supporting "bad ecomomics". They may even "steal" a GOG game with a 80% price cut from the most innocent dev with lowest amount of money, because people usualy dont care ethics.

Anyway, cant say more than that, just one thing is clear to me: I do backup GOG and they are great guys/gals. I do not allow it bashing them in any way, because from all the dirty companys out there, just a few can match GOG when it comes to ethical values and its not just "populism". Of course they are promoting DRM because its a big advantage they got, but the promotion got a meaning to the "niche gamers", not the mainstream gamers. Although they have to fight hard in order to keep up that condition, so i can absolutly understand that they are promoting it a lot, its simply a matter they are proud about, its not only "cash cash and more cash": Every business have to act economically and GOG got a lot of costs too... so they have to "sell" theyr strong spots and making advertisements. I really cant support any sort of suspective ("they only do it for theyr own good, they care less the users, or whatever") feelings, no matter what spot its coming from. In the game market there isnt a single company with a more user friendly condition, thats a fact and its totaly legitime in order to head such a way of "advertisement".

Congratulations to everyone who was able to respond to this thread without being insulting. You are better people than I.