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Just did a GOG survey that focused on the idea of a paid membership option on GOG. Seems they're determining what people would be willing to pay extra for. Some of the options were
And others that I can't remember.
Anything but properly supporting the Linux community π€‘
How have they still not learned that the largest intersection of the people that care about their core value proposition (game preservation, DRM-free, etc.) are Linux users?? It's not like they have to create the compatibility layers from scratch; Valve did it for them.
If they provided a launcher for Linux users, I'd actually buy shit from them. Yes, Heroic Launcher exists, but I'm not paying GOG for the work that the Heroic dev did. I want first-party support.
What if I told you that the intersection between people who care and the 5% of their potential audience that are Linux users is very small either way?
I'm not saying Linux isn't a chance for them, but it's also an investment and very like not a profitable one for quite a while.
I'd love a gog galaxy client for Linux with proton support. I also agree though, that it probably wouldn't help them become more profitable.
What if I told you that there are roughly 4 million steamdecks in existence. Ref
And that this is about 1\3 of the Steam Linux market. Ref and about half of the entire handheld PC market. Ref
Of course, we dont know how many MAU GOG has so maybe 4 million new customers is baby numbers, but Steam seems enamored enough of that market segment to commit huge new UI and store features (deck verification, "Runs on Deck" filters, other deck specific stuff) including the game controller mappings which do help with non-deck also but were clearly a necessary element for handhelds. Maybe deck users, it being a committed gaming platform, spend more on games?
Anyway, trying to get subscribers (always a teeny fraction of your free users) ahead of converting new non-customers into customers, seems like bad econ to me.
If GOG is so hot for game preservation why not see if they can score an emulation deal to bring lost handheld titles to PC\deck? Sega might be down, NeoGeo is owned by the Saudi's, I'm sure they'd love some free money for their back catalog. That's in line with Lutris' mission of being the one game launcher for your entire library. A few strategic investments and partnerships could open up GOG as the gateway to classic gaming across devices, but that would require some vision to carry through.
At this point they should just hire the Heroic devs, I doubt anything they could build themselves would compare in terms of quality.
I'd be happy if they did and adopted Heroic as an official launcher. However, if that happens, I'd still want proper controller support to be added so that browsing the GOG store in Heroic doesn't require mouse and keyboard bindings on something like a Steam Deck.
Why do you want a launcher? I have a few GoG games and I don't really feel like a launcher is something I need.
What I do want is games to actually update on GoG at the same time as steam, not over a week later. X4 7.0 came out and it was over a week longer for the GoG version to update, in the end I refunded and bought it on steam instead.
Cloud saves, achievements, and tracking hours is something I do like. I have over a 100 GOG games, so individually managing exe files isn't something I really want to do.
You don't need to manage the exe files. Just install heroic launcher. You can access and install your whole GOG library from there, and you can configure each game with different versions of wine or proton, if you need to. It also integrates with Epic and you can easily add games to Steam as well if needed.
You can even sync the game saves with the GOG cloud, although last time I tried the save sync was a bit clunky.
Yeah I've used heroic launcher, but a native launcher is still preferred. I like the GOG launcher on windows.
I hope they're not seriously considering locking option 2 behind a paywall. IMO that should be a required feature for all platforms, and should be free. If I buy a game at a specific version, I should always be able to play that version.
This really should be something they offer for free, and there are already some FOSS options that do this, although they arenβt as good as Iβd like.
This is a feature they already have for free and there would (or at least should) be backlash if they were to lock that behind a subscription
Sure, neat.
Sure but said votes better have an actual impact.
The previous versions of a game thing is something they took away, IIRC. They only keep the latest version and a patch to get up to it available for download, and you can only roll back to previous versions that you had already installed over time, or something like that. This is them seeing if you want to pay money to get a feature back that they used to offer, which is kinda lousy.
This is how enshitification begins, don't enable this shit.
yup, shit that we already have will start being gated behind the fee of the subscription
A subscription seems like the exact opposite of what GoG stands for. I buy a game, I own it forever. How does a subscription improve that?
I got the impression they're aiming more for a "fan club" kind of thing where you get access to articles/videos/Q&A/voting rights, etc. So more a kind of Patreon like many creators have. I didn't get the impression that this would in any way change the business model of the store.
I also got this survey and I had the same feeling. It felt more like a patron for their game preservation program with possible features like a members-only-community, interviews or documentation about the preserved games, their publishers/studios and the efforts to keep them running or some kind of loyalty rewards/discount coupons. Maybe even 'special builds' like 'experience the OG version 1.0 of $game'.
There was one option, that I interpreted like 'maybe we will put future compatibility updates after purchase (e.g. supporting Windows 12 or whatever) behind the membership' - but that's purely my interpretation of a single bullet point style line in that whole several page long survey
I got the same survey. The ones that they definitely do not want to do, if they value their reputation, are things like "increased cloud save storage (that's still probably less than what Steam offers)" and things that they took away, like 1.0 installers. But some of the other options look to be more squarely aimed at the enthusiasts of the preservation program that this subscription is designed to financially support, as well as one or two actually good features like legal account sharing. Hopefully they go down that route instead.
It's on par with Steam, I think. You get like 200 megs per product. I know because my Witcher 3 install is above that and it's annoying. That wouldn't be a dealbreaker as a subscription benefit, I don't think.
With the rest I do agree.
I can tell they're struggling and have been for a while. It isn't easy to compete with Steam, and the thing that would have done it (having DRM'd new games in the service) was voted down in a similar survey some time ago.
I would not be against some Patreon-like crowdsourced solution for behind the scenes stuff and prioritization rights. GOG, or something like it MUST exist. Steam is bad enough with their current dominant position, it can't be the sole remaining option in this market.
I would much prefer to be able to give them more money in exchange for more games, though. I am constantly frustrated by how often some indie game is only available on Steam, and I've started buying things full price on GOG but waiting for sales on Steam as a matter of policy.
Notice to everyone about GOG Galaxy not in Linux: there is MiniGalaxy. It's not official but it works.
GOG maybe give us an option to turn off cookies inside your app before asking us money!
Making porting gog to linux a priority which has by far the smallest market share for computer gaming is the dumbest thing anyone in this thread is saying, where is that financially a viable option to cater to the tiniest percentage of gamers for gog? I know ill get downvoted but im tired of the fanatical linux posts on lemmy at this point. Get with reality they are going to work on the client where the money is most predominantly flowing from and its not linux or mac. Haters gonna hate the truth but its the truth from a business standpoint.
And yet, it's the three most upvoted community requests on gog
With the Steam Deck getting more popular and more SteamOS handhelds on the way, it has never been a better time for game companies to support Linux. GOG does already sell some games that have Linux support, they just don't have a convenient way to download and install them.
GOG galaxy appears to use CEF and Qt, as well as some parts (such as plugins) that use python. All of those are cross platform. So I doubt it would be incredibly difficult to port to Linux. The fact that there is already a macOS version indicates that it can be made cross platform and can run on Unix-based systems.
Making porting gog to linux a priority which has by far the smallest market share for computer gaming is the dumbest thing anyone in this thread is saying
Building a bridge across the river is totally stupid, because no one crosses that river to get to where they are going.
Building a house on that hill is dumb, because no one lives there.
Creating that new type of device is a waste of time, because no one has ever bought one like that.
...
You see the point, right? Not that I'm trying to give business advice. I'm just saying that these things aren't necessarily as stupid as you seem to think.
and its not linux or mac
Except there's already a Mac version of GOG Galaxy.
While I agree, it's also a chicken and egg problem. How can more money flow if they don't make it easy? Even just endorsing Heroic and providing them some APIs would work
This is a future proofing measure. With the enshittification of Windows there is a reasonably sizable share that is looking to migrate. Making an API/front end functional on the platform is just good business. I for one will be switching 95% to Linux the instant Microsoft acts on their patant for putting a mandatory advertising ticket on the screen. Literally the only thing I will use it for is programming things for work.
Or, you know, they could make the client portable, like so many software...
A Linux or Mac client doesn't need to be a different thing than a Windows client.
What if most of the people that want to pay a GOG membership are Linux gamers that would be willing to pay for official Linux support?
They need to fix their launchers on all systems before the do anything else. I'm happy to support them in their mission of game preservation, but they really don't do a good job at providing a high quality service.
Also, I've purchased things from them that were never provided, and they refused a refund (warcraft 2 battle net key). I know it was likely Blizzard's fault, but they could have at least responded to my emails with more than "no refunds, we are working on it".
such a strange survey. it was all about "exclusive access" and "extra perks". i just want to support game fixes so that everyone gets access, but that wasn't part of it.
I like what GOG do, but gating features, even niche ones, behind a subscription sounds like the first step towards enshittification.
Also, I'm sure as hell not giving them extra money until they fix their platform on Linux/Steam Deck.
Wait so they're taking away features and going to paywall them? We can already downgrade
Shit must be dire at CDPR after that earnings report was below last year
How about GOG Galaxy on Linux?
I really hate most subscriptions, because the prices are often too high, they rely on locking stuff behind paywalls, instead of providing a good service.
Here is the difference, I am ok paying monthly for storage space, servers, and hosted/managed open source web services, because there is competition and standard interfaces there. They do not hold you (or your data) hostage to their service, what they provide is good on its own.
For example, if GOG invests money into writing open source libraries, apps and APIs to efficiently and easily share save games between devices. Let people self host the open source backend, but offer up a subscription for a managed instance, with maybe some voting rights for new features or support for games/platforms to be integrated into the open source front & backend, then I would be willing to support this.
And other stuff like this.
Use subscriptions to offer good services, which also allow you to improve the whole ecosystem, while also not putting yourself as the gatekeeper, and locking people into their service.
I think the only way they can introduce a subscription without backlash is if they make it a purely community thing with a few bonuses. Give people access to special insights into their preservation efforts, special interviews, voting rights, Q&A, occasional free game, etc. If they lock features behind this like more cloud storage, or other stuff that customers simply expect with their game purchase, the press will be all negative.
I'd pay for native linux support. They should provide direct support to Heroic if they don't want to take on the cost themselves full bore. I remember some AMA they did where the cost of Linux wasn't worth their already thin margins and they were happy with Heroic. If they were ever going to grow, I'd believe that they would need to address the handheld market and getting their storefront more visible
I wish they worked with opensource projects like Heroic to provide an easy and fast way to run their games on Linux like in Steam. And if they provided a donation option or something to fund that work.
They do that already. They're partnered with Heroic. If you buy GOG games through Heroic, Heroic gets a cut of that sale using a referral code program like you'd see in other stores. It gives Heroic some cash, and it gives GOG a line of sight into exactly how much revenue they're missing out on by not building the Linux launcher themselves. This is what got me to start buying from GOG again.
Honestly, I would totally move to GOG, however my entire games collection is on Steam, so it would be very very difficult and itβs rather tedious to have and use 2 platforms like that.
Oh well, I do hope they can get more people onto their platform. itβs a better Epic store for sure.
I honestly felt the same. Then I thought, eh, let's just try. Turns out I don't care about my library being split. I just add desktop icons for the games I'm playing and launch them from there without thinking about what platform it's on.
Bad move GOG, you're as of right now still inferior to steam & you want to enshitify your platform ?
Is GOG a popular store among gamers?
It's my #1 shop for games. DRM free (my games, not just a licence) and I support preservation of retro games.
Among a subset of gamers who care about owning the things that they buy, yes
How about instead of this subscription talk, GOG could:
-Remake GOG Galaxy. The client is slow with tons of bloat. Focus on your store, and make a native Linux client.
-Help fund Wine. I find it weird that the main non-DRM store is so againat Linux. I know people that would leave Steam If GOG came to Linux.
-Different version and a tool to backup games should be part of the new launcher and not part of a subscription. You guys talk about game preservations and then try to put parts of it behind a paywall.....
-A more realistic Dreamlist. Who had the idea of letting people submit any game they want? Dreamlist would work better if GOG choose a list of games and the community voted for what game for GOG to focus on. People really think that games that were console exclusive or old FIFA/NBA/Gran Turismo games will come to GOG.
-There are some games on GOG that don't work, FIX THEM! (Looking at you Kane and Lynch)