If it actually was for Hitman, then it's really sad that IOI could not be convinced to make those challenges and rewards work offline. What a waste.

It being the Hitman GOTY game would shed further light on why GOG was not saying what was going on for a couple of weeks at the start of that debacle.

Probably during that time period GOG was asking IOI to remove the DRM, but probably IOI refused to do it because there was no such clause in their contract with GOG that dictates they must do so (as there should have been), that same contract which GOG seemingly later cancelled due to the debacle and the massive backlash against GOG that it caused.

And if that is so, then it begs the question of: why did GOG sign a contract to allow a heavily DRM'ed game onto their store in the first place?

And likewise, why did GOG not put clauses into that contract to prevent the loss of GOG's "minimum guarantee" money in the event that the contract would need to be cancelled due to DRM in the game?

14% of the PC sales equals 10% of the general sales

300.000 sold on GoG.

Since this topic is bumped, I'll just post that 2023 3rd quarter results will be posted on November 28th. Since Phantom Liberty revenues will be realized this quarter, I anticipate this quarter's results to be a historical high for GOG, but unless CDPR and/or GOG drop something spectacular within the next two months it'll be followed by a (comparatively) sharp drop for Q4.

I imagine no publisher would sign a contract with such a clause. It's basically GOG's get out of jail free card at the expense of the publisher.
If they release GOW and Uncharted in December, the drop may not be that sharp... Though Phantom Liberty was available for pre-order, whereas Sony games are not, so you're probably right after all.

On a separate note, I'm trying my best to catch up to your numbers. :p

We would likely have had far more DRM issues here if GOG didn't have some sort of stipulations about DRM in their contracts, but I can easily see how those stipulations may have failed to properly cover a case like this where only the persistency of the unlockable items was gated behind online connection.

In another words, while almost all of us could agree that Hitman GotY was not DRM-free compatible enough to be sold here, that doesn't help GOG in any way if their contract had any loopholes that could allow IOI to win a court case against them.

GOG and IOI were probably operating in good faith over the whole fiasco and it was an oversight. Once you start citing contract clauses and demanding things like a lawyer, no one wants to do business with you anymore.

I've compiled most of the financial results here up to H1 2023 so people don't have to browse through different reports looking for it. Unfortunately it can't be linked because of prior negative rep from botters unhappy with my previous posts.

docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1jlDSN47Q_k1mZ4KyiTrJ0z8yWIdU7P-ENYEW8P_nShk/

I don't work in finance, but if I was an investor in CDP, they should sell GOG because it hasn't been significantly profitable for 15 years. At the same time, CDP might still be hedging their bets on GOG as an alternative stream of revenue (not profit) because whenever CDPR releases a new game on here, they end up profiting several million USD by the end of that fiscal year.

It's also noteworthy that unless I missed something, this report finally shares employee count of 155. It hasn't been shown since 2020 where they had 214. I feel bad for those employees let go. But they've downsized to correct for smaller revenues.

Anyway as SCPM said, Phantom Liberty sales will be in Q3 and should better reflect the health of GOG.

Great work. Thank you.

Here is the link:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1jlDSN47Q_k1mZ4KyiTrJ0z8yWIdU7P-ENYEW8P_nShk

I simply think that GOG did not view the online requirement for some parts of the game as DRM when they published Hitman 2016. We do have some games with centralised multiplayer on GOG already, that will die once the servers get shut down. One could make an argument that an online requirement for multiplayer is not DRM in an of itself. Of course Hitman had no multiplayer, so the online requirement really did not serve any purpose other than DRM, and losing single-player content whenever the servers get shut down is insane.

As for games with actual centralised multiplayer, I miss the days when the games offered P2P multiplayer, or provided server-hosting software to the player. Such multiplayer games/modes will never die as they are not dependent on a publisher's server.

Probably. But maybe Q3's extra money will be used to "minimum guarantee" more AAA titles in '24 or '25. (though other people probably want the money to be used other ways, which I can understand)

I don't have a problem with them spending money on "minimum guarantees". That's probably the only way they can attract some AAA publishers.

Frankly I think the sales of Sony games when they roll in will really do it, same as it did for Yakuza. Stuff like this really helps bring in the cash. In fact Yakuza sales when it first dropped likely raised eyebrows at Sega. It may not have been Steam level but nothing to scoff at.
If Sega drops Persona I think they will definitely be surprised. If they don't want to use GOG as a test with Persona 3 Reload drop Persona 4 Golden and 5 when the former is released on Steam. I will buy both of the latter conditional on Japanese text support as I am looking to learn Japanese. I am looking to buy the physical copy of Golden on Switch for crying out loud.
I feel like after this they might launch Judgement next too.

I will say I will only buy Reload on either GOG or Switch so Sega can ask themselves if they want day one on GOG or months later on Switch since nothing has been announced.

https://epicorium.com/

This may be a stupid question, but how do we know that Yakuza games sold well? From my anecdotal observations, it doesn't seem to take much to climb the recent bestseller list, so I assume you;re using some other data.

Some people might prefer the money be spent on site improvements or other technical improvements, or hiring more Support staff, or other things like that. Which I do understand. Personally I prefer the dopamine of AAA and other highly-desired releases ;) , but I also don't make many purchases here nor have many games, so I don't have to "suffer" what some others might.

One of your biggest desires is more EA or Ubi games right? Or just Ubi?