So… Is this a good thing? Bad thing? Gut reaction says that probably not the greatest for GOG, being detached from a huge publisher like CD Projekt probably isn’t great for a niche marketplace. In their faqs it states that GOG had a strong year financially but they would of course bill it that way. The question about why the new owner did so also just sounded disingenuous.
Interested to see where this goes from here. While I love gog and am a patron, their Linux support leaves a lot to be desired. The sole fact that cloud saves are such a pain to get working has led me to switch back to steam. I hope with these changes they can maybe get some support on Linux.
I’m having mixed feelings about this. On the one hand it could be better for gog to break away from a stock listed company that has proved on occasion it still behaves like a stock listed company and likely still do in the future. Also it seems like they’re keeping their values.
On the other, gog has been fairly volatile and hasn’t always returned a profit. Without a big company behind, it may be just a few years of unprofitability away from from going under. More worryingly though, it doesn’t have the same staying power as steam or its infinite funds, so it might get harder to uphold those “no drm, independence” etc policies. Also, given their buyer profiles and how finicky gamers are in general, any single large controversy would also have immense impact.
Time will tell I guess
I think Gog is more popular then ever, because people start recognizing that buying from GOG is like buying organic produce and has it’s worth - they are in a pretty good market position with this image, and i fully believe them when they write that “[they] have seen more enthusiasm from gamers towards [their] mission than ever before”.
I do too, but imagine the drop in donations/subscriptions if they were to pull a stunt like the one with steam/mastercard and porn games. Or if they were to not want to remove a game that features, say, the gaza genocide but on israel’s side, or some other extremely divisive issue.