"Steam is winning with its ease of use" but not on quality, says new GOG owner pondering how to "take the market" from Valve: "We don't release hundreds of games daily, 95% of which are really not super high quality"

Ciri in The Witcher 3 — (Image credit: CD Projekt)

CD Projekt Red co-founder Michał Kiciński acquired the company's digital PC game story GOG in December 2025, more than a decade after leaving CDPR itself, and now faces the difficult task of winning market share from Valve, which has dominated PC gaming with Steam for some time. Kiciński reckons curation and classic games are its path forward.

Speaking with Games Industry, Kiciński acknowledges the difficulties that competitors like the Epic Games Store have faced in their attempts to exist and – whisper it – profit alongside Steam. He tackles the situation with optimism: "Somebody might say that having a competitor like Steam with 80% of the market share is a huge obstacle, but to me it's the opposite. I see: 'Oh, there is one big competitor, it'll be difficult for them to defend the market, because they already have 80%, so it should be easier to take the market from them.'"

Kiciński's argument seems to be that, precisely because Valve is so dominant, GOG only has one real competitor to worry about. A war on one front is at least simpler than a war on five fronts, I suppose. You could even argue Valve, with so much market share (in this analogy, land) to defend, is the one fighting a difficult and complex battle. Other PC gaming stores exist, of course, but none rival Steam's presence.

I do think Kiciński is right to suggest "there is no need to try to be like the others," instead focusing on GOG's own identity and strengths. If there's anywhere GOG might take a page from Steam, it's in usability. "Steam is winning with its ease of use," he says. "In that regard, I think much can be done in GOG without losing its core values and the way it operates in general."

This is a common hurdle for competing stores. Many years into its battle with Steam, Epic owned up to missing or underwhelming features on its store. Meanwhile, Valve has the best baseline experience for purchasing, gifting, friending, and game discovery, and continues to add genuinely cool little features. Steam is not perfect, but it is good. As one example, I could see GOG getting the edge on retro discoverability.

More broadly, Kiciński reasons that "whenever a company is trying to win a market, it needs to just be better at a certain segment. In the case of GOG, that is classics and modern classics. Our aim and our vision is to just simply provide a superior service."

I suspect we'll see the already soft definition of "modern classics" adapted in the years ahead, with GOG seeking titles that its leadership determines make sense for its base. Unsurprisingly, we do know it includes CDPR games,

Kiciński also takes a cheeky pass at the notorious torrent of slop that's defined Steam's feed of new games for many years. "We don't release hundreds of games daily, 95% of which are really not super high quality," he says, calling GOG a "very curated platform." Here, too, GOG is a nice change of pace.

Kiciński says GOG will remain a curated platform going forward, not seeking to compete with the likes of Steam on "AAA smash hits and competing with prices." DRM-free purchases with a focus on classic games, "modern classics," and many smaller studios will remain core to GOG, he summarizes.

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