CD Projekt co-founder Michał Kiciński has discussed his decision to acquire DRM-free storefront GOG while offering a few more details about his expectations from the distribution platform he now fully owns.
The GOG acquisition was one of the final major pieces of news coming out of last year, taking most by surprise. Publicly shared on December 29, it could mark a new era for the storefront whose small profit margins never quite got close to CD Projekt Red’s other ventures.
Michał Kiciński Discusses Acquiring GOG from CD Projekt Red
Despite GOG’s financial struggles being known, Kiciński doesn’t believe its number played the central role in CD Projekt Red’s decision to sell.
“I think that was more a strategic decision, because it’s a very common business situation where you have two businesses, and one is much smaller than the other one,” he told GamesIndustry.biz. “And it’s very natural that most of the resources go to the parts that generate bigger margins. So in that respect, it was not easy for GOG to be in the one group with CDPR, with their blockbusters and AAA games generating huge profits.”
Furthermore, the key driver behind Kiciński’s decision to acquire GOG from CD Projekt Red was the significant potential for growth he sees in the platform.
“I see opportunities more than negatives, that’s my nature, and I see huge opportunities for GOG to grow. And 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.”
He goes on to say that he also wanted “to avoid the situation where GOG will be swallowed by some very big corporation, and then the user database will be transferred, and the company will be closed down, or the team will be fired,” while pointing at “very visible” consolidation trends occuring in the gaming industry.
As far as GOG’s strategy to take a slice of Steam’s gargantuan market share, the storefront will focus on its strengths.
“Whenever a company is trying to win a market, it needs to just be better at a certain segment,” Managing Director Maciej Gołębiewski added. “In the case of GOG, that is classics and modern classics. Our aim and our vision is to just simply provide a superior service.
“Steam is doing an awesome job, but they have different values. I’m not sure what their mission is and what they stand for, but certainly we can do more for classic retro and modern classics in terms of accessibility, in terms of discoverability. But it’s not a competition in the fullest sense, because you don’t want to wrestle with Goliath, right? You need to have a different idea.”
Over the years, GOG has welcomed new releases, including some of the most major titles of the past years. Although it will continue to be a space where they are sold, Kiciński explains that he doesn’t plan on directly competing with Steam in that area, claiming that “it’s not the GOG way.”
Whatever changes the storefront might see over the coming months and years, its new leadership remains dedicated to the DRM-free philosophy that helped it make a name for itself.
“This is a core value of GOG, and there’s no signs that it might die in any visible future. This is not only an ethical value, but it’s also very pragmatic. It helps people to enjoy games no matter what happens with the software provided by the platform or what internet connection they have.”
How GOG’s future will unfold after changing owners is something we’ll have to keep an eye on, since its DRM-free offering and dedication to older titles do make it stand out from its competitors, at least for a portion of more nostalgic gamers.
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