The first sentence of that quoted post is correct. The second is not, however.

GOG abandoned the "good old games" model many years ago because it wasn't a viable model. And it still isn't now either. Most people generally don't care about buying and/or playing ancient obsolete games.

GOG doubling-down on that bad, unviable model isn't going to help them.

In order to do well, GOG would need popular new games like Elden Ring to be sold on GOG.

It's not like we justify the losses but we see where they came from, and GOG is part from CDP, they still have margen to work with, it's not like it's going to disappear tomorrow, the store actually progressively grew, but there are some inexplicable increase in the expenses, like really big even in comparison with 2020.

What is the "good old games exclusive model"? Releasing just one game a week like in the beginning? Releasing fewer games won't help GOG's finances, unless maybe it stops devs and pubs who "2nd class" GOG users and helps GOG's reputation in that area.

I agree people should backup their games, they should always do that, it's the main selling point of GOG other than "old games on new machines".

The fun part about the huge Galaxy development costs: The client didn't really evolve in any meaningful way. We got the Epic store integration and... well, yeah... that's it :/ The rest of the work basically went into fixing stuff that didn't work well when Galaxy 2.0 was released. After two years they're still not able to "sync" our website and Galaxy libraries (like tags or hidden games). When I look at my library on the website, I own 238 games (+21 hidden games = 259). When I look at my library in Galaxy, there's 255 games. I have no idea if there are still some games not compatible with Galaxy, which could be an explanation for the difference... but it's weird.

I think it became pretty bad with Covid. Support should work without any major issues from home office, but, yeah, this is GOG... It became even worse with Cyberpunk. But that shouldn't be the reason for the absurd response time they still have.

The sad part about this: They'll have to cut down Galaxy development massively to reduce their losses. So we'll be stuck with a half baked client that cost a lot and is worse than most other clients (except Epic).
AND: They won't have the money to hire some web developers to fix the website, because this would mean new costs. Apart from not being compatible with Galaxy, there are still some parts that never got any updates (like forum or wishlist). Depending on which link you click, you'll travel through time and visit "Good Old Games" from the good ol' past. Currently there's three different GOGs: Galaxy, website and everything you find on the community tab. If you compare them, they look like three different places. Weird!

Well, to be fair it seems CDPR retired their in-house game engine and are going with Epic's Unreal Engine moving forward. In about the same time they really went all out in technology depreciation for Gog. It was mentioned that multiplayer was one of the reasons for the change so it could be that Gog is undergoing server upgrades to handle the anticipated new load once these two new games are released by CDPR.

Is it a smart move? Well, if those games are wildly successful then yes it was. If not, then CDPR and Gog are in deep trouble. Can't really tell until it happens.
That difference is because of how the website handles stuff like demos. Galaxy often condenses demos and the actual game under one entry whereas the website puts them under separate entries. No idea why it does that but it causes a difference in the number of games displayed. I think it's a terrible idea personally but that's at least one reason for the discrepancy.

Thank you for explaining. I suspected Galaxy was a big expense. Aside from hiring all the extra staff to develop and support it, create new API + documentation + support developers after requesting they all integrate it + go back and repackage every offline installer on the store with new Galaxy friendly offline installers & new naming format, etc, Galaxy also needs a lot of extra specialist servers for Galaxy specific downloads (the different way it downloads / delta updates), cloud saves, achievements, online multiplayer / "lobbies", etc, vs only one lot of simple download servers for offline installers?

As for multiplayer W3 / CP2077, I think spending a lot of money on infrastructure to support that is a big gamble. Aren't the best multi-player games those that are designed around being multi-player from the start? Eg, I used to enjoy Quake 3 but I can't ever remember being slightly interested in multi-player FEAR, Bioshock 2, or No One Lives Forever, so I can't see "Cyberpunk 2077 Multiplayer" becoming the next Fortnite no matter what engine they use. Single vs Multi player games these days seem to be "all or nothing", ie, you either go 'all in' with designing 100% multi-player from scratch like Fortnite, Overwatch, Among Us, etc, or you go 'all in' with making a really good 100% single player like Prey or Dishonored, with little overlap between the two.

I don't have any demos on GOG. Two "games" missing in Galaxy are X-Wing Special Edition 1993 and 1998. Galaxy only shows 1994 Collector's CD in my library (there are all three versions of TIE Fighter in both of my libraries, website and Galaxy). It doesn't really bother me, though. I just think it's pretty weird to have different libraries on the website and Galaxy. Shouldn't be too hard to have the same library, no matter how you access it. Especially since GOG launched the new library because of Galaxy -.-

Anyhow... It is something that gives me the impression that Galaxy 2 is an expensive, incomplete mess. They spent millions on it! And here's me, staring at my two different libraries on the same account and asking myself "Where the heck are my games? What is even missing?"
I'd even say that Galaxy 2.0 is the last bastion of one of GOG's old "principles". They started as a highly unprofessional niche-store, founded by some nerds who didn't know what they were doing. And Galaxy looks like a client made by people who have no idea what they're doing...

Basically this.

I have noticed an improvement, as my wishlist is now larger than my library.. but they are much smaller games and not the likes of Elden Ring.


To be honest, i don't see their current DRM-Free only model working out, as much as i want it too... i don't see them getting the major titles as most devs act as tho all their profits are gonna be stolen from them as soon as it's released DRM-Free.

I'd much rather have a contract where the game becomes DRM-Free at the end of it, so in 5-10 years time, so everyone who wants DRM-Free games will get it, GOG may be able to open up to more games... and the customers don't have to rebuy a fookin game just to get it DRM-Free.





Other option is to give their own games Early Access on GOG, 1-3 months would be more than long enough, as the masses usually get desperate anyway.

I don't spend much time contemplating GOG financials, but I would tend to agree that Galaxy 2 and building server infrastructure is probably "to blame."

I am also curious why CDPR and GOG split... but... IMHO it was probably mainly for CDPR shareholders and future investment.

As for GOG's catalog...

... the strategy had seemingly been for CDPR exclusivity to bring in customers and contracts (new games), but where Valve and Epic built stores upon existing reputations and track records of strong games, CDPR / GOG pretty much built the store first and figured the big games would come... kind of a Field of Dreams strategy. Unfortunately, starting with Witcher Tales and now with CP2077, that strategy hasn't panned out (yet); the releases have floundered a bit and consumers haven't looked kindly on the idea of exclusivity. But things can change with CDPR developing multiple games at the moment.

Is there money in old games? Certainly... but I would tend to think only if operating expenses are almost non-existent... and CDPR and GOG both have ambition... and that leads to investment / expenses. But again I think they are simply playing for time / survival until CDPR exclusivity works on some upcoming title(s).

Both CDPR and GOG belong to CDP group and it always was like that. Not sure what split you mean but I don't recall any as they never were merged.

In case your wondering, click on those diamonds in Galaxy to access the other versions (see picture). Yeah, I would rather it be the same as the website. Consistency would be nice.

Sometimes it feels like GOG are being pulled in different directions by a few "factions" who have different beliefs about what GOG should be and want different things out of GOG, things that are sometimes incompatible with one other.

The XWing bames are there, bundled under the same icon, you will notice a subtle effect of "maze" of covers when you hover over it. That is how Galaxy handle different versions of the same game, you must tick which one you want to be active for download or run each time.
Indeed in the web library you will see three games, under Galaxy you will see one cover with three games inside.

And yes, inconsistencely the Tie Fighter games are displayed as different entities under Galaxy and website. Maybe technical details forced to do in that way.

Thanks. I didn't know that O.O

That's what I found pretty weird. Only one X-Wing but all three of the Tie Fighter versions... I thought that the two missing X-Wings weren't compatible with Galaxy and that's the reason why they were missing.
The other two "missing" games are probably other titles with different versions bundled in that sub-menu. I don't have Galaxy installed here, but looking at my (website) library, I have quite a few games with various versions:

- Divinity: Original Sin
- Mark of the Ninja
- Sword of the Stars: The Pit
- The Vanishing of Ethan Carter
- Wasteland 2

Two of them are probably bundled like X-Wing is.

Q1 2022 results are out now, GOG posted 40 million zloty revenue for the first quarter compared to 53 million last year (expected since Q1 2021 was first full quarter that Cyberpunk was out), however GOG did turn a small profit of 152 thousand zloty.
https://www.cdprojekt.com/en/investors/result-center/
Also GOG has 55 million zloty in cash and cash equivalent assets, more than enough to keep them running until the next cash cow, Witcher 4 comes out.

Edit: In the teleconference, CDP announced that GOG has signed "a new supplier of games" which they feel will positively influence future reporting periods.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79y_tfWk2so&t=3633