So in addition to GOG's free games giveaways and summer sales, they've put out a rallying cry to their customers. They want their customers to help them get more exposure on different social media sites.
The problem is, GOG's customers are also their biggest liability
GOG was founded on an ideal. A noble ideal at that. And there's nothing wrong with that. But the problem I see is that now they've effectively painted themselves into a corner, and the only way out is to start painting a different color.
GOG is obviously in trouble. Their cry for increased social media exposure is likely due to the fact that they've effectively 'saturated' their main customer base. Anyone on the "DRM free" train is already aboard and basically throwing as much coal into the stove as fast as they can. However they are not oblivious to the shiny new Steam Bullet Train that is obliterating them at every possible corner. They need to expand. they need to go beyond their core.
But the last time they did that, their 'loyal customers' launched into a coup. Screaming that they had abandoned their ideals. GOG back tracked in the face of this. But the problem is that they NEEDED to do the regional pricing thing because many publishers wont sell games unless they can control pricing regionally. So because of their customers, they lost possible new games that could have been on GoG and expanded teh service.
GOG cannot survive by catering to their 'core' audience anymore. That market is saturated. They own it, but it's tiny. Without growth they cannot hope to sustain themselves. They need new content. They need NEW stuff.
Their rallying cry for increased social exposure is likely a way for them to leverage publishers/devs in the future. At least they can say "hey look at our social media exposure" when anyone asks "Why should I bother being on GoG when Steam is the place to be?"
Even if this social media push is successful, I don't feel that GOG has the audience nor the content to really grow. They need content. But their biggest assets appear to be their biggest liability.
I don't understand why they have to grow. Isn't it enough to just have a guy that checks the server once in a while and sort out things?
It's true that they can't grow (since they rely on old games).
Their greatest liability is their dependance on publishers to fail in delivering DRM-free games. The better and more silent DRM becomes, the less people will care about it and ignore GOG.com. Ironically, it is in their best interest that games have horrible DRM schemes, and GOG.com then gets to release it DRM-free a couple of years after initial release.
GOG is probably the most suited of the DRM services to survive a Steam monopoly, because they offer something different.
That said, there is a finite limit to their model. As long as it remains profitable, they're in good shape. I'm pretty sure they're making money.
That hasn't been true since they've changed from Good Old Games to just GOG in 2012. They're selling indie and newer games too, and had several day 1 releases.
Anyhow, I consider myself a loyal GOG-customer. Yet, I wasn't bothered by their plans to add regional pricing, because I understood the reasons behind them. The biggest problem was, in my opinion, the way they presented them (Good news everybody! We're going to add regional pricing!) and the "They've dropped one of their core-principles. There is nothing stopping them from dropping the "No DRM" core-principle too."-fallacy some people spouted.Heck, even though GOG went back on their plans, that doesn't mean they've completely gone back on regional pricing. Just read the second point of their Getting back to our roots post:
Also, they've announced their own optional online gaming client, GOG Galaxy, and are going to add Linux support by the end of this year. So, while GOG doesn't have the same functionalities as Steam quite yet, it's slowly getting there.
TL;DR: I'm not worried about GOG's growth at the moment.
While true it's obviously been difficult for GOG to expand beyond their original base. Their push for regional pricing was also something they saw as necessary to get better titiles on GOG to compete with Steam.
To me this is the biggest problem GOG has. They caved to what I consider an irrational reason from their customers.
While the Galaxy thing is somewhat 'interesting' it's still lacking in details. Until I hear GOG come out and outright detail the fact that they're basically building a Steamworks competitor, the client itself will essentailly be worthless. It's not like there's a shortage of download/gaming clients. Unless Galaxy pulls devs in with a Steamworks type infrastructure, there's really no point in them doing Galaxy at all.
I use GOG for one reason: access to games that I could not easily and legally get elsewhere. I could give a rat's ass about DRM, and if a game is on Steam for the same price, Valve gets my money for delivering the same product with fewer hassles.
As long as GOG remains hostage to the very vocal customers who are all about DRM-free, they will not grow. Services like gamersgate and greenmangaming survive because they sell Steam keys. GOG should too if they want to broaden their appeal.
Why would anyone buy Steam keys from a third party when they can get it directly from Steam?
Sales?
Also to not give 30% of the price to Valve.
I will always try to buy direct from the publisher. Give credit where credit is due I say.
It's really quite sad the DRM is eventually going to win. It's an effective monopoly: you can publish a game effectively unless you are part of the DRM club...and they choose if they like you or not.
I wasn't questioning why the business would do it, but rather the consumer. Why not just go directly to the source?
I go to save money. Why go directly to Steam if I can get a Steam key from Amazon for much less as part of a sale or promotion?
Wouldn't that fee be "baked into" into the price of the key?
I wasn't aware they would sell them for less.
As far as I understand, it isn't.
Yeah, with GOG I don't have apps phoning home.
I begrudgingly have bought a thing or two from Steam, but I have sync disabled for a number of reasons. There are too many cases when a game comes out with a new patch that ends up breaking some feature I liked, so staying with an 'older' version until everyone else gives the 'all clear' via a lack of 'game is now broken' posts is something I do. Also, with a 5GB data cap a month, well I have to preplan my downloads...
Heck, I went straight from 1.3 to 1.6 on LH, and at least TRIED to purchase the LH DLCs through Stardock (still had to go to Steam to enter the product codes though).
One of the more recent LH annoyances we've seen posted is where a person's custom factions get uploaded to the cloud if you 'sync', so trying to delete those factions requires a few hoops. Since it appears that there is a 24 faction or so display cap on Sovs (with Stardock adding 10 new Sovs in the latest DLC), well this becomes more important.
So while I begrudgingly support LH through Steam, if Stardock released a GOG only version, I'd be doing my LH purchases through GOG in a heartbeat! Plus, there are some classics that I still haven't grabbed/would like to replace, so I'll be getting those through GOG when the time comes. And as noted above, a number of new releases have had day 1 availabilty through GOG, so it isn't like they are standing still or only have 'old games' on their site.
Finally, I LOVE how people assume that businesses need to grow to survive. Businesses just need enough income to pay their expenses, so as long as income is able to meet those expenses, whether they make 5 Mill a year or 500 Mil a year, in the black is in the black. As for Steam asking their loyal customers to recruit others, well A GOOD NUMBER of businesses do that. Not a new concept, and if it brings you ANY new customers, well you are stupid not to take advantage of those customers that are more than happy to cheerlead for you. Referrals are a huge part of any service/retail business, as your friend/neighbor/family member's opinion of someone you are thinking of doing business with is important.
Plus, getting new customers to offset customer attrition is also important. Customers move on for a lot of reasons in Gaming (newborn kid to support, lose interest in gaming, etc.). So in short, I'm not worried about GOG going anywhere. I'm sure they are doing fine, and are just looking to maximize their customer base so they can make even more money, which is pretty much what any retail business does.
As a separate example, Newegg LIVES QUITE WELL on happy customers, and the referrals given by those customers. I'm a fairly loyal Newegg customer, but it took a LOT of coaxing to get me to take that leap of faith. There are many examples of people getting scammed/poor customer service on the 'net. If several online buddies had not told me about Newegg, I probably would never have done business with them, but now they are one of the first places I check when looking at hardware upgrades.
Watching Newegg give the slapdown to Patent Trolls is just a bonus...
GOG is just doing the same thing IMHO, just in a more overt fashion. And if their happy customers bring them even more potential happy customers, good for them!
As has been indicated most online stores (Steam/GMG/AMazon/etc) take the industry standard of 30% off the purchase price as their margins.
However there are a few ways you can give more money to developers! Well only 2 actually
1) Directly from the developer. Just like you can buy GalCiv3 from Stardock, some devs have their own stores they maintain. Usually from these stores the devs get a lot more money. IT's always good to check if your dev has their own store to buy a game.
2) Humble Widgets. FOr indie devs they usually have a Humble Widget on their page this widget has a margin of what I understand to be sub-10%. So it's a good thing to buy indie games from their websites using their Humble WIdgets, espeicially when they give STeam keys!
Caveat: The HUmble STORE is differnt as a lot of money goes to charity (a good cause) but then the effective margins for the dev goes back down to 30%.
[quote who="tjashen" reply="16" id="3475704"]There are too many cases when a game comes out with a new patch that ends up breaking some feature I liked, so staying with an 'older' version until everyone else gives the 'all clear' via a lack of 'game is now broken' posts is something I do.p.[quote]
While this does happen Id say 'too many cases' is a bit of a stretch.
IN any case a dev can maintain several versions of their game on Steam for compatibility. Crusader Kings2 has no less than 4 versions right now you can use ranging from some ancient 1.11 version, to a 'pre-steam' conversion version, to the mainline version, to a beta version. Tools are available to devs to address this issue
Steam does now have some rudimentary bandwidth limiting features based on time of day. I'd stick with Offline mode for STeam in the mean time.
THe problem with GOG is that their customer base is entirely niche to DRM-free and old game lovers. The problem with GOG is that they're likely really close to essentally tapping out those markets. And the other problem is that they're running out of products to sell. Sure GOG doesn't yet have EVERYTHING, but again ou have to grow to survive, whether thats with more customers or with more content. GOG is slowly approaching saturation on those fronts.
To me though the fact taht they're doing it so overtly is concerning. It means they feel their userbase isn't evengelical enough or they need the numbers for some other reason. Look I don't want GOG to die. I've got a ton of stuff on GOG too. But I got a weird feeling that their post was less a rallying cry and more a cry for help, and that's troubling.
The point would be not giving any money to Valve. Whether its the devs or other stores have less importance to me.
Regional pricing should be and have been already successfully attacked at courts (at least in case of STEAM on EU territory). I consider it to be a totally unlawful practice.
Regional pricing often makes sense, because the cost of living varies from area to area.
For example, a $2,000 monthly rent in New York City would be considered cheap, whereas in Kansas it would be exorbitant.
Are you some kind of liberal ?
I mean, seriously bro!? Without regional pricing, a new game must cost the same the world over, right? In that case, WHAT would a game cost?
I'm not sure what 'court' you are referring to unless it's a kangaroo court in your back yard.
You may be new to this but Steam didn't invent regional pricing. Shocking isn't it.
In fact before Steam you would have to buy games from a store, one you'd have to walk into to buy things. Yes I know it's so quaint to think about that.
Amazingly if you went to a store in the UK, the price would be TOTALLY DIFFERENT than if you were in France! Which was different in the US. Which was different in Australia! Holy fish crisps! Why weren't Nintendo/Sony/Microsoft hauled in front of this 'court' and given the appropriate smackdown?
Because regional pricing is totally legal and has existed since the dawn of trade.
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