It appears things aren't going overly well for game store GOG at the moment, under increasing competition they're starting to feel the heat.
First of all, in a report on Kotaku, GOG recently confirmed that they let go a bunch of staff. They claimed it was only "around a dozen of positions" while also bringing in new staff in other positions. Fair enough, that all sounds quite normal in the business world.
However, Kotaku spoke to an ex-staff member who basically said GOG haven't been doing so well financially. That seems to now be somewhat backed up a little, as GOG just announced today that they're ending their Fair Price Package program. This was the system that users could get wallet funds back on purchases, if the price of the game was more expensive in their country compared with North America.
What's also interesting in this announcement from GOG, is that they said they were able to cover the extra cost from it in the past and still turn a "small profit" which is no longer the case. As they say "With an increasing share paid to developers, our cut gets smaller.", so it sounds like they will at some point reduce their cut from developers (sound familiar?).
Their current plan for the Fair Price Package program is to continue it until 31st of March, so you have until then if you made use of it. Any funds you're given, will remain with you for 12 months so they won't vanish right away.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Quoting: GuestOh, meh. GOG haven't been competing very aggressively, they never put a lot of effort into advertising the platform; which they should have done as soon as GOG Galaxy was ready.
GOG Galaxy isn't ready. There is no Linux version. How can that be "ready"?
Avehicle7887 Feb 26, 2019
It's part of many Windows “offline” installers that can only be circumvented by using innoextract which does not work on some installers because GOG choose to use a beta version (5.6.2) of Inno Setup that does not exist anymore, because they've decided to skip ahead to 6.0.0. I've been updating my offline backup this month and I've looked into some of the “internal” changes. It's Galaxy that seems to be run during the normal installation process.
At least the missing Linux version of Galaxy means that there are some clean installers.
Quoting: Avehicle7887If this means more modern titles to GOG, then it's still a win. I'd rather have more modern games than pay less, at the end they'll still be DRM-Free which is what I care about the most.I'm assuming by more modern you don't mean AAA because it'll be a cold day in hell when AAA devs release anything DRM free.
So I'm hoping for the best, that their service remains financially viable and stays around so I can continue to own future games. That's certainly more worth to me than a few cents saved here or there in the short term.
hardpenguin Feb 26, 2019
QuoteFair enough, that all sounds quite normal in the business world.No, it is not. Letting go a significant group of (often experienced and long-term) employees without any further notice is never ok.
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