When provocative horror sport Horses was banned from sale on Steam and the Epic Recreation Retailer late final yr, it almost led to the closure of acclaimed Italian studio Santa Ragione – denied, because it was, entry to a number of the world’s largest paying sport audiences. However amid the panicked delistings there was one other firm decided to promote Horses and throw Santa Ragione a lifeline: Poland-based on-line retailer GOG.
It was a daring stand in a yr of panicked delistings and removals of video games deemed to comprise grownup content material – motion seemingly pushed and enforced by highly effective fee suppliers MasterCard and Visa. This censorious strategy sought to outlaw grotty pornographic video games, but it surely caught all types of well-meaning video games in its internet, together with video games like Horses. GOG wouldn’t solely stand as much as this motion by promoting Horses however it launched an anti-censorship motion in response.
GOG managing director Maciej Gołębiewski advised me, reflecting on the choice in an interview, that it was a “matter of freedom” for him. “We as an organization are at all times able to take a stand on values – our personal and in addition what we consider are the appropriate values for the business,” he mentioned. “We consider in inventive freedom, as a result of as soon as an organization, by means of their very own phrases of service, decides what’s good and what’s not good – what’s acceptable; what might be bought and what can’t be bought – it is a slippery slope from that time onward.
“We clearly are a enterprise and we do assess our dangers,” he added, “as a result of we do not wish to damage the enterprise, we do not wish to damage the staff, and we do not wish to damage the gamers by doing so. So we’re additionally cautious. However with Horses… We’re a curated storefront so we are literally enjoying the video games that we’re promoting. The sport is clearly controversial however there’s nothing there that ought to deem it could not be bought.
“That is the position of regulators and governments to determine – democratic governments – what’s authorized and what’s not authorized, not corporations that maintain – Visa and MasterCard collectively – in all probability 90-something-percent of the market, then simply determine whether or not one thing might be bought or not. For me it is a matter of freedom.”
“We’re a curated storefront so we are literally enjoying the video games that we’re promoting”
Michał Kiciński – the brand new proprietor of GOG – put it extra succinctly when he mentioned to me: “Curation is the privilege and prerogative of every platform. The distinction right here with Horses is that we have performed the sport and we thought it was very cool.”
GOG turned an unbiased and personal firm on the finish of December, that means it is now not part of Polish famous person game-maker CD Projekt, which GOG had been for its total 17-year (extra like 18 when you depend inner improvement) historical past. Michał Kiciński owns the corporate now. Coincidentally, he was one of many individuals who initially launched GOG, and he was one of many founders of CD Projekt, so he is aware of the companies nicely. Kiciński left CD Projekt in 2012 in want of a break however remained – and stays – a serious shareholder.
This newfound independence and autonomy permits GOG to be bolder; Kiciński has already mentioned “I am not afraid of threat” in relation to the corporate’s future. However past a doable transfer into indie sport publishing there aren’t plans to vary what GOG does and what individuals prefer it for. Primarily the enterprise is constructed on reviving basic video games, each outdated and fashionable, and preserving them for years to return. It is also eternally dedicated to providing video games with none sort of DRM.
However GOG does additionally promote newer video games – and massive video games like Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 and Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. Nonetheless, it does this selectively – a type of curation it believes is one other notable distinction in right this moment’s overcrowded gaming world.
As Gołębiewski defined: “The world of specialisation for GOG is the classics and the fashionable classics, the place we wish to present a superior expertise to every other retailer or a platform on the market. That is why [we have] the GOG Preservation Program and why we’re working onerous on the first-party software program to make it possible for video games are playable and keep playable 20, 30 years from now. Aside from that, clearly we welcome any good sport onto the platform, as a result of we wish our customers to have as wealthy a list as doable, with high quality being the limiting issue.”
“This is essential,” Kiciński mentioned, persevering with the thought, “as a result of the distinction – the massive distinction – between Steam and GOG, for instance, is that GOG is a really curated platform. Playability and fun-factor are crucial for us, irrespective of if the sport is an outdated basic, new basic, or indie sport with nice fun-factor. That is the specialty of GOG: to ship video games with the nice fun-factor and playability regardless of the age.”
It is nonetheless early days in GOG’s unbiased new period, and it is price mentioning that whereas GOG is technically a competitor to Steam, Kiciński’s enterprise has round two % of the market, he mentioned, whereas Steam has one thing like 80 %, so there’s an infinite distinction in dimension. However as Kiciński identified, “It is tremendous tough to defend such an enormous market share,” and maybe as gamers search alternate options to Steam’s overloaded catalogue, a number of share factors may creep elsewhere.
