"The future of preservation is decided by players who give a s***," GOG asserts as it reiterates its 18-year mission to make games "live forever"

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"Game preservation only works if people care"

The Witcher
(Image credit: CD Projekt Red)

GOG continues to offer DRM-free games with a big commitment to game preservation even now, 18 years after its launch, but the PC storefront has seemingly only lost ground to Steam over the years. Its mission is easy to root for, but one indie publishing powerhouse notes that it takes gamers really caring for preservation to be worth investing in. That, it seems, is a concern GOG shares.

GOG was once purely a site for good old games – hence the name. Dave Oshry, CEO of Dusk publisher New Blood, told RPG Site that this once gave the platform its identity, but that was "before Steam opened the floodgates" and older titles started seeing releases there. "Then Steam let anybody put anything on there," Oshry said, "and then all of a sudden who needed GOG anymore?"

GOG itself agrees, at least in part. "We appreciate Dave’s honesty, and he’s right about one thing: game preservation only works if people care," the company said in a tweet. "GOG was built to make sure the games that shaped us live forever. And with the support of our community, we’ve been doing exactly that for almost 20 years."

Obviously, GOG has a vested financial interest in singing the praises of preservation, since that's its whole business model – but there are worse ways to turn a profit than offering a product people can believe in, and the words "DRM-free" have been beautiful ones for as long as digital distribution has been around.

The problem, in my mind, is that Steam's DRM measures are effectively invisible at this point. GOG's promise of totally DRM-free games is great, but the nebulous fear that Valve's servers might someday shut down and cut off access to your game library doesn't weigh too heavily against Steam's robust friends lists, mod hosting, and community features. A GOG game might last forever, but a Steam game usually offers a better experience in the here and now.

But, as GOG itself asserted, "The future of preservation is decided by players who give a shit. So buy DRM-free, vote on the Dreamlist, join GOG Patrons. If games matter to you, show it. And let’s prove together that preservation isn’t niche. It’s necessary."

"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."

Dustin Bailey
Dustin Bailey
Staff Writer

Dustin Bailey joined the GamesRadar team as a Staff Writer in May 2022, and is currently based in Missouri. He's been covering games (with occasional dalliances in the worlds of anime and pro wrestling) since 2015, first as a freelancer, then as a news writer at PCGamesN for nearly five years. His love for games was sparked somewhere between Metal Gear Solid 2 and Knights of the Old Republic, and these days you can usually find him splitting his entertainment time between retro gaming, the latest big action-adventure title, or a long haul in American Truck Simulator.

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