GOG seems to be considering paid membership option

I hope they're not seriously considering locking option 2 behind a paywall. IMO that should be a required feature for all platforms, and should be free. If I buy a game at a specific version, I should always be able to play that version.

This is how enshitification begins, don't enable this shit.
- yup, shit that we already have will start being gated behind the fee of the subscription

Anything but properly supporting the Linux community 🤡
How have they still not learned that the largest intersection of the people that care about their core value proposition (game preservation, DRM-free, etc.) are Linux users?? It's not like they have to create the compatibility layers from scratch; Valve did it for them.
If they provided a launcher for Linux users, I'd actually buy shit from them. Yes, Heroic Launcher exists, but I'm not paying GOG for the work that the Heroic dev did. I want first-party support.
- What if I told you that the intersection between people who care and the 5% of their potential audience that are Linux users is very small either way?
  I'm not saying Linux isn't a chance for them, but it's also an investment and very like not a profitable one for quite a while.
  
  I'd love a gog galaxy client for Linux with proton support. I also agree though, that it probably wouldn't help them become more profitable.
  
  What if I told you that there are roughly 4 million steamdecks in existence. Ref
  And that this is about 1\3 of the Steam Linux market. Ref and about half of the entire handheld PC market. Ref
  Of course, we dont know how many MAU GOG has so maybe 4 million new customers is baby numbers, but Steam seems enamored enough of that market segment to commit huge new UI and store features (deck verification, "Runs on Deck" filters, other deck specific stuff) including the game controller mappings which do help with non-deck also but were clearly a necessary element for handhelds. Maybe deck users, it being a committed gaming platform, spend more on games?
  Anyway, trying to get subscribers (always a teeny fraction of your free users) ahead of converting new non-customers into customers, seems like bad econ to me.
  If GOG is so hot for game preservation why not see if they can score an emulation deal to bring lost handheld titles to PC\deck? Sega might be down, NeoGeo is owned by the Saudi's, I'm sure they'd love some free money for their back catalog. That's in line with Lutris' mission of being the one game launcher for your entire library. A few strategic investments and partnerships could open up GOG as the gateway to classic gaming across devices, but that would require some vision to carry through.
- At this point they should just hire the Heroic devs, I doubt anything they could build themselves would compare in terms of quality.
  
  I'd be happy if they did and adopted Heroic as an official launcher. However, if that happens, I'd still want proper controller support to be added so that browsing the GOG store in Heroic doesn't require mouse and keyboard bindings on something like a Steam Deck.
- Why do you want a launcher? I have a few GoG games and I don't really feel like a launcher is something I need.
  What I do want is games to actually update on GoG at the same time as steam, not over a week later. X4 7.0 came out and it was over a week longer for the GoG version to update, in the end I refunded and bought it on steam instead.
  
  Cloud saves, achievements, and tracking hours is something I do like. I have over a 100 GOG games, so individually managing exe files isn't something I really want to do.
  
  I'm fairly sure the update cadence is set by the game dev/publisher, not GoG.
  
  Because I use a Steam Deck and having a launcher for third-party stores is the easiest way to install games.
  Additionally, the reasons mentioned in the other comments.
- It's not like they have to create the compatibility layers from scratch; Valve did it for them.
  I do just want to point out, Valve didn't do that - Proton is mostly just pre-existing software that they packaged together into an officially supported feature. I love that they did it, and having it in the biggest PC game platform presumably did wonders for Linux gaming, but it was most certainly not made from scratch.
  
  I agree with you for the most part, but valve also is funding the developers behind the most important things out of proton. DXVK and vkd3d-proton were almost non-existent before Valve employed them.

Notice to everyone about GOG Galaxy not in Linux: there is MiniGalaxy. It's not official but it works.

GOG maybe give us an option to turn off cookies inside your app before asking us money!

a tool for backing up offline installers
This really should be something they offer for free, and there are already some FOSS options that do this, although they aren’t as good as I’d like.
ability to install previous versions of a game
This is a feature they already have for free and there would (or at least should) be backlash if they were to lock that behind a subscription
extra insight into the preservation work they're doing.
Sure, neat.
voting rights on games to bring into the preservation program.
Sure but said votes better have an actual impact.
- The previous versions of a game thing is something they took away, IIRC. They only keep the latest version and a patch to get up to it available for download, and you can only roll back to previous versions that you had already installed over time, or something like that. This is them seeing if you want to pay money to get a feature back that they used to offer, which is kinda lousy.
  
  When did they take it away?

Making porting gog to linux a priority which has by far the smallest market share for computer gaming is the dumbest thing anyone in this thread is saying, where is that financially a viable option to cater to the tiniest percentage of gamers for gog? I know ill get downvoted but im tired of the fanatical linux posts on lemmy at this point. Get with reality they are going to work on the client where the money is most predominantly flowing from and its not linux or mac. Haters gonna hate the truth but its the truth from a business standpoint.
- And yet, it's the three most upvoted community requests on gog
- With the Steam Deck getting more popular and more SteamOS handhelds on the way, it has never been a better time for game companies to support Linux. GOG does already sell some games that have Linux support, they just don't have a convenient way to download and install them.
  GOG galaxy appears to use CEF and Qt, as well as some parts (such as plugins) that use python. All of those are cross platform. So I doubt it would be incredibly difficult to port to Linux. The fact that there is already a macOS version indicates that it can be made cross platform and can run on Unix-based systems.
- Making porting gog to linux a priority which has by far the smallest market share for computer gaming is the dumbest thing anyone in this thread is saying
  Building a bridge across the river is totally stupid, because no one crosses that river to get to where they are going.
  Building a house on that hill is dumb, because no one lives there.
  Creating that new type of device is a waste of time, because no one has ever bought one like that.
  ...
  You see the point, right? Not that I'm trying to give business advice. I'm just saying that these things aren't necessarily as stupid as you seem to think.
- and its not linux or mac
  Except there's already a Mac version of GOG Galaxy.
- While I agree, it's also a chicken and egg problem. How can more money flow if they don't make it easy? Even just endorsing Heroic and providing them some APIs would work
- Or, you know, they could make the client portable, like so many software...
  A Linux or Mac client doesn't need to be a different thing than a Windows client.
- This is a future proofing measure. With the enshittification of Windows there is a reasonably sizable share that is looking to migrate. Making an API/front end functional on the platform is just good business. I for one will be switching 95% to Linux the instant Microsoft acts on their patant for putting a mandatory advertising ticket on the screen. Literally the only thing I will use it for is programming things for work.
- What if most of the people that want to pay a GOG membership are Linux gamers that would be willing to pay for official Linux support?
- Lmao you have people seizing it’s hilarious

A subscription seems like the exact opposite of what GoG stands for. I buy a game, I own it forever. How does a subscription improve that?
- I got the impression they're aiming more for a "fan club" kind of thing where you get access to articles/videos/Q&A/voting rights, etc. So more a kind of Patreon like many creators have. I didn't get the impression that this would in any way change the business model of the store.
  
  I also got this survey and I had the same feeling. It felt more like a patron for their game preservation program with possible features like a members-only-community, interviews or documentation about the preserved games, their publishers/studios and the efforts to keep them running or some kind of loyalty rewards/discount coupons. Maybe even 'special builds' like 'experience the OG version 1.0 of $game'.
  There was one option, that I interpreted like 'maybe we will put future compatibility updates after purchase (e.g. supporting Windows 12 or whatever) behind the membership' - but that's purely my interpretation of a single bullet point style line in that whole several page long survey
  
  If that's the case, I may be interested. I'd still like Galaxy on Linux before I give them additional money.
- Select a game from a catered library to be granted lifetime ownership? Like rent to own perhaps?
  
  But they specifically don't appear to be talking about that
- Yeah I'm not at all against the idea of throwing a few bucks at them per month for something, but I just don't see anything that fits in the context of why I use GOG in the first place. Voting rights doesn't seem like a bad idea. Ideas like earlier versions of games, tools that help with backup, etc should be offered for free or sold for a one-time cost IMO.
- Source code access to your library?
  Not sure what else they can offer

Is GOG a popular store among gamers?
- Among a subset of gamers who care about owning the things that they buy, yes
- It's my second store, but it's still a distant second to steam.

I got the same survey. The ones that they definitely do not want to do, if they value their reputation, are things like "increased cloud save storage (that's still probably less than what Steam offers)" and things that they took away, like 1.0 installers. But some of the other options look to be more squarely aimed at the enthusiasts of the preservation program that this subscription is designed to financially support, as well as one or two actually good features like legal account sharing. Hopefully they go down that route instead.
- It's on par with Steam, I think. You get like 200 megs per product. I know because my Witcher 3 install is above that and it's annoying. That wouldn't be a dealbreaker as a subscription benefit, I don't think.
  With the rest I do agree.
  I can tell they're struggling and have been for a while. It isn't easy to compete with Steam, and the thing that would have done it (having DRM'd new games in the service) was voted down in a similar survey some time ago.
  I would not be against some Patreon-like crowdsourced solution for behind the scenes stuff and prioritization rights. GOG, or something like it MUST exist. Steam is bad enough with their current dominant position, it can't be the sole remaining option in this market.
  I would much prefer to be able to give them more money in exchange for more games, though. I am constantly frustrated by how often some indie game is only available on Steam, and I've started buying things full price on GOG but waiting for sales on Steam as a matter of policy.
  
  It's on par with Steam, I think.
  IIRC Steam lets developers code how much storage to use, with a 5GB cap per game

They need to fix their launchers on all systems before the do anything else. I'm happy to support them in their mission of game preservation, but they really don't do a good job at providing a high quality service.
Also, I've purchased things from them that were never provided, and they refused a refund (warcraft 2 battle net key). I know it was likely Blizzard's fault, but they could have at least responded to my emails with more than "no refunds, we are working on it".

I like what GOG do, but gating features, even niche ones, behind a subscription sounds like the first step towards enshittification.
Also, I'm sure as hell not giving them extra money until they fix their platform on Linux/Steam Deck.

I really hate most subscriptions, because the prices are often too high, they rely on locking stuff behind paywalls, instead of providing a good service.
Here is the difference, I am ok paying monthly for storage space, servers, and hosted/managed open source web services, because there is competition and standard interfaces there. They do not hold you (or your data) hostage to their service, what they provide is good on its own.
For example, if GOG invests money into writing open source libraries, apps and APIs to efficiently and easily share save games between devices. Let people self host the open source backend, but offer up a subscription for a managed instance, with maybe some voting rights for new features or support for games/platforms to be integrated into the open source front & backend, then I would be willing to support this.
And other stuff like this.
Use subscriptions to offer good services, which also allow you to improve the whole ecosystem, while also not putting yourself as the gatekeeper, and locking people into their service.

such a strange survey. it was all about "exclusive access" and "extra perks". i just want to support game fixes so that everyone gets access, but that wasn't part of it.
- I mean, if you're giving them money monthly for a "Preservation Members Tier" then isn't that exactly what you'd be doing? You're just getting some perks as well.
  
  if that was all then yes, but their suggested perks sounded like they were shutting people off from part of the preservation results.
  
  Well I'm already giving them money threough purchasing (200+) games through their store. I don't need or want any cloud features or a "badge" for that. If their calculation does not fit giving me what they promised, tough. As an aside, I recently had to contact their support, and it was a good, competent experience. So the folks they have are good and should be supported, but not through a f* subscription, but through the regular earnings. That said, I'm completely happy with the Heroic launcher and rather donate there than to join a gog club.

How about GOG Galaxy on Linux?

Honestly, I would totally move to GOG, however my entire games collection is on Steam, so it would be very very difficult and it’s rather tedious to have and use 2 platforms like that.
Oh well, I do hope they can get more people onto their platform. it’s a better Epic store for sure.
- I honestly felt the same. Then I thought, eh, let's just try. Turns out I don't care about my library being split. I just add desktop icons for the games I'm playing and launch them from there without thinking about what platform it's on.

Wait so they're taking away features and going to paywall them? We can already downgrade
Shit must be dire at CDPR after that earnings report was below last year
- I was quoting them from memory. Could be that I misread that specific question.
  
  You did good there. The survey looked like they got some new marketing idiot.
- Has been since the 2019 mass layoff i guess. Their galaxy development was questionable at best since then. Only noticeable action was marketing. I see CDPR/GOG pretty critic with their new billionaire CEO nowadays, sadly.

Just put out AVP2

I think the only way they can introduce a subscription without backlash is if they make it a purely community thing with a few bonuses. Give people access to special insights into their preservation efforts, special interviews, voting rights, Q&A, occasional free game, etc. If they lock features behind this like more cloud storage, or other stuff that customers simply expect with their game purchase, the press will be all negative.
- It should be like Xbox Live Gold or PlayStation Plus. Some free games and lots of extra perks that you mentioned.

Bad move GOG, you're as of right now still inferior to steam & you want to enshitify your platform ?
Port your GOG-Galaxy launcher to Linux (it has to be native)
fund Wine
Accomodate for more local payment systems
Have more currencies
Would be nice if you made your launchers (or at least the core-functionalities OpenSource)

How about instead of this subscription talk, GOG could:
-Remake GOG Galaxy. The client is slow with tons of bloat. Focus on your store, and make a native Linux client.
-Help fund Wine. I find it weird that the main non-DRM store is so againat Linux. I know people that would leave Steam If GOG came to Linux.
-Different version and a tool to backup games should be part of the new launcher and not part of a subscription. You guys talk about game preservations and then try to put parts of it behind a paywall.....
-A more realistic Dreamlist. Who had the idea of letting people submit any game they want? Dreamlist would work better if GOG choose a list of games and the community voted for what game for GOG to focus on. People really think that games that were console exclusive or old FIFA/NBA/Gran Turismo games will come to GOG.
-There are some games on GOG that don't work, FIX THEM! (Looking at you Kane and Lynch)
- With regards to the Dreamlist, this is so that they have ammunition to bring to rights holders. They just started bringing previously console exclusive games to GOG as well, so that barrier has been broken down. If there's money in it, any game could be done.
  
  What console exclusive came to GOG?
  I don't belive GOG or EA would buy the license of old FIFA players just so they can publish old FIFA games.
  It's better to have a smaller curated list where players can vote and GOG choose a game to focus on. Right now the fact we can vote for dead live service games to come to a non-DRM store is just weird.

I'd pay for native linux support. They should provide direct support to Heroic if they don't want to take on the cost themselves full bore. I remember some AMA they did where the cost of Linux wasn't worth their already thin margins and they were happy with Heroic. If they were ever going to grow, I'd believe that they would need to address the handheld market and getting their storefront more visible

I wish they worked with opensource projects like Heroic to provide an easy and fast way to run their games on Linux like in Steam. And if they provided a donation option or something to fund that work.
- They do that already. They're partnered with Heroic. If you buy GOG games through Heroic, Heroic gets a cut of that sale using a referral code program like you'd see in other stores. It gives Heroic some cash, and it gives GOG a line of sight into exactly how much revenue they're missing out on by not building the Linux launcher themselves. This is what got me to start buying from GOG again.
  
  Oh shit, really? Do you have a source for that?

Memberships are fine as long as they add perks and don't take anything away from what non-members have access to now.

What a nigjtmare.

Ironically, I feel the community that is most apt to fall in line with their project goals, and want to support this change, is also the community they are currently outcasting. Personally I stopped using GOG when it stopped working easily on my Debian system. I shouldn't need to use a third party program to get it to work, and I swear it feels like they intentionally made it so WINE no longer works for it.
For a project that is supposedly for open use and game preservation, they don't make it easy to actually do so.

The only thing that I could think of that would make paying worth anything would be if they had GOG servers for online play from games that their servers shut down. Aka GOG's KALI

I think if they need an extra income stream, it should be physical manuals, discs/disks, boxes, and feelies. Say that GOG has System Shock, Ultima VII, Thief Gold, and TIE Fighter planned for a limited edition boxed edition, but needs pre-orders. Plonk down $20-40, get those things when the funding goal is reached.

GOG is fucked. As soon as services like this start talking about subscriptions, it's already over.

I'd consider a small fee to support the preservation program if I then received said games for free. It doesn't have to be a monthly thing but whenever they are added.
I can't think of anything else that would be worthwhile.

F

here's the survey if anyone wants to answer: https://www.smartsurvey.co.uk/s/MURG4B
- I did it. I made sure to beg them for Galaxy on Linux.

I wouldn't mind supporting them if they could provide a Linux tool that let me download my library in bulk.
- The best you'll get is Heroic Games Launcher. It's got most of the features I'd want at this point.

The things I would be ok paying a subscription for:
Rotating free Games that I get to keep. Like epic but only for subscribers. The game should be mine even after I quit the subscription.
Extra insights in preservation, or goodies
voting rights on what games should be free next month for the sunscribers.
discounted price on games.
Things that I feel it shouldnot be locked behind subscription and paywall:
tool for backing up offline installers
ability to install previous versions of game
and definitely not voting rights on games to bring into the preservation program.
If the tooks for backing up offline installers or ability to install previous versions of game are paywalled, that is going to invite more reasons for piracy.

I have supported GoG for quite some years. I don't understand why they keep pivoting different things to do.
This may be an unpopular opinion, but I would support paying for the initial game as well as every major patch when a new OS came out. Say, they do something to make a game work on Win 11. One year later we have Win 12 so I don't mind paying a little for the patch. Then one year later we have Win 13 and I'm willing to pay again if I still play the game.
I would also support paying for online servers for games that have multiplayer components. That takes money to maintain.
As others mentioned, GoG should stop wasting time on a launcher. Hell, even the installer. Just ZIP the whole thing for me to download.
- I would also support paying for online servers for games that have multiplayer components. That takes money to maintain.
  If the developers were interested in allowing people to keep the servers running, they'd just give us the server code like they used to. If I was in charge of a GOG that was a little more flush with capital, I might fund an easy drop-in replacement library for Steam's multiplayer APIs so that developers can easily port their games to GOG and be playable, in multiplayer, offline.

Support Linux and give me Dark Colony (which tons of people have asked for already for years) and I'll consider subscribing.

I just wanna be able to filter games by what goodies they have, man. I want my waw paypaws.

I'll support them once they support Linux. Until then I'll pirate if I need a DRM free game

Once they added every modern Lego game to their preservation program I knew the thing was bunk. Harry Potter Lego game = worth preserving, Lego Island = never heard of it. Total BS
- Yeah, I found that one weird as well. Lego Island wasn't just the first Lego game. It was one of the first open world games. Well worth preserving. Much more so than the Lego games that got added.
  
  I think LEGO Island would be hard to license because Mindscape is long gone. Also the source code was lost as I recall. MattKC on YouTube has created lots of patches to get the game running on modern systems. He's working on decompiling it actually.

I told them I'd like a GOG style humble choice. If they're not willing to give actual games, I'd be interested in a subscription to help game preservation, but probably only $5 a month max.
- A humble choice like subscription service would be pretty great honestly. $10ish a month for maybe 1 AA/AAA modern game and a handful of retro and indie games would have me on board immediately. Starting to charge for things they currently or have previously offered for free is not the way to win people over.

I was seriously just finally starting to become interested in using them a lot more for gaming since I got some success getting it to work on my Linux install. This would make me do a full 180 though...

The only one that sounds good to me, perhaps, are the voting rights. I'd pay for that. Patreon artists and creators do this sort of thing, and if this is something GOG needs to do to get by, then fine by me.
Downloading offline installers/backups, however... That would be locking away a feature that exists now to everyone that has bought a game. That means locking away a feature from customers who have spent money on a product already... Likely for the explicit point of being able to get installers that don't need an online connection. If they choose to do this, they'd be desfeting their own purpose.
For context; I bought most of my games on GOG. I don't really buy games anymore, and my Steam library is low absolutely massive, however. Both of those reasons are because I've been subbed to Humble Monthly for a few years. But ultimately when I go looking to buy a game, my preference is to buy from GOG specifically because it's offline and DRM free.

I filled the survey as well. It's mostly focused on "games preservation". I'm not up to pay subscription for anything they're willing to offer and even made sure to tell them that I'm willing to pay a premium for whatever useful content (games) end up exclusive to subscribers

Voting rights and extra insight are fine, but I feel a "Humble Bundle"-esque membership would work well. For $x a month you get a few games to keep.

Hahahaha. After cyberpunk was shit and still now Linux support?! Yeah fuck them. If I need DRM free games I'll pirate. They're just a leech

Wait so currently you can't install previous versions of games you only get the most up-to-date version. That's daft to expect people to pay for, that's a free feature on Steam.
- That is absolutely not a free feature on Steam. Some publishers like Paradox leave old versions as 'beta' branches to allow us to reinstall them, but Steam as a whole is very against you playing anything but the latest version.
  You cannot instruct Steam to not update a game. When you launch a game, Steam will update regardless, unless you have gone offline, or you launch it in a way that bypasses the Steam client. If you ever forget to go offline before launching a game, Steam will forcibly update it
- I honestly thought this was an option, but I can't see it in the client, and the offline installers only offer all patches and the latest version. Not the original version.
  I agree that's daft, and hope that feature doesn't get paywalled. The more people who do the survey and stress these points, the better.
- That's not an official/proper feature on steam, there's nothing in the interface to select an older version, right? Just the beta system that lets developers have multiple branches available, which is often used to keep a limited number of previous versions available.
  
  I thought it was a command that you could launch steam with that would give you access to older versions. I'm sure I have done that when trying to mod GTA and it needed a particular version.