GOG - Refocus on Core Offering

[txa1265]

I mean, Epic gives away games to get new customers and it's still going very slow to get customers to spend money there.

Yeah, but most people can see that Epic has a ‘negative business model’ and it isn’t worth spending money with them. What I mean is that they have had a ‘store’ for several years, and yet since putting up a basic and barely functional place to buy stuff, they have done nothing that adds value - there has been no attempt to lure customers with actual value-adds, just freebies and buying exclusives.

Oh - and lawsuits. Epic’s basic business model has been to trash the work that others have done creating the online marketplace they hope to profit from, so that they can swoop in and make money. That is why I will never spend any money on them - they are trash and wrong in every way and I hope the business dies.

 

[TheSHEEEP]

I'd have loved to use GOG more often, but since they decided to not support Linux...
Well, not much of a choice than to take my business to a platform that supports my OS.

 

[Carnifex]

Yup, platforms like Epic are the antithesis of gamers, imo. I won't permit it on my machine and I certainly won't give them a penny. It's like almost every approach they take towards business is highly negative.

 

[JDR13]

You can always count on the same obligatory comments about Epic.

As for GOG, I think they should just cut costs and focus on classic gaming rather than trying to compete with Steam.

 

[SpoonFULL]

I don't think that GoG is competing with Steam, its just that they have their own special thing which is curated listings and drm free outlet - that is their strength.

I am actually happy that GoG is getting new and AAA games in its library, and I think its a good business model - there are only so many classics that can be updated and the rate of their release is low.

Talking about Epic, just something that I noticed that people might have overlooked, is that actually many of their games are released drm free! Tried it myself on many of the free and exclusive games they offered.

 

[Couchpotato]

Well in all fairness GOG is stuck in a hard place right now. As they tired to just sell old games in the past and still didn't make a profit. That's why they changed their business model, and that didn't work out either. I really can't see a silver lining here folks.

 

[Moriendor]

I really can't see a silver lining here folks.

I can . CD Projekt need to exclusively release their games through GOG. It should be at least timed exclusives (long ones… two years minimum).

I'm a Steam person whenever possible but I have also never had a problem using another client if it is required. When EA games were exclusively on Origin and I wanted to play an EA game then I bought the game on Origin or an Origin key on a 3rd party site. Simple. Same for uPlay or UbiSoft Connect or Epic or Battle.net.

The vast majority of people are obviously like that and they don't make a religion out of their gaming habits like a small minority does.
Blizzard has only ever released a single game outside of Battle.net and that is Diablo 1 Hellfire after over 20 years. Millions of players use Battle.net every single day because they have no other choice. People will use a service if it offers the games they want.

If CD Projekt want to give GOG a boost and establish it as a "must have" platform on gaming PCs then they need to make their own games exclusive to the service. That's the ticket to success.

Otherwise, if they keep up the small scale ops, I'd agree that GOG would be destined to stay small and insignificant with a heightened risk of being shut down entirely if CD Projekt can no longer justify the losses.

 

[SveNitoR]

Yeah, but most people can see that Epic has a ‘negative business model†and it isnâ€t worth spending money with them. What I mean is that they have had a ‘store†for several years, and yet since putting up a basic and barely functional place to buy stuff, they have done nothing that adds value - there has been no attempt to lure customers with actual value-adds, just freebies and buying exclusives.



Oh - and lawsuits. Epicâ€s basic business model has been to trash the work that others have done creating the online marketplace they hope to profit from, so that they can swoop in and make money. That is why I will never spend any money on them - they are trash and wrong in every way and I hope the business dies.

I'm not so sure most gamers know, and then even care about, epics shenanigans. I know about it and don't care much, and the same for all my gaming friends. The few young (below 20 years) people I've talked to never heard of it and care even less. They have zero loyalty to steam or any other store front. And the young people are always the future customers.

Even though I don't care about it I still spent very little money on Epic. I'm not loyal to steam (why should I be? They are not my friend), I just spend little money on gaming nowadays and Steam keys from other places are often the cheapest. And if I'm feeling generous I might spend it on GOG, but usually I don't due to it being too expensive and Epic already giving me it.

 

[SveNitoR]

The vast majority of people are obviously like that and they don't make a religion out of their gaming habits like a small minority does.

Yes, I also think that to most gamers it's just a hobby. And the storefront is irrelevant apart from price, convenience and communication.

 

[SveNitoR]

I actually think part of steams success is that they've become a social media company as well as storefront. Just like almost everyone changed to Facebook back in the day most people trend towards steam because that's where almost everyone else is.

 

[JDR13]

If CD Projekt want to give GOG a boost and establish it as a "must have" platform on gaming PCs then they need to make their own games exclusive to the service. That's the ticket to success.

Idk. I don't see how 1 exclusive game every half decade is going to provide that much of a boost.

 

[Moriendor]

Idk. I don't see how 1 exclusive game every half decade is going to provide that much of a boost.

What? You do not have confidence that they are finally going to execute their 2012 plan of alternating releases? Heathen!

 

[TheSHEEEP]

I'm a Steam person whenever possible but I have also never had a problem using another client if it is required. When EA games were exclusively on Origin and I wanted to play an EA game then I bought the game on Origin or an Origin key on a 3rd party site. Simple. Same for uPlay or UbiSoft Connect or Epic or Battle.net.

That's how most people do it, really, at least if it is a game they really do want to play.

Whenever anything EGS-related is mentioned, you get a bunch of hotheads with their "Epic bad!" "China bad!" "Spyware!" yadda yadda, bla bla… somewhat annoying white noise but of very little consequence and thankfully those are getting fewer and can safely be ignored.

The biggest problem that competitors with Steam face is that their clients are just no match for Steam.
Which is honestly mind-boggling, as frankly, Steam isn't THAT good, I could list a dozen bad things that could easily be improved upon off the top of my head.
It is therefore even more mind-boggling to me how both GOG and EGS - latter one especially with their unlimited resources - have managed to produce storefronts/apps that are not even on par, but MUCH worse than Steam.
Good for Valve, though - as long as the competition sleeps, they win.

 

[SveNitoR]

That's how most people do it, really, at least if it is a game they really do want to play.

Whenever anything EGS-related is mentioned, you get a bunch of hotheads with their "Epic bad!" "China bad!" "Spyware!" yadda yadda, bla bla… somewhat annoying white noise but of very little consequence and thankfully those are getting fewer and can safely be ignored.

The biggest problem that competitors with Steam face is that their clients are just no match for Steam.
Which is honestly mind-boggling, as frankly, Steam isn't THAT good, I could list a dozen bad things that could easily be improved upon off the top of my head.
It is therefore even more mind-boggling to me how both GOG and EGS - latter one especially with their unlimited resources - have managed to produce storefronts/apps that are not even on par, but MUCH worse than Steam.
Good for Valve, though - as long as the competition sleeps, they win.

GOG Galaxy has one large feature that's better, and it's that it can automatically scan other stores for games (if one logs in and allows it). So for people like me who has lots of games (about 1000 for me) on multiple storefronts it actually helps to get an overview. Good for selecting the next game to play and to see if I already own it when a sale comes up.

 

[Andrew23]

Yes, I also think that to most gamers it's just a hobby. And the storefront is irrelevant apart from price, convenience and communication.

People these days make their purchase decisions based on many different reasons. Especially western countries are wealthy enough that people take more into consideration other aspects then price and convenience. Different ideologies are participating on the decision making ( ecology, west vs east, private vs corporate, local vs foreign .... etc.) This and more affects gaming as well. Perhaps much more as in wealthy countries people dont face existential threats and tend to be more invested in their hobbies. And I think that lots of people these days mistake their social bubble for entire world and different views automatically label as minor.

 

[SveNitoR]

People these days make their purchase decisions based on many different reasons. Especially western countries are wealthy enough that people take more into consideration other aspects then price and convenience. Different ideologies are participating on the decision making ( ecology, west vs east, private vs corporate, local vs foreign .... etc.) This and more affects gaming as well. Perhaps much more as in wealthy countries people dont face existential threats and tend to be more invested in their hobbies. And I think that lots of people these days mistake their social bubble for entire world and different views automatically label as minor.

Yes, to some this is a factor. Most decisions we humans make, however, are not well thought through, but instead based on unconscious, affective processes.

The most powerful predictor of future behavior is previous behavior. If someone buys food in Store A a few times after they move to a new place, they will likely keep buying from that store, even if Store B is right next to the Store A and offers similar things to a similar price.

Not everyone does this and we can change our patterns, but we usually don't do it, since it is uncomfortable.

From an economic standpoint it is stupid to stay loyal, but we are not logical in that sense. We are good at surviving in a dangerous, natural environment, not at making shopping decisions.

 

[Dafela]

Well Steam started to add better features, while GOG changed for worse with their Galaxy version.

 

[Redglyph]

Well Steam started to add better features, while GOG changed for worse with their Galaxy version.

It must be subjective because I think it's the exact opposite.

It really depends on everyone's favourite features and focus.

 

[Dafela]

It must be subjective because I think it's the exact opposite.

It really depends on everyone's favourite features and focus.

Well it had less of menus and those menus were not logical for me. I don't always need clean UI in games, but I guess I'm not very patient with launchers and online shops, so for me it is worse. Steam added interactive recommender, comunity recommendations, they offer indie games demos during festivals, so lately I can find quite a lot of games there. And if Steam let me find them I feel bad about going to GOG which doesn't even try to make their search better or tags better or bundled dlcs or do anything based on players wish listed features and buy it there.
What is still great is DRM free - that is golden - like The first templar - I really love the game and I would suffer from that pseudo online version on Steam, but other than that, I just wish they would try more. But maybe this is enough for the amount of games they sell.

 

[Shagnak]

I used to prefer GoG over Steam but I've started to gravitate back to Steam, and that's entirely due to Proton/Linux. Sure I can use (and have used) Wine, but having something built directly into the Linux version of the Steam client that lets me run things so easily is fantastic.