GOG.com goes back to its roots with handpicked library of DRM-free games

Date:
Tue, 30 Nov 2021 14:53:32 +0000

Description:
The games store is losing money, sadly, and so has a new strategy going back to the past.

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Weve just heard that GOG.com is losing money and has decided to change tack
as a result, going back to its roots.

The digital store, which is owned by CD Projekt, is taking a different approach by reverting to its original philosophy of a tight focus on a
smaller selection of PC games which arent hampered by any DRM software.

As The Verge spotted, the CFO at CD Projekt, Piotr Nielubowicz, commented: Regarding GOG, its performance does present a challenge, and recently weve taken measures to improve its financial standing.

First and foremost, weve decided that GOG should focus more on its core business activity." Nielubowicz explained, "Which means offering a handpicked selection of games with its unique DRM-free philosophy. In line with this approach, there will be changes in the team structure.

Namely that some developers will be transferred away from GOG.coms operation, following the announcement of the loss of around $1.14 million (about
850,000, or AU$1.6 million) in its latest financial results (even if overall revenue was up slightly). Analysis: Back to the good old days?

GOG.com is pivoting away from its recent broad strategy of trying to compete with the big online gaming platforms on PC namely Steam and Epic Games and concentrating on what made it popular in the first place.

Thats DRM-free games, of course with DRM always attracting the ire of a fair number of gamers and old PC classics to boot (remember that GOG stands for Good Old Games) which are suitably fixed up to work on contemporary PCs, hopefully avoiding any potential frustrations with the kind of issues that
can crop up with aging titles and new hardware. Most recently, weve seen GOG.com offer some classic Star Trek titles such as Bridge Commander from
2002 (delivered with the v1.1 patch).

On the whole, this new strategy represents an understandable move, and indeed GOG.com was always biting off a hell of a lot to attempt to compete with the big players, especially when Epic is busy throwing an absolute ton of (Fortnite) cash away on huge games as freebies to attract new users.

Hopefully GOG.com can revert to successfully carving a more profitable niche in the PC gaming scene, because we and plenty of others want to see it
stick around. Play your GOG (or other) games on one of our best gaming PCs



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Link to news story: https://www.techradar.com/news/gogcom-goes-back-to-its-roots-with-handpicked-l ibrary-of-drm-free-games/


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