this post was submitted on 13 Jan 2026
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The new owner of GOG [Michał Kiciński] discusses taking on Steam, the devil of DRM, and following in Nightdive's footsteps (www.gamesindustry.biz)
submitted 1 month ago by alessandro@lemmy.ca to c/pcgaming@lemmy.ca
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[–] Holytimes@sh.itjust.works 23 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (4 children)

I wouldn't remotely call valve the devil of drm.

Like fuck, the majority of games on steam have no drm. It's almost exclusively triple A games that wouldn't be sold on gog ever because the companies making them want drm of some form. So it's a moot point. And for the remaining games with it, it's almost exclusively "drm" in the form of a single dll that hooks into steams client so cloud storage and the overlay can work... And it's optional. And client side with no checks and can easily be removed.

Out of the 1000+ games in my steam library I have less then 80 with drm, or even need the steam client running at all to launch.

I just flat out have never understood how people think steam is some drm monster when they give so little fucks that it's entirely and fully a developers choice.

Like hell I just make a zip back up of my games. That's all gog installers are after all. You download once from their servers and you just have an installer, steam is exactly the same it just auto unzips it for you. If you want a installer you can just... Make your own.

[–] IrateAnteater@sh.itjust.works 33 points 1 month ago

They aren't calling Steam "the devil of DRM". The title is a list of three separate topics discussed. They spoke about competition with Steam, then with a separate question, they spoke about DRM.

[–] MurrayL@lemmy.world 17 points 1 month ago (1 children)

You misread the title.

[–] DebatableRaccoon@lemmy.ca 8 points 1 month ago (2 children)

To be fair, they're both correct interpretations of how the title is written. It's the article itself that makes it a lot clearer than a single-sentence title could.

[–] tja@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 month ago

Yes, but for that reason there is a link to the article right next to the title

[–] MurrayL@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago

You’re right - heaven forbid anyone would read the article before dropping a four-paragraph rant based on their incorrect understanding of the title.

[–] iamthetot@piefed.ca 17 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

This is an impressive snapshot of what is wrong with pretty much all discourse today. There's a wonderful article presented here and you have very clearly only read the title, misunderstood it, and wrote a 200 word reply that is completely off base because of it. Then, at least eight other people at the time of my comment did the same thing except they just upvoted you.

To anyone reading this who did not read the article... Just read the article! It will take you five minutes. It will enrich your brain. This applies to all articles you want to comment on, not just this one.

[–] Derpenheim@lemmy.zip 14 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Try opening the article. The title lists a synopsis of what its talking about, which is the three main points: The founder has issues with steam AND games that have mandatory drm. This is not a single bullet point. Read before reply, you just waste time otherwise.

[–] shneancy@lemmy.world -4 points 1 month ago (2 children)

then the title is misleading

[–] mmcintyre@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Nah, if it was just referencing two things the headline wouldn't need another comma before the "and". It's clearly three separate topics.

[–] definitemaybe@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 month ago

He completely misread it. But it's also grammatically ambiguous. It could be interpreted as a non-essential clause, essentially giving extra information about Valve that isn't necessary to understand the main sentence.

It would be weird to include a non-essential, highly editorially clause in a headline, though, unless it was a direct quote. But, in that case, it should be in quotation marks.

[–] definitemaybe@lemmy.ca 11 points 1 month ago (1 children)

That interview makes me very, very hopeful for GOG's future.

We've seen, with Valve, how a private owner with vision for creating value for their customers can make waves. GOG is now in a similar situation and the owner clearly understands that directly competing with Valve (Epic style) is a fool's errand. He had his own vision, distinct from what Valve is doing.

I feel a bit badly that I don't think I've bought much on GOG. I mostly stopped buying individual games (and shifted to mostly buying game bundles) before GOG became a store with a good indie catalogue. I've been holding off on buying BG3 until I actually have time and motivation to play it "properly", but I'll definitely get it on GOG.

Fantastic article. Thanks for linking!

[–] Bosht@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago

If you're looking for good titles to acquire through GoG I'd recommend Cyberpunk 2077. Game goes on sale pretty regularly but is 100 percent worth it at full price. That is of course if you're into FPS. I could gush about it but I'll leave this short haha.

[–] TheObviousSolution@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Where is Nine Sols, GOG? Even Humble Bundle has it, what was that about the mission to conserve the games people asked for on the wishlist?

[–] shneancy@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago (2 children)

they can't just put a game on their platform, the publisher needs to agree and set up terms of sale - if the publisher is going against what GOG want then it won't be easy to compromise

[–] TheObviousSolution@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Steam and even Humble Bundle haven't had a problem with them.

[–] definitemaybe@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

What are you in about, mate? Of course they "don't have a problem" with being in Steam—they have almost all the marketshare!

Humble is a Steam key reseller.

GOG is a completely different, DRM-free storefront.

Sure, Humble has limited marketshare (just like GOG), but with Humble, they just send a batch of keys and wait for money to come back. With GOG, they'd need to support an entirely different storefront for, potentially, the same limited revenue potential they'd get from Humble.

Not at all comparable. And totally reasonable that some publishers/indie devs aren't willing to put their games on GOG. Disappointing, of course, but not hardly surprising.

[–] TheObviousSolution@lemmy.ca -1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

You can get a DRM-free version of Nine Sols from their store: https://shop.redcandlegames.com/ , if you are trying to gaslight that this is somehow about DRM.

You must be the only person in the gaming world who doesn't know about Red Candle Games and Devotion and how GOG put themselves on display there with their lies about "many gamers" (Devotion is also heavily wishlisted). In contrast, Steam still hosts their previous game, Detention and Nine Sols. If you had Devotion, you still have it, and you can even still access the Devotion Soundtrack. Red Candle Games was quite willing to put Devotion in GOG, but you just keep trying to squeeze whatever plausible "what if" trying to defend GOG in whatever recesses of lack of information there are.

Sorry to offend your religion, buddy. Mine is being devoted to storefronts that don't completely submit to Chinese pressure and propaganda to the extent that they begin insulting our intelligence about "many gamers". Continuing to deny Nine Sols entry while letting entry to nude horse LARPing bestiality does not make me have any confidence in their mission statements anymore, and damn if I spent a lot of time promoting GOG and buying from them before that incident.

[–] doublah@sopuli.xyz 0 points 1 month ago

The problem is GOG gatekeeping a lot of indies, he even mentions it as a good thing in this very article.