Game store GOG has a new blog post up detailing how they're doing, and it seems like things are starting to go a bit better for them. Back in 2021, I reported on how in the CD PROJEKT financials, it showed that GOG was losing money, so it seems they may be starting to turn things around a little bit.
In their new post, they showed that for 2022 they have seen an 11% increase in active users across all of GOG services with an 18% increase in their overall user base. However, GOG Galaxy only "remained consistent", so it seems they aren't seeing much growth for their launcher. They're also reporting a net profit of $1.2M USD, noting they're losing around 4% due to suspending operations in Russia and Belarus.
Nothing close to how they were doing in 2020 though, which they attribute the spike that year to Cyberpunk 2077 and COVID-19 increasing sales due to people being at home more.
As for their market split they're seeing 53% from Europe, 37% from North America, 4% Asia, 4% Australia and New Zealand and 2% elsewhere.
The amount of games releasing on GOG has been increasing every year too, although it's nothing close to what Steam has, since GOG do a little more curation on what they accept (which is at times a little weird on what they deny). From 296 releases in 2018 up to 684 in 2022.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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Quoting: EikeQuoting: InstallI prefer buying on gog over steam since you own the games. Steam is drm and you dont own those games, you rent them. I feel gog fits the same philosophy as linux in terms of freedom. gog does support linux, there might be cases where there isnt a version but most of the time they sell them.
Well, about all of this is wrong. Wherever you get software from a store, you get a licence. Steam, Gog, ... MS, ... even GPLed software - that's what the "L" is all about! So you neither own nor rent it. Some games of Steam are DRMed, some are not. Gog's "support" for Linux is so big, they aren't even making a client. (I understand why they don't, but it's still not great support.)
This is true, but a way I see it is with GOG I can download all my installers so even if they go under/I lose access/whatever I still have my games. I know Steam promises this and that if something happened to them, but I do like the peace of mind by having my library physically on hand. It's as close to owning them as can get these days.
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Quoting: RaabenThis is true, but a way I see it is with GOG I can download all my installers so even if they go under/I lose access/whatever I still have my games. I know Steam promises this and that if something happened to them, but I do like the peace of mind by having my library physically on hand. It's as close to owning them as can get these days.
You can do this with some games on Steam as well - but I have to admit that I don't know how you'd know which ones before buying them.
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Quoting: EikeQuoting: RaabenThis is true, but a way I see it is with GOG I can download all my installers so even if they go under/I lose access/whatever I still have my games. I know Steam promises this and that if something happened to them, but I do like the peace of mind by having my library physically on hand. It's as close to owning them as can get these days.
You can do this with some games on Steam as well - but I have to admit that I don't know how you'd know which ones before buying them.
That's true, and most of the downside in that case is just a bit less convenience than just not deleting the installers.
I swapped to buying more Windows games from GoG sales since throwing them to WINE is so simple these days and I do want to support them for the most part, but now that I have a Deck, not just having them right in my library is another step again.
I know, that's not hard to solve but what do I look like, a guy who's not lazy? :)
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I've been using Heroic launcher for GOG on my Steam Deck. It's pretty close to having a native client, but there are some rough edges.
Instead of building their own Linux client, GOG should consider just supporting Heroic or Lutris. I'd love it if there were some way of sharing community configurations through Heroic for Steam Deck installs of GOG games.
Instead of building their own Linux client, GOG should consider just supporting Heroic or Lutris. I'd love it if there were some way of sharing community configurations through Heroic for Steam Deck installs of GOG games.
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fenglengshun May 7, 2023
GOG is pointless to me. Why would I buy such expensive stuff compared to Steam? Evenicle was three times the price of the game on Steam. There is no regional pricing for my region. At that point, I might as well just pirate the game.
The reason why I buy games is because I want convenience of setting things up and safety of not losing saves. The warm and fuzzy feelings of paying for your stuff is just a bonus. I'm not going to pay 3x the price just because I want to feel good, especially when GOG is a much bigger company than JAST and Kagura Games, yet they managed to figure out regional pricing for SEA region much earlier.
The reason why I buy games is because I want convenience of setting things up and safety of not losing saves. The warm and fuzzy feelings of paying for your stuff is just a bonus. I'm not going to pay 3x the price just because I want to feel good, especially when GOG is a much bigger company than JAST and Kagura Games, yet they managed to figure out regional pricing for SEA region much earlier.
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I really like GOG and their no DRM policy. :)
I always buy from GOG if the game is available on Steam as well.
Offline installers FTW!
I always buy from GOG if the game is available on Steam as well.
Offline installers FTW!
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Quoting: EikeI'd assume an API call would clear up the correlation between app ID and game name. That's what you guys mean, right? There are 3rd-party sites like Proton and SteamDB that provide the correlation as well. Those sites will have copies of the app ID database.Quoting: RaabenThis is true, but a way I see it is with GOG I can download all my installers so even if they go under/I lose access/whatever I still have my games. I know Steam promises this and that if something happened to them, but I do like the peace of mind by having my library physically on hand. It's as close to owning them as can get these days.
You can do this with some games on Steam as well - but I have to admit that I don't know how you'd know which ones before buying them.
That said, it's a bit of a weird imaginary situation where the Steam library didn't work but the CDN still did.
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Quoting: 14Quoting: EikeI'd assume an API call would clear up the correlation between app ID and game name. That's what you guys mean, right?Quoting: RaabenThis is true, but a way I see it is with GOG I can download all my installers so even if they go under/I lose access/whatever I still have my games. I know Steam promises this and that if something happened to them, but I do like the peace of mind by having my library physically on hand. It's as close to owning them as can get these days.
You can do this with some games on Steam as well - but I have to admit that I don't know how you'd know which ones before buying them.
No, I wanted to find out automagically if a Steam game works after having been copied around, without Steam. So, if an actual DRM takes place.
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More Europe than US, that's interesting. Also 4 percent from Russia isn't that much.
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Quoting: FrawoQuoting: InstallSteam is drmThis is simply not true, and I'm surprised that this superstition still persists. While Steam actually offers their DRM to publishers, I haven't heard of any game sold on Steam and GOG that got DRM on Steam (though there might be a few exceptions). If you don't believe me, try to launch the *.exe of Witcher or Cyberpunk on Steam without having the Steam client open. I suppose that 99% of what is DRM free on GOG has no DRM on Steam either.
Here is a list of DRM free games on Steam:
https://steam.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_DRM-free_games
Steam is DRM. You must use it to download the game. Steam limits when and how you can play any game. That's DRM. Just because there are work arounds doesn't make it any less of DRM.
Now, there can be additional DRM, like various copy protections you mention. And you are correct that not every game ships with those added DRM's (Kerbal Space Program is another example).
Just because the DRM is built into the client and not the game doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
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