Repackers? You are on the wrong websites then. There are at least three big websites which offer GOG offline installers. One website even says "DRM-Free Download Full GOG Games" and promotes the idea of DRM-free games.

Good one.....you almost made me fall out of my chair laughing.

That's the word i see sometimes when i see FitGirl, Codex, FLT, etc.

He was referring to the devs that don't release games here. lol

Nonsense. There is still the context which I said before.

What you said only holds up if every unpurchased DL = a lost sale. They don't.

Yes, but it is not relevant to what I said. There are certain websites which offer GOG games with the offline installers. These websites are one of the reasons why developers don't want to release games here. That several Steam versions can easily be cracked, and that there tons of websites where you can download these repacked, is irrelevant.

GOG's offline installers are floating around and this is used by developers as one argument to not release their games here (again).

Irrelevant.

May I ask the strange question (because I really don’t know), since I was always wondering? True that the online stores lose money when one doesn’t buy a game from them and downloads it illegally by pirating sites for free. So, what do the pirating sites earn from distributing that/these game(s) for free?!! How do they earn money and make a living, to survive both as sites, and as individuals (i.e. people, handling these sites, who also have a family, expenses, etc.)? I’m truly wondering!

Believe what you want. Piracy is actively hurting this website. There are developers who don't want to release DRM-free versions (on GOG or elsewhere) because they saw that GOG's offline installers are floating around. Games were removed here on GOG because of the low sales. At the end, it boils down to the question whether the extra work for another store is worth it. Low sales and GOG's offline installers on certain piracy websites are reasons to not release a game here again.

They have usually tons of ads and some are using cryptomining scripts when you enter the website.

Yes, mother.

But it's the same thing just a different location. "I don't want to live in Nevada, they do gambling there, i'll move to South Dakota" (which also does gambling). Same logic.

Though this is also why i would push for Copyright to be greatly shortened to something like 10 or 20 years (maybe extended to 60 years for purposes of royalties for commercial broadcast but public domain otherwise). Within 4 years games/books/movies from physical media are out of print.

Though we are seeing some results of too long copyright and things going public domain. Instead of love of a franchise/series, they are making horror movies using a familiar name with no love behind it anymore. Whereas if Copyright had been within the lifespan of kids who loved and grew up with it, would have likely adopted it with love and continuing adventures into the far future.

If copyright was something reasonable like 10 years, i see a very different landscape, where games/movies are ripped, cracked, prepped, and then held onto until it expires, or only SD versions of movies are available until it expires and heavily encourages you to buy the DVD/Bluerays. With 10 years games would have mandatory requirements to include source code with the game as an extra (although encrypted, but a simple key can be distributed later), though they would probably take a more Bethesda route and just include editors so you can do your own levels and extend the game. Possibly a gentleman's agreement where free mods can be incorporated into re-releases of the game making whole new packages, though would require giving proper credit, and profits on said re-releases would be minimal namely just above cost of producing said discs.

Game/book/movie preservation would be far stronger this way, and if something doesn't have to be scoured to find something a lot more stuff would be looked at on the fly if it was interesting.

Yes, it might be the same thing. In the concrete case of GOG it does matter. There are several examples where games have been removed from GOG because of the low sales. There are several examples where developers stopped releasing their games here. There are also several examples where developers won't release their games here.

Developers have to decide whether the extra work for another store different from Steam is worth it. Pirated offline installers and low sales on GOG affect this decision in a negative way.

Piracy websites are nothing new. The issue as I see it is that GOG is only worth it for niche developers and games that are poorly optimized. Why release on GOG when better options are available?

Ask yourself if GOG really cares about the sanctity of DRM-free when it can't be bothered to maintain update parity? If GOG doesn't care why should anyone else?

As for Galaxy, is that an attractive option for devs? No? Well there you go.

Yes. There are several reasons why developers probably don't want to release a game here. There might be better options like the EGS who is throwing money at developers to release their games there. I am not saying that pirated GOG versions and low sales are the only reasons. They are just part of the problem.

There have been games on GOG which have been removed because of the low sales and there are newer games which haven't been released on GOG because other games of certain developers had low sales here.

What extra work? You have to assume you can go offline mode on steam, so the game has to play. It would be literally as before with some of the cracked games, replace the steam dll and call it a day, any calls to the API can be safely ignored. That's it... So the dll gets a ping saying you got an achievement and replies with 'ok got it' and ignores it. Literally no different, that one file can be all the difference between the two versions.

Same thing for supporting Galaxy if they decide on it, it's just a different list of calls to a different server. That's pretty much it.