I'm not arguing about this from Sony's point of view in terms of what's best for the company.

What I'm saying is this whole situation was completely created. There was no other possible outcome, because there are gamers who prefer digital and gamers who prefer physical copies. If Sony makes it so that every year there are fewer and fewer physical games compared to digital, it ends up looking like players are choosing digital over physical.

When there’s no physical copy, your only option is to buy it digitally or not play the game at all.

Clearly most prefer digital hence the metrics support it, considering its costs money to manufacture makes sense to remove it all together and not its not best for Sony most Pub/Dev would easily go digital all together and most have. For context there are physical releases without a disc just a code.

And what about AA and indies should you force them to make physical releases as well on all systems? To repeat if it meant games were cheaper to buy everyone would be for it.

Yes I get that it is highly unlikely for GOG to be able to gain a huge audience base in a short amount of time or even be able to reach that in general due to the nature of GOG primarily serving a niche audience.

As users have pointed out GOG does not need to reach Steam marketshare to be effective, 20-30% PC marketshare would be more than enough to get publishers from big to small in releasing more of their games on GOG day 1 or at least a faster pace.

There are realistic proposal and ones that I don't know/think are realistic for GOG at least currently due to financial constraints. I will start with the realistic ones first. These are things GOG are already doing but they need to do more.

Realistic Approach

1) GOG PC Linux support is something they are already working on, Linux for PC is still an underrepresented growing market so GOG should capitalize on it and try to make it easier for PC Linux users to use GOG by default. If they can get games to work on Linux similar to how it is for Windows, downloading it and run the .exe file for all their games in a smooth and easy process then I think that will definitely help GOG gain more users. If GOG can gain at least a few millions linux users from this then it is a massive win. Linux users tend to be generally on the side of DRM-FREE so also catering to them is a positive.

2) Add more regional pricing/currencies for different countries which GOG is has been already doing more lately. Having prices reflect more in line with the cost of living with countries that have lower purchasing power than the US and EU will entice users from those countries to buy games on GOG. Even more options for EU currencies can help as the purchasing power differ from one another. If they can find more methods in terms of payment plans and buying on GOG then that would also be helpful. This is not a guarantee but it does improve the probability.

3) Improve users/publisher experience for the GOG Store. There are a lot of inconvenience and friction with the GOG store as a user myself who spend a lot of time using it. Why is it in a lot of cases that when I buy a complete edition of a game, I do not own the other editions as well and it still shows up in the catalog when I have the hide all currently own games filter on. Also when I buy the standard edition of a game why is it still charging me the full price for the deluxe edition instead a deluxe edition upgrade price. I notice quite a bit of GOG releases recently will automatically adjust the price of the deluxe edition if you already own the standard edition. I notice they are also slowly retroactively adding that feature to their older releases too. They also need to add a hide filter for games users do not want to see or buy. I can go on but I will leave it here. The GOG store will need to be improve on to make the user experience better so they would want to use the GOG store more.

For the Publisher/Developer side, when Publishers/Developers become a trusted partner then GOG should give them special accounts that will let them update their games or add future release more easier so it doesn't always have to go through GOG manually process. I don't know if GOG are working on implementing a feature like this currently and maybe this will speed up the process for GOG releases. I remember seeing from users that GOG do get a lot of game submission however they are slow to respond to all of them. They need to figure out a way to improve this process.

4) GOG need to start increasing the pace and output on their GOG releases. They need to start targeting as many overwhelmingly positive/very positive games on Steam from Publishers/Developers that are willing to also release on GOG, whether it is from Indie, AA or AAA. I am not saying that they need to release 20-30k games similar to Steam on GOG per year but 1-3K highly rated Indie, AA games should be possible. I think GOG can do more in this front than what they are doing now.

A lot of these proposals are not new as many users such as yourself shared in the past. In short GOG need to improve their product and services.

Here are a few more risky ones that I don't know if it is possible for GOG currently due to financial constraints.

1) Make limited Physical Disk for PC games. Start with the highly popular AAA games because I think those are what most users will buy then if that is proven to be successful and financial viable move to the popular AA games and indies. Of course this path is very risky because you need to factor in other cost than just producing the Physical Disk, such as storage, transportation fees, cost of good sold, salaries whether you are making the Disk in house or contracting it to a 3rd party plus other costs. Sony create a hole in the market for Physical Disk, whether that is something GOG should look into will be up to them to see if it is financial viable or not plus the legal side of things.

2) Make a GOG handheld/PC Console however I don't think GOG should do this right now considering the cost of hardware parts especially RAM & Storage. I doubt they can produce it at scale and at a low price where people will buy it over the other Consoles or Steam PC Console. Now that Consoles are starting to go all digital beside Nintendo (not sure how this will last), GOG can stand out by doing physical disc as well to serve an audience base that still wants Physical. Let say it is 10-20% of Playstation users which is 120 million, so about 12-24 millions users still want physical. It is a sizable audience which I am not sure if GOG has right now due to lack of data.

Publishers/Developers focuses on the numbers and that is why I am hoping the GOG patron subscriber count keeps growing to a point where GOG can use this data to show that there is a ever growing market and demand for game preservation and more revenue can be made in this area over time for companies. This is not the best method to go by and should only be use as supplement data.

If double the annual revenue for GOG took 7 years to do so then my question is was it because the lack of big titles on GOG at that time or was GOG presence still small and unknown at that time. You mention the outlier with CP2077. I personally have not heard of GOG until somewhere in the early 2020s maybe I heard of them in the late 2010s once or twice. I think GOG has a bigger presence now than in the early 2020s and especially 2010s thanks to recent events.

I also would like to see GOG financial statements for 2026 with the addition of Square Enix and the aggressive push of their games on GOG and what kind of revenue that is able to generate for them. If GOG revenue grew from $50 million to $100 million and a big part of that is from Square Enix recent games being on GOG then GOG can use this data to entice other big publishers to release some of their highly coveted titles on GOG as well at a faster pace so they can also start generating more revenue by doing so with a longer tail for their older titles.

GOG will also need help from the big publishers and platforms to be more and more anti consumer where GOG will start looking more and more appealing to the average user. The Sony Playstation shift to all digital did help give GOG a small boost of new users but it is not enough.

These are the main proposals that I have for now and I believe GOG is already working on them or starting to implement some of them in parts.

To answer most of the stuff above.

Realistic:

1).Even with support the devs would still need to make a functional/playable linux version so that's more on developers then og

2).Considering how dynamic that is while great clearly isn't a selling point, plus most people use some sort of vpn these days to work around it currency issue

3).While having a better onboarding is great realistically if the userbase was large to begin with none of those issues would effect them. Its due to the lower userbase that the extra steps aren't worth the hassle not to mention some devs don't have any issues update steam and GOG at the same time.

4).They need the userbase to even consider increasing the output of releases maybe start with games of a current year. But they'll still be behind kinda hard to play catch-up

Unrealistic list:

1).There is a reason physcial PC releases don't exist anymore, no one is going to do it now especially since PC has been fully digital for years now. Not only would GOG need permission to even do that they would need funds they don't have for little to no benefit.

2).People can already run and play certain GOG games on steam deck and other handhelds how would GOG even if they had the money even compete? Considering the big 3 have way more money to throw around yet they're starting to move away GOG would end up bankrupt at this point because people will still prefer digital copies consoles owners will still buy things on playstation its just outbrust culture.

How does the patreon program improve relations with publishers? The whole program exists to help GOG still functions its more or less a donation program with no benefit.

GOG is not going to have any revenue close to the number you are referring too maybe 3 mill being generious

GOG isn't competing with consoles and it can't, its competition will always be steam.

A bit unrelated, but just as a point of clarification. As GOG is now a limited private company (it is no longer publicly listed), it is also no longer subject to the same public financial reporting requirements as a listed company does and what CD RED did before. As a result, it does not have to publish the same level of financial information for the public to see. In fact, there may be commercial advantages to keeping that information private. So I would not expect GOG to publicly release any detailed financial statements in the future.

Indeed, if similar to here (as each country slightly different obligations), the information they need to release and submit to the equivalent of the Companies House in UK is minimial and very high level.

At best some data may be available via service from companies like Dun & Bradstreet, that provide public profiles mostly based on goverment databases, but indeed the age of quarterly reporting and comment about GOG finances may have ended - so we shall never know the split of revenue coming from sales v patrons v donations etc...

P.S. even Dun & Bradstreet et al, can get some data wrong and/or out-of-date, i do recall checking what the equilavent reported for company and it was somewhat misleading.

1) True, however if GOG builds a Linux version and supports it then they will be ready to catch the Linux wave when it does happen. Why would a publisher/developer release a linux version on GOG if it does not supports it?

2) Even though people use VPN it would be better not having to use one and just have it work natively for convenience.

3) It is true that if the user base was big enough, Publishers/Developers are more than willing to endure the hassle and extra steps. Thankfully GOG do have great partnerships with Publishers and Developers that keep both Steam and GOG version up to date. GOG should still try to improve the onboarding process to help increase the probability of getting more publishers to release their games on GOG much easier and with less inconvenience.

4) These are for games that Publishers/Developers are willing to release on to GOG as well that is currently not on GOG due to slow processing on GOG end. GOG can definitely do more on this front to increase the games that they can offer to their users.

This is why they are on the unrealistic list because It is very risky and I am not sure how viable it is for GOG. GOG will have to overcome a lot of legal and financial troubles where it may not be worth it. GOG will have to sell each of their PC consoles at a big loss at $500 per unit which I don't think they can financially do.

You may be right that Playstation users may just accept the all digital future in the end after the initial burst of backlash.

Actually it can benefit the publishers. GOG can use some of the GOG patron money to get licensing deals for older games from publishers to put their games on to GOG. GOG preservation program can be use to help maintain those older titles on GOG for modern systems. The reason why publishers don't want to release older titles on GOG because of the cost to reactivate those license and they think there is no audience/revenue for it. This is where GOG patron program for game preservation may come to play. GOG can sign contracts with Publishers similar to CAPCOM to release older titles like Resident Evil 1-3 Dino Crisis 1&2 as examples, do most of the work and have them sell on GOG for maybe 1 year then the games can get a Steam release. This helps reduce the cost and workload for Publishers with the benefit of revenue which will make it more likely that they will agreed to it.

If GOG patrons continue to grow to a larger number to a point where it can be use as a extra source of data to entice publishers to release their older anticipated games (from GOG dreamlist) on to GOG then GOG patrons would be a success. I am not saying this will automatically happen just an extra source of data to entice Publishers with.

You may be right, it may be a very low number in revenue from Square Enix GOG games release push.

This is why I would like to see GOG financial statements for 2026 to see what effect Square Enix aggressive push for their games onto GOG had. if it had generate anywhere close to $50 million even $25 million would be a good start to show to other big publishers that releasing their titles or more of them will be financially worth it over time.

If GOG can show good revenue growth to Publishers then it will definitely favor GOG in being able to get more games from publishers for the future.

GOG can't compete with Steam and they should focus on their mission of DRM-FREE and game preservation. There are definitely things that they can do to improve on that front.


I figure that was the case similar to the US where private companies do not need to release any information at all publicly if they don't want to however if Sqaure Enix aggressive push with their games on GOG turns out to be an overwhelmingly success then GOG should announce it or at least show it privately to entice other big publishers to also release more of their main titles to GOG.

It seems to me people underestimate how big GOG actually is.
Sure, Steam is the biggest and will probably always be, if management after Gabe do things correctly and do not fully sell their souls to the "numbers go up right now, at this second, forget the long run" corpo mentality.

But it seems to me GOG has been increasing its marketing numbers.
I've seen many random streamers with thousands of followers talking about GOG everywhere.
From GDQ events, to small speedrunners, to big streamers, to youtube videos comparing game releases.

Specially on the game preservation, modding and speedrunning front, GOGs fame is quite unbeatable, in my view.
Its clear to them that what GOG do is much more "gaming friendly" than what Steam currently does with its forced launcher and platform, and these communities are big - really big.

If we are talking about "normies", then yes, Steam is king.
But "normies" are always going to follow the current without much thinking. They will plug their controller, launch Steam big screen mode and play their DRM game 100% all the time connected online data collecting spywares for the lack of knowledge.
They don't count as a market the same way GOG customers do. But they're still the biggest market, indeed.

What I'm trying to say is:
Steam is the biggest in their niche.
GOG is the biggest in their niche.
(And GOG's niche is growing because of the increasing number of companies with anti consumer practices)

Different markets.
Can't deny the numbers though - Steam is still a giant so big that its like comparing Elden Ring map with GTA3 map.

That's why I don't think this comparison is valid.
GOG shouldn't try to be as big as Steam, but they should follow their niche in gaming preservation, true ownership and gamers freedom, because, as explained, this niche is growing and will grow even more, it seems to me.

^Do you have metrics some rando saying something doesn't mean anything especially is said streamer/content creator proceds to play something that is only on steam aka live service, friend slop etc.

Also there is no niche both gog and steam are store fronts therefore they are comparable the only niche with GOG is the offline installers as steam doesn't have that and steam doesn't mandate DRM on games thats always on the dev/pub.

Game preservations is a thankless task that most people don't care for.

GOG's ongoing success is not only about how it is managed, but about game providers.

So while some see GOG as a competitor to Steam, they really aren't. Sure they compete with some games, though relatively few overall.

GOG cater to a certain type of gamer, who isn't one with the majority of gamers.

So GOG trying to be Steam, could never happen.

It is hard to see exactly, what the future will bring to gaming, but it is likely a subscription streaming model of some kind. That does not bode well for game ownership, and that is where GOG currently succeeds.

I agree. GoG is all about DRM-free games. It brings together PC gamers who care about owning their digital games. Just like some people build physical game collections, we build our digital DRM-free game library here. Some people even have the same games on Steam and GoG. The only reason to have both is that the core idea of these game stores is different. I’ve seen a lot of people talking about streaming-based gaming. While streaming games is an option, it has its own pros and cons. A major problem with streaming services is internet latency. This is really bad for certain types of games, and a huge number of people live in places where internet connections aren’t good enough for these kinds of services. So streaming games can work well for some people, but in reality, it’s just one option that many can’t really rely on long-term.

GoG’s success comes down to two main points (not counting what's absolutely necessary in every business to be profitable):

1. Getting new players, with the main selling point being DRM-free games and actually owning the games.
2. Trying to bring more high-quality games to GoG to attract more people to the service.

These two points are connected because one really can’t happen without the other. Since GoG can’t compete with Steam, GoG is its own niche market.

bump

Since the thread gained quite a bit of traction, I'll leave my opinion here.

Didn't read the other posts but here it goes: I don't. I will means GOG will get all the crap (in the DRM sense) of popular multiplayer games. I'm not opposed to them but will prefer GOG to stay DRM free, although a popular game Like Fortnite or CS-GO it's GOG's wet dream! what makes you think GOG mods are any more or less "woke" than Steam's? Moderation here may be a bit lax but break the TOS and you can get a ban, and unlike Steam, is for the whole forum not a particular game. Do you backup the game you bought from GOG? If the answer is no then GOG can block you pretty much the same as Steam. Legally!

If GOG block access to your account for some reason, you may be able to play the games already installed on your machine but otherwise they are no different from Steam in that regard. I hope so too :)
Would be better for everyone (except the competitors...).
And that it stays DRM-free!

I think GOG should stay a healthy and strong second option. Always DRM-free. As some already mentioned, GOG would need to "diversify" in order to get to the level of the vapor store and that means always online live services/multiplayer games and insane levels of DRM if day one games somehow drop here. For me GOG is ok as it is but that is just my personal view :) Cheers

Not only thankless... a majority is even offensive against preservation, almost acting like an "mainstream-activist" and funnily enough... the only thing usually considered and connected with "activism" are minorities that has been steamrolled... usually continuously. Yet, the mass can never be "activating" something and they can never use a strong voice against another direction, as it is totally natural that they simply stomp almost every blade of grass toward the ground without anyone part of the herd raising some concerns. In fact, actions weights more than words because without an action words are meaningless.

Yet, not only actions are done by the mass, as well threatening and "words". Fact is, as long as a game is DRMed... any preservation or even just backing it up is totally impossible... so we need to get the DRM removed first, else not even a tiny ownership would be possible. Many gamers even are offensive against anyone even daring to remove a DRM or trying to preserve something... and are using the law as the "big helper" of themself... obviously. Yet, nope... the law is and was never on the gamers side and if everyone would always strictly follow any laws, they will lose any ownership forever... because this is fully intended by any laws ever made. In my mind bad laws, yet fully protected by the mass.

The mass. in usual, absolutely do no care, even in a offensive or lets say "activism-way", as they are just streamrolling any opposing interest and find it fully valid, because they are the mass, they can never be wrong.

If there would not be any counter-activism... i even would feel like "humans" are not much more than robots without a own will anymore. So, naturally... at least many humans still got a own mind, and are trying to put on some fight against things they personally do not enjoy... which can be considered futile or even pointless by the steamrolling majority.

So, while GOG may never be capable to grow toward a size that is respected by the big mass, they still can increase even more and at least being the strongest niche on the game-market... which already got some meaning and a own voice for those that are brave and who do not wish to be part of a consuming "throw-away-society"... always consuming the newest stuff... paying a huge price for... and then as soon as done with free-beta testing jumping into the next big "wagon" and once again the DRMed-trash container may continue to grow.

I think, nowadays minorities even need a powerful voice and need to become heard... else... they will just become thrown into a very deep ocean where no one may ever see nor hear them anymore... the mass is just so overwhelming.

Unless... well... who knows, maybe from the deep ocean supposed to knock out any voice a huge Behemoth-whale may emerge and mounting on its back everyone that has not become heard... which might be considered shocking and against a higher social-order... yet the whale may not care and will continue going a own path until the ignorance may fade.