"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"

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?"

Oshry praised GOG's commitment to preservation, updating games for modern PCs, and hosting all-in-one mod installers, and you'll find many of New Blood's games on the platform. "The problem is it's still 1 to 5% of the sales on Steam, where it used to be closer to 5 or 10%," Oshry explained.

"GOG is great," he added. "I love their preservation efforts and everything they're trying to do, but they need enough people to give a shit, or, how long are they even going to be around?"

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."