GOG Talks Sense

Part 1 - “There’s a very persuasive argument we have, which is MONEY” - games.on.net

Part 2 - "“We see pirates as our competition, we don’t see Steam as our competition” - games.on.net

Recently Trevor Longino, head of marketing and PR for digital games store GOG sat down with Tim Colwill of games.on.net (an Australian site affiliated with Internode) to talk about how the company has become such a huge success selling DRM free games in a market seemingly petrified of pirating and letting the customer actually own their purchases.  The full interview is linked above and it makes great reading.  If however you want a summary of some of the highlights then read on (and then read the full interview).

First up, there is the fact that GOG (originally known as Good Old Games) started very small with a selection of out of print titles that they managed to score permission sell DRM free.  A lot of these titles were available for free download on "abandonware" sites so how did they compete with free?  By modding and making custom installations of the games to easily run on modern hardware and including bundled extras like manual pdfs, avatars, soundtracks and wallpaper.  They quickly became a success and (as discussed in part 1 of the interview) managed to sign up bigger publishers by showing them that they actually made money off these older titles.

The biggest statement that game publishers should take note of is about piracy.  Trevor actually discusses a torrent site that put up a number of GOG releases and then linked directly to the GOG store page for the description.  This turned out to be a boon for GOG as it increased traffic and showed a corresponding increase in sales.  Their aim is for the store to be as easy, if not easier, than downloading the game via bittorrent and also to provide a better service.  It seems to be going well for them since they independently publish a number of indie games as well as big blockbusters like The Witcher 2 (admittedly CD Projekt, the developers of that game are part of the same group that GOG belongs to) still DRM free.  He goes on to say that should GOG ever go under and you are suddenly unable to access your library then you should have no guilt going and downloading a copy of the game you purchased by any means available.

I'm sure you can guess that I am a big fan of GOG and I may or may not have near 70 games in my GOG collection.  This interview has only strengthened that.  I urge you to read the interview then head over to GOG and have a browse.  I bet you'll find something you like.  If we ever want to see any of the big publishers take notice of just how horrible their DRM and restrictions have become we need to show them that the alternatives are viable.  This can only be done by supporting those who are willing to try something different.

Now, go read that interview then go and buy Fallout or something just as cool!