GOG.com has been struggling recently. A subsidiary of CD Projekt Red
(the guys who developed "The Witcher" games and "Cyberpunk 2077"), the
digital storefront has never achieved the success of its competitors;
in fact, it has often struggled to even break even. It certainly isn't
financing CD Projekt Red's game development - as Steam does for Valve
- but rather quite the opposite; it's "The Witcher 3" that helped keep
GOG afloat, and the poor showing of "Cyberpunk 2077" was a potentially
existential threat to the service.

So it was obvious that a change of some sort was necessary. There have
already been some layoffs, and even I - a die-hard fan of the service
- am forced to admit there's been a noticeable drop in quality in
their products (where are all the manuals and soundtracks and extra
goodies that once were included with all their games?!?). Some sort of
paradigm shift seemed inevitable.

Today, we got evidence of some of this turn-around as GOG announced*
it is reversing the course of the past few years and putting more
emphasis on selling and releasing older titles. Once the core of its
business, for many years GOG expanded to include more modern titles,
which many (myself included) felt diluted its brand and wasn't in the
company's best interest anyway.

It seemed obvious to me that selling modern titles - and thus directly
competing with Origin and Steam and UPlay - was never going to work.
GOG's 'no-DRM' ideals would prevent it from ever achieving an
equitably-sized library as its competitors, and it lacked the draw and
features to make it a destination for most gamers. I mean, I'm an
earnest believer in the advantages of not being encumbered by DRM, but
for most people that's a non-issue, and instead it was the size of the
storefront, the number of other gamers to play against, and the
QOL-features included in Steam (such as voice-chat and workshop mods)
that were far more important to them.

Thus, moving towards being a 'modern game' marketplace never brought
the hoped-for profits; it not only highlighted GOG's deficiencies, but
weakened GOG's strength: that of a place to get those old-school
classics (and cash in on nostalgia). And, in fact, in chasing after
modern titles, it in fact angered a good chunk of its core
constituency, both with its wishy-washy acceptance of 'some' DRM
(e.g., the "Hitman 3" scandal), and the creation of its "Galaxy"
client (which was an added expense that many of their customers didn't
want, and seemed little more than an attempt to ape Valve's Steam
client without offering any new features).

Switching back to focus more on classic games is, undeniably, a
throwing-in-of-the-towel by GOG in the battle for market dominance;
the company is, ultimately, conceding that it cannot best - or even
equal - Epic and Steam. But by streamlining its expectations, the
company has a far better chance to survive as a small operator
catering to a lucrative and loyal - albeit niche - audience by
offering them the products and quality that originally made them so
popular. Whether that's enough to push the service to profitability
(or even survive) is still up in the air, but it seems a better path
than trying to stand-up to the behemoths.

Then again, I am both a self-admitted GOG apologist and a die-hard fan
of classic games. This move is exactly the sort of thing for which I
have been hoping for years (even if, by this point, I won't benefit
too much from it; thanks to the lack of movement by GOG, I've been
forced to source my purchases of many older games from EBay and the
like, and my collection is fairly complete at this point). Still, I'm
always a fan of any official revival of old classics, and I'd hate to
see GOG disappear entirely, so I'm hopeful this change is only for the
better.

--------------------------
* https://www.gog.com/forum/general/gog_2022_update_3_the_future_that_comes_from_the_past_78de3

On Wed, 06 Apr 2022 17:54:59 -0400, Spalls Hurgenson
<spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:

>Then again, I am both a self-admitted GOG apologist and a die-hard fan
>of classic games. This move is exactly the sort of thing for which I
>have been hoping for years (even if, by this point, I won't benefit
>too much from it; thanks to the lack of movement by GOG, I've been
>forced to source my purchases of many older games from EBay and the
>like, and my collection is fairly complete at this point). Still, I'm
>always a fan of any official revival of old classics, and I'd hate to
>see GOG disappear entirely, so I'm hopeful this change is only for the
>better.

I am glad to hear this. I prefer GOG for older titles. But I ignore
them for modern games. I just hope they continue making those old
games easy to work and run.

I remember awhile back I could not get one of the Might and Magic
games to run on my PC properly. Even after some time googling and
troubleshooting, I just could not get the stupid game to work. So I
said screw it, I bought it on GOG.... and it worked just fine with no
issues at all. Totally worth the $6 I paid for it just to end my
aggravation.