GOG seems to be considering paid membership option
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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
- a tool for backing up offline installers
- ability to install previous versions of a game
- extra insight into the preservation work they're doing.
- voting rights on games to bring into the preservation program.
And others that I can't remember.
How about GOG Galaxy on Linux?
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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.
1/3 of the Steam + Linux market, that accounted for an incredible 1.45% of Steam installs in February. This means there were roughly 67 Windows gamers for every Linux gamer (using Steam) that month.
So even if Linux gamers are 10 times more likely to care (and pay for) for game preservation, you are not even approaching the number of Windows users that might. Suppose 90% of Linux gamers care, while only 9% on Windows do, you still have roughly 6 Windows users for every Linux one. And this is a very generous assumption to make.
Maybe, eventually, at some point, this makes sense financially. But if your goal is to be profitable, you grab the low hanging fruits first, not invest in maybe 10% more potential users.
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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?
Yeah I'm not at all against the idea of throwing a few bucks at them per month for something, but I just don't see anything that fits in the context of why I use GOG in the first place. Voting rights doesn't seem like a bad idea. Ideas like earlier versions of games, tools that help with backup, etc should be offered for free or sold for a one-time cost IMO.
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Select a game from a catered library to be granted lifetime ownership? Like rent to own perhaps?
But they specifically don't appear to be talking about that
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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.
Steam's investment in UI and store features are part of the onus of hardware platform growth. Steam isn't just a storefront anymore. GOG has no such interest.
I do think indicators are good for the future of Linux gaming, but it's just not good business right now to go chasing it.
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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
- a tool for backing up offline installers
- ability to install previous versions of a game
- extra insight into the preservation work they're doing.
- voting rights on games to bring into the preservation program.
And others that I can't remember.
I just wanna be able to filter games by what goodies they have, man. I want my waw paypaws.
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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?
Source code access to your library?
Not sure what else they can offer
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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
- a tool for backing up offline installers
- ability to install previous versions of a game
- extra insight into the preservation work they're doing.
- voting rights on games to bring into the preservation program.
And others that I can't remember.
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.
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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
- a tool for backing up offline installers
- ability to install previous versions of a game
- extra insight into the preservation work they're doing.
- voting rights on games to bring into the preservation program.
And others that I can't remember.
GOG is fucked. As soon as services like this start talking about subscriptions, it's already over.
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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
- a tool for backing up offline installers
- ability to install previous versions of a game
- extra insight into the preservation work they're doing.
- voting rights on games to bring into the preservation program.
And others that I can't remember.
I was seriously just finally starting to become interested in using them a lot more for gaming since I got some success getting it to work on my Linux install. This would make me do a full 180 though...
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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
- a tool for backing up offline installers
- ability to install previous versions of a game
- extra insight into the preservation work they're doing.
- voting rights on games to bring into the preservation program.
And others that I can't remember.
Bad move GOG, you're as of right now still inferior to steam & you want to enshitify your platform ?
- Port your Gog-Galaxy launcher to Linux (it has to be native)
- fund Wine
- Accomodate for more local payment systems
- Have more currencies
- Would be nice if you made your launchers (or at least the core-functionalities OpenSource)
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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.
If that's the case, I may be interested. I'd still like Galaxy on Linux before I give them additional money.
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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
- a tool for backing up offline installers
- ability to install previous versions of a game
- extra insight into the preservation work they're doing.
- voting rights on games to bring into the preservation program.
And others that I can't remember.
Wait so currently you can't install previous versions of games you only get the most up-to-date version. That's daft to expect people to pay for, that's a free feature on Steam.
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here's the survey if anyone wants to answer: https://www.smartsurvey.co.uk/s/MURG4B
I did it. I made sure to beg them for Galaxy on Linux.
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Wait so currently you can't install previous versions of games you only get the most up-to-date version. That's daft to expect people to pay for, that's a free feature on Steam.
I honestly thought this was an option, but I can't see it in the client, and the offline installers only offer all patches and the latest version. Not the original version.
I agree that's daft, and hope that feature doesn't get paywalled. The more people who do the survey and stress these points, the better.
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Yeah, I found that one weird as well. Lego Island wasn't just the first Lego game. It was one of the first open world games. Well worth preserving. Much more so than the Lego games that got added.
I think LEGO Island would be hard to license because Mindscape is long gone. Also the source code was lost as I recall. MattKC on YouTube has created lots of patches to get the game running on modern systems. He's working on decompiling it actually.
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Wait so currently you can't install previous versions of games you only get the most up-to-date version. That's daft to expect people to pay for, that's a free feature on Steam.
That's not an official/proper feature on steam, there's nothing in the interface to select an older version, right? Just the beta system that lets developers have multiple branches available, which is often used to keep a limited number of previous versions available.
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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
- a tool for backing up offline installers
- ability to install previous versions of a game
- extra insight into the preservation work they're doing.
- voting rights on games to bring into the preservation program.
And others that I can't remember.
The things I would be ok paying a subscription for:
- Rotating free Games that I get to keep. Like epic but only for subscribers. The game should be mine even after I quit the subscription.
- Extra insights in preservation, or goodies
- voting rights on what games should be free next month for the sunscribers.
- discounted price on games.
Things that I feel it shouldnot be locked behind subscription and paywall:
- tool for backing up offline installers
- ability to install previous versions of game
- and definitely not voting rights on games to bring into the preservation program.
If the tooks for backing up offline installers or ability to install previous versions of game are paywalled, that is going to invite more reasons for piracy.
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Anything but properly supporting the Linux community
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.
It's not like they have to create the compatibility layers from scratch; Valve did it for them.
I do just want to point out, Valve didn't do that - Proton is mostly just pre-existing software that they packaged together into an officially supported feature. I love that they did it, and having it in the biggest PC game platform presumably did wonders for Linux gaming, but it was most certainly not made from scratch.
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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
- a tool for backing up offline installers
- ability to install previous versions of a game
- extra insight into the preservation work they're doing.
- voting rights on games to bring into the preservation program.
And others that I can't remember.
I think if they need an extra income stream, it should be physical manuals, discs/disks, boxes, and feelies. Say that GOG has System Shock, Ultima VII, Thief Gold, and TIE Fighter planned for a limited edition boxed edition, but needs pre-orders. Plonk down $20-40, get those things when the funding goal is reached.
