GOG is getting acquired by its original co-founder: What it means for you
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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.bestiver.se/post/829858
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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.bestiver.se/post/829858
Gog has been going to shit so it cannot get much worse.
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Gog has been going to shit so it cannot get much worse.
In what way?
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In what way?
They've been pushing a stupid launcher for tracking, have been selling non-up-to-date games, non-drm-free games, incomplete games (ex: no linux version while it is on steam), pushing weird porn games on the front page just because they sell, etc.
It's been getting worse and worse over the past ~5 years, and I never saw it get better.
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They've been pushing a stupid launcher for tracking, have been selling non-up-to-date games, non-drm-free games, incomplete games (ex: no linux version while it is on steam), pushing weird porn games on the front page just because they sell, etc.
It's been getting worse and worse over the past ~5 years, and I never saw it get better.
How much of that (the game related stuff rather than the GOG specific things) is due to publisher/developer restrictions I wonder.
Didn't know about most of that though. Very disappointing hearing about non-drm-free games too. That's the main and definitely most important reason I've been buying things on GOG. DRM free with an offline installer.
The only one not bothering me is the porn games. As long as I can filter things with a default filter if it gets annoying, I'm not bothered buy any type of game being sold there.
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How much of that (the game related stuff rather than the GOG specific things) is due to publisher/developer restrictions I wonder.
Didn't know about most of that though. Very disappointing hearing about non-drm-free games too. That's the main and definitely most important reason I've been buying things on GOG. DRM free with an offline installer.
The only one not bothering me is the porn games. As long as I can filter things with a default filter if it gets annoying, I'm not bothered buy any type of game being sold there.
They make a big deal out of saying that they hand-pick games and make sure they're good and proper, then they take responsibility of quality problems of the games that are available.
And last I checked you cannot filter. If you do a search, sure, but not on the main page, and during times like around Valentine's day, the website starts looking like a weird porn website. Also, they claim that they select good games, and no one is going to make me believe that those porn games are good quality games.
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They make a big deal out of saying that they hand-pick games and make sure they're good and proper, then they take responsibility of quality problems of the games that are available.
And last I checked you cannot filter. If you do a search, sure, but not on the main page, and during times like around Valentine's day, the website starts looking like a weird porn website. Also, they claim that they select good games, and no one is going to make me believe that those porn games are good quality games.
@Solumbran @JigglySackles there was a particularly heavy handed show off when visa and Mastercard were going after adult games on other platforms in a «but them before we're forced to delist them», but other than that I don't remember them being pushed particularly strongly
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A case like this takes money and years of efforts. I don't think any indie dev would be willing to spend that much, especially knowing Valve can afford incredible lawyers. The evidence would have to be really convincing for this to even be worth risking. Those messages not being accurate could also make the plaintiffs liable for lying under oath.
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I will admit that I foolishly believed someone else's summation on the situation; that sourced report, assuming the emails are real, is pretty damning. Notably the email correspondence between publishers/developers and Valve does not mention any official policy, but without additional context comes off as threatening... multiple examples of punishment and out right removal from the store, wow.
And incidents as recent as 2022. I would have figured the older examples would be there because Valve was a lot more blatantly corrupt when they were first forcing the Steam client on consumers. People tend not to bring up when Valve was buying exclusivity of already released retail CD games and taking them off shelves to force Steam exclusivity. Wonder why its taken this long to come out in a court case? Its not like there isn't a long, recent history of indie devs yelling publicly on the internet about the dumb shit Valve puts them through.
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Oh, I got the Alone in the Dark trilogy the other day yeah and I don't think I ever got a free game on GOG before. But I'm pretty sure I unsubscribed from their newsletter when they sent the email this Thursday. I did it again, I hope it works this time, else gonna have to contact support.
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when you accept a free game on GoG you agree to join their newsletter. What I did after resubscribing every time I got a free game is just make a rule in my email client to delete them before I see them
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So I have a GOG acc been a few years and unsubscribing was the first thing I did and they never bothered me, and out of nowhere the other day I received some newsletter about promotions and shit (not even stuff on my Wishlist) and I figured it's some reset with new ownership or whatever, I received an email about new policies a few days prior talking about how they are not connected to CDPR anymore and so... anyway, I unsubscribed, and made sure every notification was turned off, and just now I received another newsletter email...
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One developer? The Wolfire case contains dozens of those messages to various developers, irrespective of Steam key use. See page 160 here. The way Valve goes about it is also not contradicted by you pointing out there are lower prices. For one, they say they expect price parity soon, not immediately. Secondly, they don't and can't enforce that rule automatically, so there are always instances they don't see. As seen in those messages from court, sometimes their response is to restrict the games' visibility on the store, which is not something a platform like ITAD can track.
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**Telling developers that they can't have bigger discounts on other store fronts is an unsubstantiated claim by one developer. The official policy has to do with discounting Steam keys, ie selling a Steam game for less than on the Steam store, while keeping all profits and taking advantage of Steams features.
If general sales were actually being restricted by Steam, it would have been made immediately obvious with sites like isthereanydeal. Such a site would have no reason to exist if the Steam store would always have the best discounts due to forced store policy.
*EDIT: Was gonna strike through this text, can't get formatting to work. See below comment by Rose@lemmy.zip
"Overwhelmingly positive" please spend at least 5 minutes reading the GOG general discussion forums and get back to me. GOG is constantly being criticized by their main user base for how poorly they run their store and their nonsensical business decisions. I don't think this is a bad thing tbh; its a better situation than the Steam fanboys being creepy boot lickers. But I would not describe GOGs most adamant supports being universally "positive" about the state of the store and company.
The general customer base of GOG does not care about the Galaxy 2.0 client, or GOGs collaboration with Amazon Luna for streaming owned titles. I don't know what other "good features" you could be referring to. GOG is barebones, but competent, in the world of digital store fronts/game launchers. But obviously being competent is not enough when dealing with an entrenched monopoly.
Most gamers do not care about DRM. This is the same market that is suffering from enshittification at an abnormal rate. This market has already long normalized things like gambling mechanics advertised towards children, or installing spyware for the sole purpose of stopping cheaters. Outside of the bubble of online discussions, the target audience does not think about these things and will buy whatever slop is put in front of them. Clearly the people who buy Denuvo releases at launch on Steam do not feel any reason to buy games on GOG specifically. And judging by public sales/player data, that's a lot of people.
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I'd say GOG's position only proves the point of Epic and the ongoing class action lawsuits against Valve. Steam is deeply entrenched in the market and uses shady tactics like telling developers not to sell games for less outside Steam. You'd think offering good features and better practices would help, but it has not. Gamers are overwhelmingly positive about GOG, but most feel tied to Steam, and only a handful buy from GOG. It's no wonder Epic prioritized exclusives.
