While Steam continues to do well with it being the most popular games store, it seems CD PROJEKT Group's store GOG is really starting to struggle.
CD PROJEKT recently released their latest financial results, along with a call with investors that went over how the whole business is doing. It's not all bad news for them, since they saw overall 38% more sales revenue compared to the third quarter of last year. On the GOG side though, it posted increasing losses and so it's going to be restructured.
Over the current year to date it appears GOG has seen losses of about $2.21 million, which is pretty bad considering the 1.37 million they gained during the same period last year.
They've said that GOG "should focus more on its core business activity - which means offering a handpicked selection of games with its unique DRM- free philosophy" and so there's going to be some changes to the GOG team, with some moving over instead to CD PROJEKT RED. Additionally, they've "initiated reorganization of GOG’s operations" to focus on the "core business" and they're hoping this will "improve its financial effectiveness in 2022".
It's not really surprising, when you think that Epic Games continue to desperately try and turn a profit by pulling more customers to their store and even they don't expect to turn a profit until at least 2024.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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Quoting: OmnibusI mean as a Linux user as far as I'm concerned Steam is the nearly only one that even exists because they're the one of only two (the other is Itch) that I can think of/have ever heard of with an official Linux client or that provide any Linux support.Take a look at Gamejolt: https://gamejolt.com/client
Not a high profile store, but not bad either.
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I find it rather difficult to rack up such a loss from selling digital goods. The apparent need to "focus more on its core business activity" seems to indicate that a lot of effort went into things that are peripheral to the selling of same. This begs the questions what those other activities were, seeing that GOG is already pretty bare-bones as is.
Could this pertain to GOG Galaxy and the associated backend functionality for achievements, cloud-saves and such? Though even that doesn't look like something you could sink $2m and likely more, assuming the actual selling of games is profitable.
Personally, I hope that doesn't mean they'll end up including fewer games in their catalogue. I hardly buy anything outside GOG these days, and it's always a shame if a title I absolutely want to try does not make it to GOG, or only with much delay.
Could this pertain to GOG Galaxy and the associated backend functionality for achievements, cloud-saves and such? Though even that doesn't look like something you could sink $2m and likely more, assuming the actual selling of games is profitable.
Personally, I hope that doesn't mean they'll end up including fewer games in their catalogue. I hardly buy anything outside GOG these days, and it's always a shame if a title I absolutely want to try does not make it to GOG, or only with much delay.
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I used to very pro GoG, but their repeated fails on a games download client, and saying they will support other OS'es, but then years later they still didn't make any movement towards it.
Then they started accepting games that essentially has DRM, betraying one of their core precepts.
So I lost trust in them as I felt lied to.
Then there is all the stories of it being incredibly difficult to update a game or get a game approved for sale, that many small gamedevs only ever target Itch and Steam now.
They really had the mindshare early enough that if they executed well, they could easily have been a large store by now.
Then they started accepting games that essentially has DRM, betraying one of their core precepts.
So I lost trust in them as I felt lied to.
Then there is all the stories of it being incredibly difficult to update a game or get a game approved for sale, that many small gamedevs only ever target Itch and Steam now.
They really had the mindshare early enough that if they executed well, they could easily have been a large store by now.
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I'd love to use GOG more, I have lots of game there, even bought Cyberpunk 2077 from GOG.
Problem is that their GOG Galaxy client - with cloud saves and all that - simply don't work on Linux.
I've tried some third-party GOG clients but had nothing but issues, and none of them support cloud save anyways.
So I can't really use GOG, even if I want to.
Last edited by Vemod on 30 November 2021 at 1:22 pm UTC
Problem is that their GOG Galaxy client - with cloud saves and all that - simply don't work on Linux.
I've tried some third-party GOG clients but had nothing but issues, and none of them support cloud save anyways.
So I can't really use GOG, even if I want to.
Last edited by Vemod on 30 November 2021 at 1:22 pm UTC
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Quoting: kaimanI find it rather difficult to rack up such a loss from selling digital goods. The apparent need to "focus more on its core business activity" seems to indicate that a lot of effort went into things that are peripheral to the selling of same. This begs the questions what those other activities were, seeing that GOG is already pretty bare-bones as is.Galaxy promotion, "IO Interactive" bribery for "Hitman", excess expenses on providing 3rd party launcher compatibility, GWENT infrastructure expenses (is it still a thing?), "FCK DRM" and other useless PR moves.
Could this pertain to GOG Galaxy and the associated backend functionality for achievements, cloud-saves and such? Though even that doesn't look like something you could sink $2m and likely more, assuming the actual selling of games is profitable.
Personally, I hope that doesn't mean they'll end up including fewer games in their catalogue. I hardly buy anything outside GOG these days, and it's always a shame if a title I absolutely want to try does not make it to GOG, or only with much delay.
GOG has made a lot of unnecessary moves recently, while spending exactly $0 on Linux support and infrastructure (remember: Linux "backup" offline updates, which are in fact, complete re-downloads because no patching mechanism has been implemented at all yet, are still being added manually), so Linux support nets GOG very little and costs a lot.
On top of that, the site is in shambles: main page design was made by clowns under supervision of monkeys (still no ability to filter out games without Linux support!), the forum is something out of horror movies: it really does not like… anything. From page scaling to message notification, has zero spam protection (they clean spam manually!) and a dysfunctional "reputation" system, often used for downvoting people via scripts.
So GOG managed to cast away core DRM-free fans, yet failed to recruit new customers from Steam or other stores. I presume, people just don't want to have any business with such a "store".
Last edited by Alm888 on 30 November 2021 at 2:27 pm UTC
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Quoting: GuestQuoting: ZlopezThe main reason I buy games on Steam instead GOG is the easy way to make them run. I have plenty of games on GOG, but I wasn't able to make some of them run on Linux and usually I spend more time tinkering with GOG games than playing. It's not true for every game, but with the old Windows titles it sometimes problem to make them run even with Proton, which is not really easy to use outside Steam if you are not technically savvy.
wine integrates into most most menus nicely and shows what's installed. Can I ask what you find difficult?
Unless you're referring specifically to DXVK in a wine prefix, in which case the setup script is simple to run. Or Lutris, which can do it all for you.
As for native games, oddly I've had far fewer problems through GOG with them, with the #1 problem for me being no pulseaudio on my system (apulse to the rescue).
It's more problematic in case of immutable OS and flatpaks (Lutris in flatpak doesn't support Proton at all). But as you saying this is true for the Windows only titles (I didn't get some of them working at all, but I keep them because of the nostalgia). Most Linux native titles are running out of the box.
So If there is a game with native Linux client, which doesn't have multiplayer, I'm usually buying it at GOG (depends on the price at the time).
I'm really glad that Minigalaxy project exists for GOG, it's making management of library much easier, even checking for any updates. :-)
Still the Steam is much better experience, when managing my library and playing under Linux.
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On my end I can say that I only buy games from Valve.
They helped me actually not having to boot windows for gaming.
Don't need another reason really.
They helped me actually not having to boot windows for gaming.
Don't need another reason really.
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Quoting: GuestQuoting: VemodI'd love to use GOG more, I have lots of game there, even bought Cyberpunk 2077 from GOG.
Problem is that their GOG Galaxy client - with cloud saves and all that - simply don't work on Linux.
I've tried some third-party GOG clients but had nothing but issues, and none of them support cloud save anyways.
So I can't really use GOG, even if I want to.
You _can_ use GOG, you just don't want to.
Nothing stops you from copying save games and backing them up, etc. One of the whole points of GOG being DRM-free is that games don't rely on a third party client, and so nothing stops you from the running the game. So it is a choice: you don't want to use GOG, even if you can.
It depends if you want to spend time doing this by yourself or not.
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Quoting: JVargasOn my end I can say that I only buy games from Valve.
They helped me actually not having to boot windows for gaming.
Don't need another reason really.
Main reason to dump the Windows dualboot for me as well. I could play games I wanted under Linux thanks to Steam.
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Quoting: STiATI'd like a competitor to Steam.
What would be the benefit of that?
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