this post was submitted on 12 Oct 2024
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I have no idea what GOG even is but im seeing it as a steam competitor in headlines lately. What's going on that's causing it to come up a lot?
GOG is “Good Old Games”, a digital distribution service for PC games run by CD Projekt Red, developers of The Witcher and Cyberpunk. It mostly focuses on old games from the Win95/98 days that have been patched/fixed by their in-house dev team to run on modern Windows releases. However, it also sells all CD Projekt Red titles and seems to be expanding to just be a regular PC game distribution service.
It’s being talked about a lot right now because unlike Steam, EGS, and other stores they sell you a DRM-free download. Because of recent legislation in California, companies are required to use clearer language when they aren’t selling you something that you own forever, they are instead selling you a license to access something.
This has reignited discussion on digital ownership, Steam, and what happens if you die or Steam shuts down/is acquired and you lose your non-transferable access to the games in your library. GOG is the ideal solution right now, because it while it offers a client that is simple to use like Steam (called “GOG Galaxy”) but if they announce a shutdown or acquisition, you can simply download offline installers for all your games and you don’t lose access to anything.
Galaxy of Games actually
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GOG.com
Technically it doesn’t stand for anything now, but it was definitely Good Old Games.