this post was submitted on 24 Dec 2024
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[–] bitjunkie@lemmy.world 48 points 1 day ago (3 children)

running out of steam

THESE PEOPLE HAVE TO GET DEGREES IN FUCKING ENGLISH TO DO THIS

[–] nutsack@lemmy.world 13 points 1 day ago

they need to use super generic popular idioms in order to be search engine optimized. technology killed journalism

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[–] aggelalex@lemmy.world 52 points 2 days ago (4 children)

Let's be honest, this was apparent for a long time. Steam, a centralised platform, has been making strides in Linux gaming and has been making innovation after innovation together with its steam deck. Gog, a forefront to freedom in gaming, barely did anything for the Linux gaming scene. No innovation either. Its just the simple (and well needed) premise of no DRM. It's necessary, but not enough. It didn't cater to its niche, it just committing to creating one under a premise. That's not how you go forward. How does this connect to bad management? Well, I think that with good management gog would make different moves. And wouldn't rest on its laurels so much.

[–] Nyxicas@kbin.melroy.org 3 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

The hell do you mean "barely did anything for the Linux gaming scene"? Listen, I'm up to my neck with Linux gamer crybabies always bitching about how someone doesn't throw them a bone, for years. Valve is doing Linux gamers a great service and since Linux was all about free-this and open source that, DRM-free is at least a thing. Fucking can't please whiny Linux gamers.

[–] aggelalex@lemmy.world 3 points 13 hours ago

You're missing the point. DRM free is something I respect, both as a Linux gamer and as a gamer overall. But what's important is that a game runs before I get to bitch about DRM. Valve has done strides to make games work on Linux and I respect that. What I'm saying is GOG could do it too and it would fit their business model more than Valve's.

[–] douglasg14b@lemmy.world 15 points 1 day ago

That's... Largely a financials problem.

Steam: $8-10 billion/y

GOG: $80-120 million/y

Steam can throw 10 GOGs worth of resources at a problem and barely break a sweat. Yeah, of course they are making huge strides, that's how consolidation of wealth works when that wealth is actually reinvested.

[–] blind3rdeye@lemm.ee 29 points 1 day ago (11 children)

It's pretty hard for GOG. Many of the things people don't like about GOG are not really GOG's fault, they are just a result of small market share. Steam is the bigger platform, and so naturally it gets priority for basically everything.

You game doesn't work on Steam? Then you'd better fix it immediately, because that's where the bulk of players are. But if your game doesn't work on GOG... well.. maybe fix it when you get some spare time. (Or maybe don't have a GOG version, because you don't want to have to keep multiple platforms up-to-date.)

So publishers and developers are generally less cooperative with GOG. And GOG themselves obviously have much more limited resources to do stuff themselves.

Steam's recent work with Linux has been great. And I do wish GOG would have something like that. But again, Valve has vast resources for that kind of thing - and they've been working on it ever since the Windows 8 appstore threatened to wipe them out. (That threat fizzled out; but nevertheless, that was what got the Linux ball rolling for Valve.) I'm in two minds about whether GOG should try to boost their Linux support. On the one hand, GOG is all about preservation and compatibility... and so it makes sense to have better Linux compatibility. On the other hand, it would be leaning further into a niche; and working on a problem that is kind of solved already. i.e. We can already run GOG games on Linux with or without a native linux version... it just could be nicer... Maybe it's not a good use of GOG's resources to go for that.

(That said, when I look at their linux start.sh scripts and see cd "${CURRENT_DIR}/game" chmod +x * it makes me think they could probably put at least a bit more effort into their linux support.)

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[–] DicJacobus@lemmy.world 20 points 1 day ago (1 children)

GOG was good for acquiring and re-releasing OLD GAMES. somewhere along the way they decided they wanted to compete with the big platforms and be "We're just like them but without DRM"

I haven't used GOG for years, they allowed me to relive a few of my old adolescence favorites, but stopped being useful to me a long time ago :/

[–] AnyOldName3@lemmy.world 26 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Selling old games and new games isn't mutually exclusive, and more money tends to be spent on new games than old ones. It's not unreasonable to expect that selling new games too could subsidise the work to make old games run on modern platforms.

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[–] NutWrench@lemmy.ml 55 points 2 days ago

There's nothing wrong with the business model of selling older games at affordable prices. This is about poor management. (Or deliberately bad management by a "CEO" who was hired to destroy GOG to remove a popular choice from us).

[–] cyberpunk007@lemmy.ca 273 points 2 days ago (55 children)

This makes me sad. I wanna believe in gog. The last bastion of hope for gaming.

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[–] AbsoluteChicagoDog@lemm.ee 32 points 2 days ago (14 children)

Thankfully if GOG goes down I don't lose anything.

Now if Steam goes down, I lose my entire library

[–] Nyxicas@kbin.melroy.org 1 points 21 hours ago

You have it backwards.

If GOG goes down, you actually lose what you own.

If Steam goes down, you lose your privileges.

[–] aido@lemmy.world 21 points 2 days ago (9 children)

Gabe Newell has promised that if Steam goes down you won't lose your library, but we only have his word as assurance.

[–] pyre@lemmy.world 9 points 1 day ago

Gabe Newell is much more likely to go down before steam does. his words mean nothing for the future.

[–] AbsoluteChicagoDog@lemm.ee 34 points 2 days ago (1 children)

No doubt the corporate drones that take over after his death will shit all over his legacy.

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[–] glitchdx@lemmy.world 20 points 2 days ago

If steam goes down I'm sailing the high seas from then on.

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[–] sirico@feddit.uk 26 points 2 days ago

People talking about money kinda missing the point this is a culture issue. They need to sort themselves out clean house if people can't be reasonable for their staff.

[–] DoucheBagMcSwag@lemmy.dbzer0.com 160 points 2 days ago (31 children)

Shit I really like GOG as it's the only competition to steam

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[–] Coelacanth@feddit.nu 39 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I really like GOG so it would be highly unfortunate to see them go under. I guess we really can't have nice things in this day and age.

[–] woelkchen@lemmy.world 43 points 2 days ago (1 children)

GOG is a side project of CD Project, the makers of The Witcher and Cyberpunk. They are massively wealthy. If GOG goes down, it's because CD Project lets it happen, not because there is no other way.

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[–] Grandwolf319@sh.itjust.works 26 points 2 days ago

As a result, no one on the team has the courage to express their opinion. Under Gołębiewski, GOG typically makes business decisions that may be profitable in the short term, but may not contribute to the platform’s long-term growth.

Why half ass things when your the good guy?

[–] freeman@sh.itjust.works 28 points 2 days ago (1 children)

The publication added that CD Projekt cuts jobs at its subsidiary every two to three years, with annual staff turnover reaching around 30%.

As summed up by another former employee, “GOG has been acting well tactically from a financial perspective, but poorly strategically, and the current business model is likely running out of steam.”

So nothing burger? Other than a corpo being anti-worker which is not news..

[–] emeralddawn45@discuss.tchncs.de 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

What exactly is the distinction between acting tactically and strategically? This doesnt even make sense.

[–] silentknyght@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

Pedantically, I believe "tactics" are small / short term and "strategics" are big / long term.

[–] TheTechnician27@lemmy.world 141 points 2 days ago (2 children)

The former employee knew what they were doing with their choice of words.

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[–] BaroqueInMind@lemmy.one 119 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (3 children)

“GOG regularly adapts its structure to its strategy and ongoing projects, sometimes this means eliminating certain roles — as was the case recently.”

Yeah, but firing 30% of your entire contract workforce reveals that you don't give a flying fuck about sustaining the lifespan of the storefront and prefer to pad the executives golden parachutes from the stock valuation.

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[–] 7rokhym@lemmy.ca 76 points 2 days ago (33 children)

I'm really happy with my experience with GOG, but they put a lot of effort into their Windows app and i ws pretty blunt with my feedback, it is pretty useless to me and I find it unhelpful. Heroic game launcher on Linux great and cost GOG $0.00. My thought is that they have been focusing on the wrong things, fundamentally I love their strong DRM stance and when I am travelling internationally,the games I bought off GOG work, unlike Steam😡😡😡😡. So if they have come to this realization, then nothing about these changes are disturbing as a customer, but sad to hear their employees taking the hit. 😢

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