Well, this is one way to help fund a store. GOG have added an extra box when you go to checkout to get you to donate.
I noticed it today when going to pick up Star Trek: Armada and Star Trek: Armada II since I have such fond memories of playing them and they're discounted in the GOG Summer Sale. Looking over the checkout process before hitting buy, I noticed a whole new box talking about the GOG Preservation Program asking for more money.
GOG say that "Any additional amount you add to this order helps to fund fixes, ports, and DRM-free releases", but realistically if you do decide to give them extra, they can do whatever they want with it.
This doesn't just appear for older games, it's been added to the entire checkout process. I tested with other modern games too in my cart and it's now always there.
GOG has never exactly been too profitable, to the point that back in late 2021 they announced some changes due to the losses. Going by their 2024 financial report for the full year, GOG only hit 0.6% net profitability which is down from 4.4% in 2023. For Q1 2025 it's currently at 0.8%. So clearly they still have a lot of work to do there but they are boosted by the owned franchises of the CD PROJEKT group including The Witcher and Cyberpunk.
Their recent expansion of updating older games is part of that work, like the whole GOG Preservation Program that recently added Devil May Cry HD Collection, Devil May Cry 4 and more classics. They've also been a bit too slow to modernise like with only just recently introducing dynamic bundle pricing, something that should have been there a long time ago.
It will be interesting to see what GOG fans think to them now asking for extra money during checkout.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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solar_dome 10 hours ago
https://www.gog.com/forum/general/weve_added_an_optional_way_to_support_our_work/page1
Last edited by solar_dome on 20 Jun 2025 at 2:01 am UTC
Frawo 7 hours ago
* You get a licence to use software, be it from Steam, GoG, your floppy disc box, or Linux.Thank you for taking the time to explain this over and over again!
* It is wrong to say "Steam is DRM". Steam offers a DRM system, and it offers DRM'd games as well as games without DRM. You can copy the latter games freely and use them wherever you want. (You might not be allowed to, but that's not what DRM is about.)
torham 6 hours ago
It is wrong to say "Steam is DRM". Steam offers a DRM system, and it offers DRM'd games as well as games without DRM. You can copy the latter games freely and use them wherever you want. (You might not be allowed to, but that's not what DRM is about.)
This may be technically true, but in reality nearly every game you buy there will require Steam to be running in order to play the game, it's very rarely only a check at install time. The list of actually DRM free games is extremely short and mostly very old games, and good luck trying to play anything multiplayer.
Sadly, basically every GOG game is unplayable in multiplayer due to their Galaxy DRM. It's hard to justify donating extra to GOG when they are almost as bad as Steam.
pb 4 hours ago
@Caldathras you can download the game using steamcmd: https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/SteamCMD#Downloading_an_App
Tuxee 3 hours ago
It's hard to justify donating extra to GOG when they are almost as bad as Steam.
What am I missing? In what way has GoG (or CD Project) contributed anything to the Linux world? How does this stack up against the contributions of Valve (which suppose you mean by "Steam")?
(And I don't care whether Valve's contributions are driven by selfishness - it's the result that counts.)
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