Quoting: apocalyptech

Quoting: suchIt's GOG. What profits?

I mean honestly it's possible that's at the root of the issue here. I actually have no idea what GOG's financials are like, but if they have historically struggled to turn a profit, latching onto the "AI" bandwagon is an unsurprising move, at least. The suits tend to see modern generative systems as a shortcut to Increased Productivity™ and they might just be assuming that this is the magical tech that's gonna turn a struggling company into a thriving one.

Whether that's true or not in either the short or long term is another question entirely, but if that's the thought process over there, then it's at least an understandable pivot.

I disagree in that not paying for a few pieces of art isn't a proper saving, just one you report to particularly... challenged management to get them off your back. That goes triple if you're generating this much negative sentiment. That can have more of a sales impact than your sales banner.

Unless GOG are playing 5D chess and doing this as part of a coordinated effort to boost visibility. Who knows anymore. I'll take my tinfoil hat off now.

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It's GOG. What profits?

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Yeah, this victory lap is fairly pointless.

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Quoting: NezchanGiven his earlier statements, I wonder how much "AI" is going to be stuffed into this one.

Will it even be possible to tell what's AI and what isn't? Looking at prior 22cans output I have to conclude: no.

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Quoting: Caldathras

Quoting: suchValve is the funding/driving force behind mainstream Linux gaming, GOG can - at best - reach remora status to Valve's shark... ness here. Not that I'd mind solid, actual competition.

Why can't GOG work with Valve on this? Why do they need to compete? Perhaps I'm suggesting too radical a change in mentality for contemporary business thinking...

It's interesting, especially here.

I mean, let's assume that GOG and Valve put in an equal amount of work, resources etc. Looking at it from a traditional business point of view Valve has the larger share of the market, so it will benefit more while investing disproportionately less. Effectively, GOG would be paying for Valve to make more. Of course, as this Linux situation currently stands GOG is basically choosing not to benefit from development that Valve is essentially giving out for free. It's right there, they just need to make the effort to pick it up and run with it. Even from a capitalist point of view that market is a growing one, albeit still small and probably not with the potential to overtake Windows. Maybe. Even that cost didn't seem to make business sense to GOG... up to now.

Maybe that's why business people are cagey about Linux support. It's got those weird "not everything has to have a price tag" and "long term plans over short term profit" things going on.

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Long overdue. I'd go as far as to say: too little, too late.

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On the GOG YT channel he's talking how Steam ain't all that great (<cough> Galaxy <cough>) and how it's time to start... nibbling at the competition, primarily Steam. He's not wrong, but if Linux support is supposed to drive said nibbling I envision another failure. Valve is the funding/driving force behind mainstream Linux gaming, GOG can - at best - reach remora status to Valve's shark... ness here. Not that I'd mind solid, actual competition.

That aside... for starters, Galaxy needs a rework. Even with that rework, I don't see how it can touch Steam with these oldies that are hacked together to somewhat function on a modern OS. It's a lot of work to not really get that much closer to the Steam (imperfect, sure) ecosystem in that regard. And that's the spine of GOG's business. Indies, then? They've already tried that.

On a more personal note, the guy strikes me as a poser with a mid-life crisis... and with the ability to secure not insignificant funding, and some contacts in CDPR.

According to an insider from back in the day he wasn't playing that many games during CDP's later publishing times already, then he had a fairly publicised mental breakdown in the CDPR days (which was a tough time, yeah) complete with soul searching in The Ancient Orient etc. Now he's securing (apparently) external funding for some new retro toys and he's wearing retro t-shirts to convince people he is totes of the hood, dawg, yo.

I dunno. It's a fundamentally niche business, so let's see what's next in terms of "competing" with Steam.

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As a... tolerator of VOY who's also aware how unlikely it is for us to get anything close to that level of quality with how Star Trek is being mistreated and mismanaged... I'm reasonably excited for this. I'll give that demo a try.

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I was extremely wrong, looks like. Good for them!

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Quoting: Purple Library Guy

Quoting: Eike

Quoting: Tethys84Except nobody will be able to afford the Steam Machine. I would be surprised if Valve didn't indefinitely delay or even eventually cancel it because of the skyrocketing prices on RAM alone.

It depends. If they made a fixed price contract early enough, they might be able to offer their boxes cheap.

Yeah. After all, this is not a cost of production problem, it is a "what the traffic will bear" supply and demand problem. So if some manufacturer has a contract to deliver hardware for $X, they will still make money doing that, just not as much money as they think they can bilk us for.

They need to have at least some RAM stocked up for production, considering they announced it, so the design was finalised etc.

If anyone's familiar with how this works I'd be curious to learn what happens typically (insofar as "typically" can apply here).

I think the issue isn't even the high RAM prices - it's the instability of the market. After they burn through whatever stock they secured they might get more, they might not, at least not immediately. They might get it at this price, or they might get it at that price, or at some different price entirely day to day. I assume they can't sell the Gabecube at what they originally expected to sell it at and then just adjust the pricing as they go along, but the real question is what do you even sell it for when you can't know your costs or plan for stock (I assume). No subsidising complicates this further, I think. The Steam Deck was just a Valve thing, so if they decide to eat the price of the instability of the market here they effectively abandon their entire concept for the Steam Machine (anyone can make one, but not everyone can afford to leverage their empire of a video game distribution platform). It could actually be better to hold off until the market stabilises, whatever that stability entails.

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