• Some users have recently had their accounts hijacked. It seems that the now defunct EVGA forums might have compromised your password there and seems many are using the same PW here. We would suggest you UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD and TURN ON 2FA for your account here to further secure it. None of the compromised accounts had 2FA turned on.
    Once you have enabled 2FA, your account will be updated soon to show a badge, letting other members know that you use 2FA to protect your account. This should be beneficial for everyone that uses FSFT.

GOG in Financial Trouble as Layoffs Hit the PC Games Digital Storefront

cageymaru

cageymaru

Fully [H]
2FA
Joined
Apr 10, 2003
Messages
22,793
GOG is in financial trouble as the DRM-free PC games digital storefront has confirmed it laid off 12 members of its team. This number may seem small, but it equates to 10% of the total workforce at GOG. On a more positive note, the company is hiring more employees and says it has "welcomed nearly twice as many new team members." GOG competes directly with other digital game storefronts such as Steam, Origin, Epic Store, etc.

"We were told it's a financial decision," that person told me in an online message. "GOG's revenue couldn't keep up with growth, the fact that we're dangerously close to being in the red has come up in the past few months, and the market's move towards higher [developer] revenue shares has, or will, affect the bottom line as well. I mean, it's just an odd situation, like things got really desperate really fast. I know that February was a really bad month, but January on the other hand was excellent. We were in the middle of a general restructuring, moving some teams around, not unprecedented. But layoffs that big have never happened before."
 
so basically they hired a couple young bucks that would work for less to replace the one more experienced older dude they think was overpaid. (edit: X12) okay. wow. ...hope that worx out for ya. NOT sounds like same thing our governments' up to.
 
Even though I haven't bought anything from GOG, mainly because I doin't want to fragment my library, it certainly would be really bad for consumers if GOG goes under as they market strategy is good. It also shows that being DRM free is viable. I hope they can stay afloat.
 
why doesn't convenience win in the games industry... pirating a game isn't the easiest thing to do... buying and downloading and keeping games from gog.com is... (imo, I still don't like steam having to have an internet connection to log in just to access games)
 
You guys do know if you buy games from GOG you can "add them" to your Steam's library GUI even if you don't have a code to activate it directly on Steam.

Install the game, then let Steam know where the EXE is and you'll be able to select the game from within' your Steam library.

Granted, the game has to be installed and can't be uninstalled/installed through Steam. Most of the games are relatively small so keeping them installed like we did back in the 90s and early 00s isn't that big of an issue.
 
Youn said:
why doesn't convenience win in the games industry... pirating a game isn't the easiest thing to do... buying and downloading and keeping games from gog.com is... (imo, I still don't like steam having to have an internet connection to log in just to access games)
Click to expand...

You could access steam using the offline mode. I hardly login online and do not see a need to. It works without an internet connection as well. That is how I game in a plane.
 
I don't buy it.

GoG, owned by CD Projekt, is the 2nd most-popular 3rd-party games digital reseller, and they take 30% on all sales. They must be making huge money. According to Tim Sweeney, the profits from 30% of sales unreasonably exceed the costs of the services provided by a digital games reseller - so much so that Epic is taking just 12% and Tim claims to be able to develop many of the same features that Steam has with less than 1% of that 12%.

12 people being laid off represents ridiculously small workforce cost savings for a mega-million dollar company like CD Projekt, and when the company says they've recently hired nearly twice as many, then it isn't a sign of financial trouble. Also, CD Projekt are looking to hire a lot more people.

“We were told it’s a financial decision” doesn't necessarily equate it's because the company is struggling financially. It could just be that having more people in a certain position was costing the company without accomplishing anything for the company. Or, it could just be something said to be comforting of the person getting laid off, like 'it's not you, it's me'.

Also, if CD Projekt was struggling then an obvious thing to do to help them out would be to make CyberPunk 2077 exclusive to GoG. Yet, CD Projekt have recently stated that they won't make CyberPunk 2077 exclusive to their platform.


I think that this is just a sensationalist story being spun out of an anecdotal detail.
 
Last edited:
Delicieuxz said:
I don't buy it.

GoG, owned by CD Projekt, is the 2nd most-popular 3rd-party games digital reseller, and they take 30% on all sales. They must be making huge money. According to Tim Sweeney, the profits from 30% of sales unreasonably exceed the costs of the services provided by a digital games reseller - so much so that Epic is taking just 12% and Tim claims to be able to develop many of the same features that Steam has with less than 1% of that 12%.

12 people being laid off represents ridiculously small workforce cost savings for a mega-million dollar company like CD Projekt Red, and when the company says they've recently hired nearly twice as many, then it isn't a sign of financial trouble.

“We were told it’s a financial decision” doesn't necessarily equate it's because the company is struggling financially. It could just be that having more people in a certain position was costing the company without accomplishing anything for the company. Or, it could just be something said to be comforting of the person getting laid off, like 'it's not you, it's me'.


I think that a sensationalist news story is being spun out of an anecdotal detail.
Click to expand...

Tim Sweeney is manipulating the facts. Fortnite is supporting Epic's store front/platform, as well as passing on some of the costs to the consumer (credit card fees etc). When you have one of the most popular games paying the main portion of the cost of a plateform, it is easy to say that you can do it on 1% out of the 12%, because the 12% is only responsible for 1% of the total cost of the platform.
 
Delicieuxz said:
I don't buy it.

GoG, owned by CD Projekt, is the 2nd most-popular 3rd-party games digital reseller, and they take 30% on all sales. They must be making huge money. According to Tim Sweeney, the profits from 30% of sales unreasonably exceed the costs of the services provided by a digital games reseller - so much so that Epic is taking just 12% and Tim claims to be able to develop many of the same features that Steam has with less than 1% of that 12%.

12 people being laid off represents ridiculously small workforce cost savings for a mega-million dollar company like CD Projekt Red, and when the company says they've recently hired nearly twice as many, then it isn't a sign of financial trouble.

“We were told it’s a financial decision” doesn't necessarily equate it's because the company is struggling financially. It could just be that having more people in a certain position was costing the company without accomplishing anything for the company. Or, it could just be something said to be comforting of the person getting laid off, like 'it's not you, it's me'.


I think that a sensationalist news story is being spun out of an anecdotal detail.
Click to expand...

GOG isn't that popular. The majority of the games are old. The few semi modern games they are are still old enough that most people own them on Seam or Origin already. Old games and small indie games don't sell anywhere near as much as AAA games or even 2nd tier games. And if its on Steam, 90% of the people will buy from Steam over GOG.
 
I keep hearing no DRM as the big win for everyone here in regards to GOG. It is a nice perk but the ability to even purchase certain games that are not available anywhere, modernizing those games to work on current operating systems systems, with manuals, box art and soundtracks are the reasons why I find GOG to be so amazing. Games are art, if you can't see, touch or feel the art it just disappears in to the ether. Photographs don't do art justice, same goes with games and youtube videos or screenshots; it just is not the same experience.
 
Delicieuxz said:
I don't buy it.

GoG, owned by CD Projekt, is the 2nd most-popular 3rd-party games digital reseller, and they take 30% on all sales. They must be making huge money. According to Tim Sweeney, the profits from 30% of sales unreasonably exceed the costs of the services provided by a digital games reseller - so much so that Epic is taking just 12% and Tim claims to be able to develop many of the same features that Steam has with less than 1% of that 12%.

12 people being laid off represents ridiculously small workforce cost savings for a mega-million dollar company like CD Projekt Red, and when the company says they've recently hired nearly twice as many, then it isn't a sign of financial trouble.

“We were told it’s a financial decision” doesn't necessarily equate it's because the company is struggling financially. It could just be that having more people in a certain position was costing the company without accomplishing anything for the company. Or, it could just be something said to be comforting of the person getting laid off, like 'it's not you, it's me'.


I think that a sensationalist news story is being spun out of an anecdotal detail.
Click to expand...

Even if GOG is the second most popular (and I'd need to see data to back that up) they would still be fighting over the estimated 30-50% of the digital PC game market not owned by Valve. If you're only talking about 3rd party stores, excluding things like Origin and Ubisoft, then Valve owns an even larger portion of the market.
 
Delicieuxz said:
I don't buy it.

GoG, owned by CD Projekt, is the 2nd most-popular 3rd-party games digital reseller, and they take 30% on all sales. They must be making huge money. According to Tim Sweeney, the profits from 30% of sales unreasonably exceed the costs of the services provided by a digital games reseller - so much so that Epic is taking just 12% and Tim claims to be able to develop many of the same features that Steam has with less than 1% of that 12%.

12 people being laid off represents ridiculously small workforce cost savings for a mega-million dollar company like CD Projekt Red, and when the company says they've recently hired nearly twice as many, then it isn't a sign of financial trouble.

“We were told it’s a financial decision” doesn't necessarily equate it's because the company is struggling financially. It could just be that having more people in a certain position was costing the company without accomplishing anything for the company. Or, it could just be something said to be comforting of the person getting laid off, like 'it's not you, it's me'.


I think that a sensationalist news story is being spun out of an anecdotal detail.
Click to expand...
Just because they're owned by CD Projekt Red doesn't mean they're allowed to not be profitable. In other words, if income is lower than payroll, they're going to lay people off. As Flogger mentioned, their main titles are either old or indie games, they often cost a little more than steam, and just don't have as much publicity or marketshare. That, and they do real maintenance in getting old titles working, so costs may add up.
 
zkostik said:
Even though I haven't bought anything from GOG, mainly because I doin't want to fragment my library, it certainly would be really bad for consumers if GOG goes under as they market strategy is good. It also shows that being DRM free is viable. I hope they can stay afloat.
Click to expand...
I fail to follow this logic. How would GoG going under show that they have a viable business model?
Um.
Am I missing something here?
 
I bought several games from GoG recently over the holidays and I didn't give Steam a single cent this time. One of the reasons is because some of the games I bought simply weren't on Steam or the version on Steam was not as good or not complete. A couple games were on both platforms but decided to buy GoG instead. I like supporting GoG and will continue to do so in the future. GoG's policy of no DRM is a big plus for me. The ability to download and store the installers for the game locally is a plus. I also like the fact that GoG also has a lot of older games and such as that's the main thing I've been purchasing there.

I also like to make sure Steam continues to have a competitor who is decent. GoG may not be big but it is a competitor and does things a bit differently than Steam. It doesn't hurt that I don't need 90%+ of the features built in to the Steam client so I'm not missing anything of real importance by going with GoG.
 
The bottom 10% can always be cut. Pro tip, don't be the worst performing member on your team. When it comes to things like supporting your family, make sure you do what you need to. Don't work just hard or smart, do both. Be a good person, if you make your boss/leadership's job easier it increases your chance to stay around.

Yes...I am a worn down cog in the machine that's only goal is make sure my son has a better life then me. Better, not easier.

-Signed

Jaded
 
Could be a sign of GoG having financial issues, or it could just be a company cleaning house.
 
mt2e said:
Yes...I am a worn down cog in the machine that's only goal is make sure my son has a better life then me. Better, not easier.
Click to expand...

tenor.gif


Respect.
 
Skillz said:
You guys do know if you buy games from GOG you can "add them" to your Steam's library GUI even if you don't have a code to activate it directly on Steam.

Install the game, then let Steam know where the EXE is and you'll be able to select the game from within' your Steam library.

Granted, the game has to be installed and can't be uninstalled/installed through Steam. Most of the games are relatively small so keeping them installed like we did back in the 90s and early 00s isn't that big of an issue.
Click to expand...

It isn't about using Steam as a launcher, I doubt hardly anyone cares here on [H]. It's about having purchased content in one area for easy access and installation. Personally, I really stopped caring about most DRM as long as it doesn't interfere with my use of the product. I honestly just don't have the time or desire to fight it or bitch about it. However Steam does it works for me and it's simple. For some old games or perhaps things with broken DRM, GOG would be handy. They also updated some old games to run on Windows 10 so kudos for that as well.
 
I haven't bought from GOG lately (anyone really). I'm on a purchasing freeze until I knock out some backlog.

I wonder how many others are doing this?
 
Youn said:
why doesn't convenience win in the games industry... pirating a game isn't the easiest thing to do... buying and downloading and keeping games from gog.com is... (imo, I still don't like steam having to have an internet connection to log in just to access games)
Click to expand...

Sorry but pirating is really easy nowadays. Today many pirated games come with installers that autopatch the game plus they come with all the extras so you don't have to deal with paid DLC.

My pirate days are long gone, but pirating back in the day was much more complicated (and sometimes not even worth it).
 
I know I've purchased a couple under $5 old games there, but nothing recently and nothing I can specifically remember. I do the majority of my spending on Humble Bundle (sometimes Fanatical, sometimes Origin) but then redeem those codes on Steam. I don't buy much from Steam directly anymore, there sales are not as good as they used to be. But I do like the unified-ish platform, and having patching done automagically.

Honestly... there are too many different digital storefronts selling the same titles. I get why publishers have their own stores ie EA/Origin and Epic and Blizzard, etc etc. But Humble, Fanatical, Steam, Gog, GMG, etc etc sell a similar subset of games. And if they're activating on Steam anyway, what does it matter?

Stoly said:
Sorry but pirating is really easy nowadays. Today many pirated games come with installers that autopatch the game plus they come with all the extras so you don't have to deal with paid DLC.

My pirate days are long gone, but pirating back in the day was much more complicated (and sometimes not even worth it).
Click to expand...

Like many others I know who all used to do this, we've all given it up over the last 10-15 years. I mean Humble Bundle just FLOODS me with games for $12 a month/$99 a year, that I couldn't possibly play them all. And any AAA title that is a must have has to be online to function properly anyway. Plus the never ending search for patches and cracks and the viruses/trojans... meh.
 
Last edited:
ScuNioN said:
I keep hearing no DRM as the big win for everyone here in regards to GOG. It is a nice perk but the ability to even purchase certain games that are not available anywhere, modernizing those games to work on current operating systems systems, with manuals, box art and soundtracks are the reasons why I find GOG to be so amazing. Games are art, if you can't see, touch or feel the art it just disappears in to the ether. Photographs don't do art justice, same goes with games and youtube videos or screenshots; it just is not the same experience.
Click to expand...

The reason I have switched to using them more lately is that on Steam I cannot have more than one gaming session going at the same time. I can be a bit of an ADD gamer, and will have 2 games running at the same time on the two PCs at my desk. Sometimes i just want to throw a game up for my 5 year old to play next to me. I am sure there are workarounds to get it to run both games, but it is still an annoyance.
 
Stoly said:
Sorry but pirating is really easy nowadays. Today many pirated games come with installers that autopatch the game plus they come with all the extras so you don't have to deal with paid DLC.

My pirate days are long gone, but pirating back in the day was much more complicated (and sometimes not even worth it).
Click to expand...
I have previously debated "taking a game for a spin" to see how much I would like it. I always end up just adding it to my wishlist and forgetting about the game because with all of the "auto-patching" and "extras", people can just as easily add their own "extras" and no one would know (until it is too late). I prefer to keep my PCs virus and spyware/other malware free. Trying to cheat the system just opens yourself up to having to trust the person packaging the game, as well as any other people who may take that and also make it available for sharing.
 
ScuNioN said:
I keep hearing no DRM as the big win for everyone here in regards to GOG. It is a nice perk but the ability to even purchase certain games that are not available anywhere, modernizing those games to work on current operating systems systems, with manuals, box art and soundtracks are the reasons why I find GOG to be so amazing. Games are art, if you can't see, touch or feel the art it just disappears in to the ether. Photographs don't do art justice, same goes with games and youtube videos or screenshots; it just is not the same experience.
Click to expand...

Aren't most/all of the really old games just packed with DOSBOX? That is not "modernizing" them at all.

That being said, I like GOG and buy stuff from them every once in a while.
 
Delicieuxz said:
GoG, owned by CD Projekt, is the 2nd most-popular 3rd-party games digital reseller, and they take 30% on all sales. They must be making huge money. According to Tim Sweeney, the profits from 30% of sales unreasonably exceed the costs of the services provided by a digital games reseller - so much so that Epic is taking just 12% and Tim claims to be able to develop many of the same features that Steam has with less than 1% of that 12%.
Click to expand...
12% * $50 = $6. $6 / 30% = $20. Is GoG "making huge money" on their <$10 titles?
 
umeng2002 said:
There lack of DRM isn't the issue. The lack of publishers wanting to release new games without DRM is the issue.
Click to expand...

Somebody correct me if I'm wrong on this but a lot of GOG games also do not have the latest patches because developers have to code those separately? I thought I read that somewhere?
 
Last edited:
https://www.gog.com/news/conclusion_of_the_bfair_price_packageb_program

On March 31st we are going to discontinue the Fair Price Package program. Let us explain the reasoning behind this decision.


We came up with Fair Price Package (FPP) as a way to make up the price difference between various countries. Some games on GOG.COM have regional pricing, meaning the price of the same game in one place can be higher compared to its price in North America. In countries where the game is more expensive, we give users the equivalent of the price difference in GOG Wallet funds. In actual numbers, on average, we give users back 12% of the game price from our own pocket. In some cases, this number can reach as high as 37%.


In the past, we were able to cover these extra costs from our cut and still turn a small profit. Unfortunately, this is not the case anymore. With an increasing share paid to developers, our cut gets smaller. However, we look at it, at the end of the day we are a store and need to make sure we sell games without a loss.


Removing FPP is not a decision we make lightly, but by making this change, we will be able to offer better conditions to game creators, which — in turn — will allow us to offer you more curated classic games and new releases. All DRM-free.


We wanted to make sure you have some lead time to still benefit from the Fair Price Package. The program will last until the 31st of March, 2019, so if you would like to take advantage of it, now is the time. The funds you gather from the program will keep the 12 months expiration date from the moment you’ve been granted your last funds.
Click to expand...

Sounds like their financial trouble has some semblance of truth behind it.
 
apcviewer said:
You could access steam using the offline mode. I hardly login online and do not see a need to. It works without an internet connection as well. That is how I game in a plane.
Click to expand...

Works to a point. If you are going to be without internet for an extended number of days though, it won't let you play your games. You have to log in once every two weeks for a minute or two in order to keep using offline mode (at least, that's how it was a couple years back).
 
Bowman15 said:
Somebody correct me if I'm wrong on this but a lot of GOG games do not have the latest patches because developers have to code those separately? I thought I read that somewhere?
Click to expand...
Not true, the latest patches are sometimes delivered late to GoG because they have to compile it without the steam stuff enabled into it. Some devs have sometimes not delivered the "beta" hotfixes till they are tested out with the steam versions and only push out the final stable patch on GoG.
 
LurkerLito said:
Not true, the latest patches are sometimes delivered late to GoG because they have to compile it without the steam stuff enabled into it. Some devs have sometimes not delivered the "beta" hotfixes till they are tested out with the steam versions and only push out the final stable patch on GoG.
Click to expand...

Thanks, that makes a lot more sense...
 
zkostik said:
Even though I haven't bought anything from GOG, mainly because I doin't want to fragment my library, it certainly would be really bad for consumers if GOG goes under as they market strategy is good. It also shows that being DRM free is viable. I hope they can stay afloat.
Click to expand...

you do know you can add "non-steam" games to your steam library right? just so you know.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Youn
like this
cyclone3d said:
Aren't most/all of the really old games just packed with DOSBOX? That is not "modernizing" them at all.

That being said, I like GOG and buy stuff from them every once in a while.
Click to expand...

Nope, some of the old games released during win 98 to pre XP don't run on newer operating systems even under compatibility mode (Arx Fatalis is one I know of). Steam has a bunch of titles that don't run well, at all or have major issues even under DOSBOX (Tomb Raider is one I know of). They work with the publisher and or developer to fix these issues.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top