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General discussion (archive)The Inevitable Decline of GOG(98 posts)(98 posts)
(98 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted April 13, 2009
Ok so the title was practically trolling buuuut...
what i am getting at is that a pattern i see in alot of bussineses basically has them start out altruistic, offering a high quality service and basically being quite awesome, and then sliding downhill once reaching a certain level of success and the greed machine kicks in.
I am sure most of you have probably experienced something similar at least once in your life. Now I am not posting this because i think that is happening already just more out of the fear i always have upon finding such a great new business that offers such good service. From Chippies to Grocers and Clothes shops ive generally ended up being dissapointed eventually with alot of places that get successful and prosperous.
So to my point such as it is. Do any of you share the same fear? is there anything the gog community can do to help prevent anything like that happening? or are we doing enough already? If at all possible it would be nice to hear some gog guys thoughts on the subject if any (oh and i hope i dont offend any of you if you read this because i 'm certainly not trying to). Or maybe im just being stupid and paranoid...
Posted April 13, 2009
Meh, look at Steam. They're still going strong, offering (relatively) high quality service, and they're not greedy... well, yes they are. How can GOG get greedy? They swore that their games would either be $5.99 or $9.99. To change the price model would be madness.
Posted April 13, 2009
The only decline I could think of would possibly be located somewhere in the support sector of GOG. Not because the support team is lacking here, but because I could see them getting swamped with more and more emails as they get more and more games. Thus, what was once lightning fast support might become slower due to sheer volume...
(Also I was using the loosest possible definition of "decline")
Posted April 13, 2009
If the customers continue to hold GOG to the high standard they have already established, then they will maintain that high standard or fail. There is nothing more any of us can do. That being said, I don't believe GOG will decline as others have done in the past, too much of the service's appeal is based on that high standard, so they have a vested interest in maintaining it, moreso than others.
Posted April 13, 2009
Someone should sticky up this thread to remind GOG that we love them for what they are right now. Capitalism is the bane of distributor-consumer relations, so I really hope they don't go down that dreaded path of exploiting consumers trust eg. suddenly implementing DRM, or ceasing support for certain games, or communications breakdown
To me, GOG having promos is not about them making money, but rather, them trying to reach out to us nostalgic gamers who want to wait for a price drop before getting the games. To me, it's like a personalised service over the Internet, something that platforms such as Steam haven't given me yet
GOG = walking into Joe's burger restaurant, and Joe greets you with a smile
Steam/Impulse/other online stores = department store with the salesgirl hawking over you while you're browsing the goods
I hope that feeling stays that way, but then again, people with relationships break up all the time :'(
Post edited April 13, 2009 by lowyhong
Posted April 13, 2009
Meh, look at Steam. They're still going strong, offering (relatively) high quality service, and they're not greedy... well, yes they are.
As much as I like Steam, you cannot deny that they are rapidly going down hill. The support is lacklustre at best these days -- illiterate monkeys would do better at actually comprehending your questions and answering in a manner which relates to your ticket.
Patching is a bit of gamble. One of Steams selling points back in the day, but now there are several games still needing patches, some have been waiting for around a year. The publishers/developers state they have sent the patches to Valve, yet no patches ever turn up. I was even told once by support that they had lost the patch! And yet, they didn't even then ask the developer to resend it!
Nope these days, the likes of GOG, GamersGate and others are now doing it better than Valve and Steam. And I don't see Valve trying to better themselves. Once my goto place for games, Steam is rapidly becoming my last resort due to the decline in their quality of service.
And I daren't think about how much they lost in sales in regards to Braid. Seeing as they (once again) ****ed up the release, ending up getting the game up almost 15 hours after pretty much everywhere else.
Of course, it's highly likely that if GOG ever grows to the size of Steam that they too, will lose some of their shine. That's just the nature of the beast. But unlike Valve, I hope that people at GOG will be quick to recognise areas in which their quality is failing and will address those areas.
Posted April 13, 2009
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bansama: Meh, look at Steam. They're still going strong, offering (relatively) high quality service, and they're not greedy... well, yes they are.
As much as I like Steam, you cannot deny that they are rapidly going down hill. The support is lacklustre at best these days -- illiterate monkeys would do better at actually comprehending your questions and answering in a manner which relates to your ticket.
Patching is a bit of gamble. One of Steams selling points back in the day, but now there are several games still needing patches, some have been waiting for around a year. The publishers/developers state they have sent the patches to Valve, yet no patches ever turn up. I was even told once by support that they had lost the patch! And yet, they didn't even then ask the developer to resend it!
Nope these days, the likes of GOG, GamersGate and others are now doing it better than Valve and Steam. And I don't see Valve trying to better themselves. Once my goto place for games, Steam is rapidly becoming my last resort due to the decline in their quality of service.
And I daren't think about how much they lost in sales in regards to Braid. Seeing as they (once again) ****ed up the release, ending up getting the game up almost 15 hours after pretty much everywhere else.
Of course, it's highly likely that if GOG ever grows to the size of Steam that they too, will lose some of their shine. That's just the nature of the beast. But unlike Valve, I hope that people at GOG will be quick to recognise areas in which their quality is failing and will address those areas.

Surprisingly enough, L4D is still their best selling game, even with weekend deals (last 2 sucked though).
Posted April 13, 2009
What I'm really hoping is that if it does come to the swamped thing, they make the decision to hire more people & maintain excellent service rather than maintain profits and let the serice decline.
Posted April 13, 2009
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cogadh: If the customers continue to hold GOG to the high standard they have already established, then they will maintain that high standard or fail. There is nothing more any of us can do. That being said, I don't believe GOG will decline as others have done in the past, too much of the service's appeal is based on that high standard, so they have a vested interest in maintaining it, moreso than others.

Well, that's what these threads are about (although why this thread was made, rather than continuing essentially the same discussion here, I don't know), an attempt by us to hold GOG to their previous high standards. The number of posts from different people seems to indicate that there is a general sense of a decline in the service here.
Posted April 13, 2009
Surprisingly enough, L4D is still their best selling game, even with weekend deals (last 2 sucked though).
I really don't trust that top sellers list as it's generated several times a day and is only good for the exact moment you look at it. Further to that, there is no indication of number of units sold. So all it could indicate is that within that time frame, they have sold 5 copies of left for dead versus 2 copies of Braid and 0 of everything else.
Weekly and monthly charts would be far better at indicating real sales. =/
What I'm really hoping is that if it does come to the swamped thing, they make the decision to hire more people & maintain excellent service rather than maintain profits and let the serice decline.
That's what I'm hoping too.
Post edited April 13, 2009 by bansama
Posted April 13, 2009
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cogadh: If the customers continue to hold GOG to the high standard they have already established, then they will maintain that high standard or fail. There is nothing more any of us can do. That being said, I don't believe GOG will decline as others have done in the past, too much of the service's appeal is based on that high standard, so they have a vested interest in maintaining it, moreso than others.
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Wishbone: Well, that's what these threads are about (although why this thread was made, rather than continuing essentially the same discussion here, I don't know), an attempt by us to hold GOG to their previous high standards. The number of posts from different people seems to indicate that there is a general sense of a decline in the service here.

I disagree. An unexpected problem with a game or two out of over 100 while the service is still in beta is not an indication of a decline, it is just an indication of why the service is still in beta. I was affected by one of the problems (Septera Core) and the response from GOG's support was still as timely and helpful as ever. From my perspective, there has been no decline whatsoever.
However, if others are perceiving a decline, then by all means, they should make GOG aware of that in a reasonable manner (i.e. intelligent posts like this one, not "GOG is teh suck!" posts), after all, perception of the service is what we are really talking about here.
Posted April 13, 2009
tis envitable power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely (you know who you Microsoft!) steam is falling under the first catagory not the secound as there is plenty of compertiton thanks to gog
Posted April 13, 2009
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Wishbone: Well, that's what these threads are about (although why this thread was made, rather than continuing essentially the same discussion here, I don't know), an attempt by us to hold GOG to their previous high standards. The number of posts from different people seems to indicate that there is a general sense of a decline in the service here.
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cogadh: I disagree. An unexpected problem with a game or two out of over 100 while the service is still in beta is not an indication of a decline, it is just an indication of why the service is still in beta. I was affected by one of the problems (Septera Core) and the response from GOG's support was still as timely and helpful as ever. From my perspective, there has been no decline whatsoever.

However, we are not talking about a random game or two out of the total of what is available here. We are talking about problems with a much higher percentage of the games released in the past couple of months than has been the case with earlier releases. Also, we are talking about several people experiencing a marked decline in the service of customer support. Yes, the service is still officially in beta, but that should mean a gradual rise in the quality of the service, not the opposite.
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cogadh: However, if others are perceiving a decline, then by all means, they should make GOG aware of that in a reasonable manner (i.e. intelligent posts like this one, not "GOG is teh suck!" posts), after all, perception of the service is what we are really talking about here.

Which I think is what people are doing. I have seen no "GOG is teh suck!" posts. Sadly, I have also seen no posts from GOG employees, adressing the issues that people are raising.
Posted April 13, 2009
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Wishbone: However, we are not talking about a random game or two out of the total of what is available here. We are talking about problems with a much higher percentage of the games released in the past couple of months than has been the case with earlier releases. Also, we are talking about several people experiencing a marked decline in the service of customer support. Yes, the service is still officially in beta, but that should mean a gradual rise in the quality of the service, not the opposite.
you remember when quakelive went public beta?
how the site was effectively down all day due to new signups?
yeah, that's what I'd like to attribute the decreased quality of service to, a larger number of users obfusticating the system, I imagine that they will hire people as necessary to handle issues, I highly doubt all of nine people run steam, and I highly doubt that the few wonderful personalities we've seen here on the forums are the only people at work on this project.
Posted April 13, 2009
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bansama: As much as I like Steam, you cannot deny that they are rapidly going down hill.

True. For many Europeans (including me) Steam died with adding the "regional pricing" crap.
Post edited April 13, 2009 by klaymen
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This is my favourite topic
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General discussion (archive)The Inevitable Decline of GOG(98 posts)(98 posts)
(98 posts)