Why is GOG not as succesful as a Gaming Alternative?

[retrohax@feddit.org]

Now i am someone whos a Huge Fan of DRM Free Gaming (well im in GOG Community go figure :P) and basically what i was always wondering as as to why DRM seems to be so popular still among Gamers considering StarForce and such? >.>

DRM Free Gaming is probably mostly a Thing that probably comes into Old Gamers Minds more than newer ones considering that StarForce and SafeDisc are more or less RetroDRMs that i doubt many Newer Gamers cant phatom really? >.>

But what surprises me the most is that the Voice arent "louder" for even just removing Basic Denuvo after 6 Months off Steam or so >.>
Like for me itd be honestly fine to make a Trade off them just having Denuvo on a New Release for 6 - 12 Months and then removing it honestly as itd love to buy Games such as the Persona Games instead of having to emulate them honestly :P
Where i was wondering as to Why is GOG not the most Popular Gaming Platform?

[draegur@lemmy.zip]

i figure it's a momentum thing.

Valve benefited from being First To Market with this model. They were already well established before anyone else tried to make their own.

epic games store, ubisoft connect, and also whatever used to be origin, all these launchers were HEAVILY marketed and users were shoehorned into them as a mandatory condition of playing a game, and they are all floundering.

GOG, though? No marketing. No coercion. Mostly it's word of mouth and good will. And they are doing pretty alright. They were also NOT being first to market. They furthermore did NOT waste loads and loads of cash trying to push themselves onto people. Furthermore, you buy a game from GOG and you don't even NEED to install their launcher! All their game installers function perfectly STAND-ALONE!

I'd say, with all that in mind, GOG is literally doing better than anyone that isn't Steam.

And in my view, they are ever improving, even now.

[zephorah@discuss.online]

GOG is missing critical convenience features. Like the ability to buy and gift games. Or even just buy a gift card for their games. This would be a yearly buy for my nieces and nephews but there’s no availability. I keep asking. It keeps not being there.

[multiplexer@discuss.tchncs.de]

That's not correct.

I have totally gifted Games via GOG in the past.
E.g. my nephew got KSP from me last birthday.

On the Game page it prominently shows a "buy as present" button.
Recipient doesn't even need his own GOG account.

Perhaps some regional block?
Where are you from?

[zephorah@discuss.online]

Is this a new feature? USA.

[retrohax@feddit.org]

"Like the ability to buy and gift games" uh wut? >.>
Now maybe theres a misunderstanding in English but i can gif Games to my Wife and she aslo to me and we never had Issues really even tho were from different Continents :P
But i do agree with the Gift Card Abbility considering that even Steam has such -.-

[dantel@programming.dev]

Eh, GOG is doing alright. I switched almost completely. If there is a GOG version, I buy it even if it is more expensive - which it very often isn't or just very slightly. And I'm saying this as someone who is playing all of this on a SteamDeck.

[multiplexer@discuss.tchncs.de]

Looks like this for Games in my library, for other Games there is a checkbox for gifting later in the order process.

[gottahavefaith@fedia.io]

I switched to gog, but with the steam deck it's more convenient to have games on steam so I switched back since I bought it.
Also I like indie games and there are
many missing titles on gog

[murrayl@lemmy.world]

I think this is missing one other crucial factor in GOG becoming established: they targeted a niche.

Seems like a lot of people don’t really know this any more, but GOG’s ‘thing’ didn’t used to be a focus on being DRM-free, it was a focus on making old games accessible again.

GOG used to stand for Good Old Games.

Until GOG came along, publishers had next to no interest in making their older games available - things like Doom, Monkey Island, System Shock, Star Wars Dark Forces, etc. Hard to believe now, but none of these games used to be available to buy anywhere - if you wanted to play them you had to either own the original discs, find a torrent, or visit a dodgy abandonware site.

It was GOG who identified that gap in the market and established themselves as the store for legally owning digital copies of these old games for the first time. Steam was actually playing catch up on that front for quite a while, and many old games are still better maintained on GOG than on Steam.

[retrohax@feddit.org]

For me i use mostly itch io for Indie Games rather than Steam actually XD
which is for example also how i bought Celeste :P

[rose@lemmy.zip]

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.

[[[global:guest]]]

**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.

[rose@lemmy.zip]

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.

[[[global:guest]]]

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.

[rose@lemmy.zip]

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.