Cav's Place

The news that GOG.com was purchased by one of its founders sure came out of nowhere, but after the initial “well, shit” reaction when I started reading the title, knowing what almost always happens after such purchases, I strangely find myself cautiously optimistic. I mean, GOG.com has given up its original principles long ago, or more exactly gave up on everything except DRM-free and added exceptions and caveats to their definition of that, and pretty much every step in that direction was because of CD Projekt, who also added to their expenses for quite a number of years. So, while being removed from the group means that they will lose the financial safety net provided by it, it should also do away with all those negative influences and demands, and the new owner seems to be doing well financially, so a safety net should still exist. But the more important thing is that, unlike what such sales usually mean, being purchased by one of the founders may actually turn GOG.com at least somewhat back towards its original path… At least assuming that the guy retains at least a good part of the mindset he had then and didn’t join those who have been steering the place on the direction it’s been having at least since the “Good News” of 2014, if not since the “Bigger. Fresher. Newer.” announcement from 2012.
Some seem to see the amount GOG.com was purchased for, reported as PLN 90695440, which would be a little over $25 million or almost €21.5 million, as disappointingly low, but it seems fair enough to me, even more so when the sale was, after all, pretty much “in house”. And it’s clear that the deal also included other terms that ensure that CD Projekt will still get a preferential treatment on GOG.com, and probably vice-versa. But, of course, the most preferential treatment, if I may use the term, will now be for the games that the new owner is involved in, so I wonder what those will be and what it’ll mean. A quick search says that he’s involved with Retrovibe, and their games are definitely nothing I’d care for, but that seems to only be a publisher, while he mentioned being “personally involved in the development of a few games” that “will certainly make their strong appearance on GOG in 2026“.
Now, I doubt that this deal actually offers any chance of GOG.com really returning to their original values, once again pushing back against the regional rip-off obviously being at the top of my list, and until they either do that or vanish there’s still basically no chance of any other entity picking up the banner that they seemed to carry back then and really have an impact towards changing this rotten industry for the better, or at least carve and hold on to a notable niche for those who demand such a change, but one thing that’s pretty clear is that they’re going to focus even more on older titles, along with new games that are inspired by such “classics” and the “retro” style. That will probably bother those that want new and “AAA” games released there as soon as possible, and having less such titles may admittedly also hurt their revenue and profits, but it should also result in less pressure to accept various rotten elements of “modern” gaming, and maybe, just maybe, fewer deals that involve even more steps away from those original values… And maybe there will be a redesign of the site that will take it back to something simpler and more “classic” and away from the “modern” crap that plagues the Internet and software in general.