- 4 mesi fa
La nostra intervista a Piotr Gnyp e Zuzanna Rybacka, PR di GOG, che ci hanno raccontato alcuni importanti retroscena sul lavoro di GOG e sul recupero di alcune licenze... piuttosto rocambolesche.
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00:00Hello, everyone. I'm Domenico from Gamesurf, and I'm happy to have with us today Piotr and Susanna from GOG or GOG. Hi, guys.
00:23Hi. Thanks for having us.
00:53What's to you? Tell us everything.
00:55OK, so maybe I'll start. So I would like to clarify that we don't see ourselves as anti-system.
01:01I think we are part and vital part of the industry and our philosophy is we put gamers first.
01:09But what's our original story? So it's from nearly 20 years ago right now.
01:15The GOG, and it was called back then Good Old Games, was founded by CD Projekt Red original creators, so much English, Michal Kicinski.
01:22And back in the day, they were in the States and they ventured to the GameStop shop to find some classical games that we want to play.
01:28And they found out that they are no longer available. And it was just like a difficult time to transition from DOS to Windows XP.
01:35So we were huge issues with compatibility. So normal games were available to buy.
01:40And even if you managed to buy them, sometimes they just didn't work because of stuff.
01:44And that gave them the idea, since they loved games, they loved classical games, to prepare and build a platform which will allow gamers to enjoy and discover classical games and have them playable and accessible on their computers.
01:58And hence, the GOG, as it was called back then Good Old Games, was founded.
02:04After some time, when we managed to secure classical titles and started to feel good about it, we also added modern games like Indie, AA, STPLAs, and we changed the name to GOG.com.
02:17But the underlying philosophy of game preservation, hence DRM3 games, stayed with us.
02:22So you might say that we are fighting the good fight for games conservation for nearly 18 years right now.
02:29You are touching here for an old retro gaming lover.
02:34Actually, I'm trying to play Psychonauts and it's crazy to find a copy of Psychonauts at the moment for our podcast.
02:42But I hope I will find it on GOG soon.
02:45If it's not available, we have a website called the Dreamlist, vote versus share your stories.
02:53Yeah, I know.
02:54It really makes the difference and it helps.
02:56And we will go there.
02:57We will go there.
02:58Okay.
02:59We will go there during the interview.
03:02But first I want to touch the topic of the DRM3 games.
03:07Of course, this is, I would say, the basic philosophy of GOG that, as Piotr said, it started 20 years ago.
03:16But nowadays we can say that the new technologies like the cloud are getting bigger, bigger and bigger.
03:23Do you see this as a challenge for your DRM3 mission and especially how GOG is planning to face this challenge without betraying, let's say, the core philosophy of the company?
03:38So, of course, our main focus is on DRM3, on the games preservation.
03:46And this was and I think always will be our mission and what's really deep in our hearts, all of us here, here at GOG.
03:56Of course, we are always observing what's happening both in the world of technology, of the games industry.
04:05We're always analyzing these situations.
04:08But for now, I would say it's a bit too early for us to really state what's it going to be for us.
04:16Of course, we do see a place for DRM3 and, for example, cloud gaming within the industry together.
04:26And, like, we cooperate with Amazon on a daily basis, with Amazon Luna.
04:33There are games from GOG that are available within Luna and some games of our sister company, CD Projekt Red, are also available in G4 now.
04:47So, yeah, we definitely see the space for these things to co-exist.
04:53But for now, it's fairly to see where exactly it is going for us.
04:59Yeah, we have a lot of work with premium classical games on GOG platform and PCs.
05:04So, as Bozana said, we are looking into it.
05:08We are cooperating with the biggest brands and the biggest cloud providers in the industry.
05:12But right now, our main efforts go into GOG platform and premium PC DRM3 games because there's a lot to do for us.
05:19Exactly.
05:20Exactly.
05:21As I said, first, you put psychonauts on GOG and then we can talk about it.
05:27Yeah, we can talk about it.
05:29Right.
05:30Right.
05:31Speaking about the overall platforms online, of course, GOG is not the only one.
05:36There are two big competitors that you have to, let's say, face that are Epic and Steam.
05:43And they are quite big competitors for you because one has a great, a huge user base and the other one has good exclusives.
05:53How did GOG manage to break this duality and be a strong presence in the online platforms selling video games?
06:05I think, first of all, we are the leading European and curated distribution platform.
06:11This curated means you're not the marketplace.
06:13You cannot just enter, submit your financial data and have a publisher account on us.
06:18We check every game.
06:20And because we check this game, we see what is available on GOG.
06:24And we also help the developers and the publishers to achieve success on our platform.
06:28So that means we put marketing, PR, we highlight the games, give them the much needed visibility in the market.
06:36Also, our main target and our niche that we're trying to conquer or probably we conquered it already is classical games.
06:44So in a sense, we want to be the best platform for the catalog games.
06:49So because we make sure they will always work and not always, not only work, but work properly on your model computer.
06:55So once you will buy a game from GOG, A, you know, it should be a good game because somebody checked and allowed it on the platform.
07:04And B, if the game is a GOG preservation program, we vow that this game will always work.
07:10So if you're looking for this type of games, it's the best value for money you can get on the market.
07:14Of course, we acknowledge we are part of industry that different methods, different distribution platforms with different strengths.
07:20So our is the catalog games, DRM free and the trust we gave to the users.
07:26Please bear in mind that we have, I think the most gracious return policy on the market.
07:32I think it's 30 days, no questions asked, but still we have one of the lowest rate of returns on the market.
07:37So our trust to gamers pays off.
07:39And I think our community values our positioning on our sense towards gamers.
07:47Okay, thank you.
07:50And going on with the thing that you just said in one of our podcasts just play.
07:55I stated that GOG is some kind of saving the history of video games with this huge effort of recovery and preservation of the old video games.
08:06But how much work is behind all this?
08:10And especially how difficult is for GOG to acquire the rights?
08:15Yeah, how complicated it is to get the rights of the older games and make them compatible with modern computers and modern systems.
08:25So give us a glimpse of what is behind the curtains.
08:28So, of course, it's case by case. Each game is different. Each release is different.
08:38In the most extreme cases, of course, you start with all this detective work.
08:43Actually, who owns the rights to what?
08:46Sometimes it's completely split.
08:48Sometimes it's some lost papers on someone's attic.
08:51And you only know about it because you just stumbled across the right person, you know.
08:57So we do have extreme cases like this.
09:00There are games that we are on to for years now.
09:03And, you know, sometimes decades, right?
09:06Sometimes decades even.
09:08And we keep revisiting those.
09:11We keep going back to these people because sometimes when we cannot grasp some release or rights to something, it takes like years to for the right person to come in in some other company, for example, like in a publisher or developer.
09:30Sometimes the right person has to come to to the right spot at the right time.
09:36And then we're going to go revisit.
09:38And this is the person that we've been waiting for.
09:40That's going to finally tell us.
09:42Yes, release it on GOG.
09:44Let's bring it back.
09:45So sometimes these are very, very lengthy, lengthy cases.
09:51I think most of the games from the top of our dream list are the ones that we're already investigating for years and tracing, tracking, trying to get them at various stages of the game.
10:05There are various stages of this research, of course.
10:09When it comes to the technical aspect itself, this also really depends on the game.
10:15Some cases are really easy because we have very skilled people in-house as well who can recreate various environments from various eras for these games to bring them back and to prepare builds that are compatible with fully with modern systems.
10:34Sometimes it's a bit more complicated.
10:38Sometimes we stumbled onto insane bugs that we're not able to recreate in some other environment.
10:46Sometimes it's easy peasy, you know, and let's pray for more of those easy peasy cases.
10:53So, yeah, I would say it really differs on the game, on the time it came from, for how long it's been lost.
11:04But there's a lot of steps into it, a lot of checking, a lot of researching.
11:09So, generally speaking, it's a lot of work.
11:13Yeah, and if I can add to this, I think the most difficult one is the legal stuff.
11:20I probably agree that finding why this game is gone and what happened and why it's deleted or who owns the rights, it's the most crucial thing.
11:29Because, counterintitually, technically we can manage.
11:32We've built over the years, like a set of eternal tools, like our own branch of DozBox, input wrapper, and DirectX wrappers, which help us bring these games to modern computers.
11:42But being able to from legal staples is a toughie.
11:47But also, of course, at the end of the day, we are a business and we let publishers thrive on our platform.
11:54So, it also needs to be business viable for them to put this game out.
11:59So, that means either it's a part of a marketing beat or it's a research or it's a revitalization of a franchise prior to a sequel, remaster, remake, etc.
12:09So, yes, three tasks to solve, legal, technical, and business for us, for every game to appear on the platform.
12:15And I would also add that sometimes it's a crazy adventure when we need to hire detectives to find out if it's the guy that owns the rights, right?
12:26What happened? Or find out...
12:28Wait, a real actual detective?
12:31Yes, yes.
12:32No.
12:33Yes, yes, yes, yes.
12:35We told the story, I think, in previous interviews, but there was a guy who inherited a partial rights to the game.
12:44But he was over it.
12:45So, we needed to figure out if he's the guy and if he's willing to talk to us about this.
12:50So, we hired a detective to find him and talk to him.
12:53And he was very happy and very happy that this thing came through.
12:56But, yes, sometimes it's even like this since, like, the more we go in time, the more complicated sometimes these cases with legal rights can be.
13:06Yeah, I imagine the situation, sorry if I interrupt you, that you are going, I don't know, to Zabka or to buy something.
13:14And you see a car that is following you, you know?
13:16And you say, okay, they are going to kill me.
13:18And then it's just your detective that is following you for the ride.
13:21Don't worry about it.
13:23Maybe just they would like your video game, you know?
13:27Yeah, yeah.
13:28It's just about a video game.
13:29We really want it.
13:30Like, really.
13:31Also, it sometimes could be easier.
13:36Just to add to that, you know, releasing a game and finally bringing it back, it's one thing.
13:42But then you also have to upkeep this game.
13:44And this is, for example, when our preservation program comes in.
13:48So then, over the years, we also go back to this game, QA it all over again, fix bugs that we might have missed at some point
13:58or some things that our community stumbled upon because they have, of course, different environments.
14:05There's as many PCs as there is players, to be honest.
14:09So sometimes we just don't get a certain error or a bug or something like this.
14:14And only when community brings it up, we are able to somewhat recreate it and fix it for those people.
14:22So even after releasing, this is a constant work of the continuous preservation, going back to those titles, making sure that they keep being compatible, you know?
14:35Yeah, I imagine.
14:36I imagine.
14:37And before, Piotr was saying that one of the first steps is the legal one.
14:43And here comes my next question.
14:46Georgie in the past had an issue, I will say, with Blizzard regarding Warcraft first and the second one.
14:53Have other publishers or studios raised similar issues in the past?
14:58And especially, how do you handle a situation, for example, where the gamers' rights are maybe disappeared
15:04or they are split among different companies?
15:07Or maybe, you know, the rights, the owners of the rights are not existing anymore.
15:11I mean, you still hire a detective to look actively for this.
15:15It's case by case.
15:16You know, it's case by case.
15:18So what we are trying to do to put all is to put all the rigor rights within one entity within which can cooperate.
15:24Sometimes it's really hard and undoable for a personal future.
15:28Like, you know, let's say Black and White.
15:30It's a split between EA and Microsoft, both publicly traded huge multimedia companies.
15:36So putting a team of lawyers on both sides costs sometimes a lot of effort.
15:41So while we try, it might be tougher than usual.
15:45So the only solution is to talk to people, try to build a business case and make them understand
15:51why this would be beneficial both to them, to GOG and to the industry and gamers as a whole,
15:57to bring this game back to the market.
15:59So this is the only way.
16:00And as you can see, how many games are right now unavailable, it's not an easy job.
16:04We have a very skilled team that does it for a long time.
16:07So they know how to talk to people and they know how to approach them, even though it takes years,
16:13sometimes decades of hearing no until just from time to time somebody says yes.
16:19And then you have this release.
16:21Also, sometimes we need to fix other mistakes.
16:24Like, let's say in an example of Alpha Protocol, there was expired license to music, right?
16:32To run songs from the discotheque, three minutes I think of music made the game disappear.
16:37So this is always also a riddle of how to solve this.
16:40And if we can and can help them, we can revive this game and bring it back to the platform.
16:46So as you can imagine, we want to have all of the classical games on the platform and being available to the gamers.
16:52And we are doing whatever we can to help them.
16:56But still, there are legal problems, obstacles to solve.
17:00And sometimes it just takes a longer time to do it.
17:04Okay, so...
17:06Oh, I remember one story when we have two friends who hated each other.
17:09So we need to have a council to make them talk to each other and decide...
17:14What?
17:15I mean, you had two friends that hated each other and anyone to give you the rights?
17:19Yes.
17:20They made a game, they have a split right, but they weren't talking to each other.
17:24So we had to cancel and negotiate between them to make them talk again to each other and decide if they want to bring the game back.
17:30And we managed to do that.
17:32So, yeah.
17:33So, I mean, one of the next sector of GOG is the wedding advisor, you know?
17:39The marriage advisor.
17:41Maybe.
17:42Who knows?
17:43There is space.
17:44There is space.
17:45So...
17:46There is space for innovation.
17:48Just so you know.
17:50Video games and wedding preservation.
17:53Exactly.
17:54Wedding preservation is actually a very good name for business.
17:59Wow.
18:00Guys, and during this interview, you said that you have a huge attention to your community.
18:06But let's say that the Dreamlist project is amazing, is beautiful, but also show that your community is quite complicated sometimes to manage.
18:17It's not the easiest one.
18:19Sometimes the community of GOG complained that there was...
18:24They were not listening, I would say.
18:26And also there was, let's say, a problem with the fake votes for the Digimon World's Wishlist.
18:35So, how...
18:37What are the strategies that GOG is going to put in place or is already having in order to manage better the community, but without making them lose the idea of the original, let's say, value of the company.
18:54To make them understand that all you are doing is because something bigger, you know?
19:01Yeah, yeah.
19:02So, our community is absolutely full of extremely passionate people.
19:10Like, really.
19:11And we always, because of this, we always try to listen to them as well.
19:17On social media, on our, we have a core community Discord, in emails that come to us to inquiries.
19:28Because the community is always, like, a huge chest of treasures for us, full of insights, feedback, and more.
19:40And more.
19:41And we always, what we always try to do is keep the communication open and honest.
19:47Because the trust of the gamers, the trust of our community is always what's super important for us.
19:55And we hope that it can be visible in a way.
20:00At the same time, we are a company that has relations and agreements with our partners, with publishers, with developers.
20:10So, it's, we have to balance those things out sometimes.
20:14When it comes to Dreamlist, though.
20:16So, when GOG first was founded in 2008, we always had game preservation as our main mission.
20:28And, like, I think I already said it, that the top games from our Dreamlist are, most of them are titles that we already look at, that we already talk about, that we already investigate.
20:43And we always take votes, stories, comments, feedback, under consideration for those to help in those conversations that we already have.
20:55To have more arguments, to have more pressure, perhaps, that, look, this many people want your game.
21:04We've been talking about it for years, but now we have this, like, physical proof that this many people want this game.
21:11So, yeah, people all around industry are looking at Dreamlist, are reading the memories of the people that are sharing them.
21:22And, of course, we can't say which games, but there has been a case where Dreamlist has been, has had an influence on release of the release.
21:37And while doing all this, we want Dreamlist to be the most authentic that it can be, because we cannot base our conversations, our, you know, future agreements and what we want to do the whole mission on something that has been faked.
21:57So, this is what happens when people try to ramp up the numbers artificially.
22:04We know that we are passionate about it and they want to, they want more numbers, they want the game to have more visibility.
22:11But this is unfortunately for us, not a way to, to build those things.
22:16So, we always want people to understand us.
22:20We try to be transparent.
22:22So, we do put attention into those trials of manipulations.
22:27We're trying to, to secure those votes somehow.
22:31And that's why, for example, in, in the case of Digimon, we erased the fake votes.
22:38Okay.
22:39That's good to know.
22:40Your story does, your story gamers does matter.
22:44We had cases when people from the industry showed us your memories and because of that, that ticks the scale and SSAS.
22:51So, to serve them, it does matter.
22:54Yeah, I will say that also you have this, like, forum, forum on the website of GOG.
23:01That is a huge opportunity for people to speak, to conversate about games.
23:06That is a huge open door for the community.
23:09So, that's good to know.
23:11Guys, I will go to the, nowadays, to the, what is going on in the world and in the video game industry.
23:19And, one of the biggest thing that, nowadays, we are living is this situation with Visa and MasterCard.
23:28That, I will say, in the last weeks or in the last months, we can say, let's put a bit of pressure on some companies to not give the opportunity to sell some games that have violent of sexual content.
23:47And, let's say that some companies agreed on this.
23:50GOG, on the other hand, launched the freedom to buy campaign.
23:55You offered 13 or even more, I don't remember now, titles that were not available on some platforms for 48 hours.
24:03I think you got something like 1 million people, even more, that got these games.
24:10And, that's why, at the beginning, I said that you are some kind of anti-system platform.
24:17But, going back to this freedom to buy campaign.
24:21How was for you?
24:25Did you earn more support or more controversy having this campaign?
24:30How changed the place of GOG in the industry after this?
24:34I would say we've got a lot of support for which we are thankful.
24:38Many people reach out to us and give us our support, both from the developer and from the gamer community, of course.
24:44I think we want to raise awareness about game preservation.
24:48and we know that every game that disappears, it will be really hard sometimes to bring in bed.
24:53So, we need to do what we can to keep them on the market.
24:57So, I would say this is our main idea that we want to get hurt, but the game should not disappear from the market.
25:07Okay. I mean, at this point, I think that if the situation with Visa and MasterCard goes on, I think not even Psychonauts could arrive
25:19because there are a lot of Kojima stuff in the game.
25:23So, let's go to the other one that is always about preservation.
25:29I don't know if Susa wanted to add anything?
25:31No.
25:32No, no.
25:33That is also my last question for today.
25:38It's about the Stop Killing Video Games campaign that arrived to the European Commission.
25:44You know, it's basically your core market, the preservation of video games.
25:51But what is the GOG position regarding this campaign and how do you approach this proposal?
25:59Did you already met someone of the people that started the campaign?
26:04Did you already made some statement?
26:06I mean, what is your position?
26:08So, at this stage, we don't really have anything to add, any comments to share about this initiative.
26:18But as we already talked, we are the biggest European PC game distribution platform.
26:27We do know that we have a unique experience in the area of game preservation.
26:33So, what this initiative is all about.
26:36So, we are always open to participating in discussions on game preservation and the viability of solutions.
26:49Of course, once the discussion is there.
26:52And, of course, sharing our experience and perspective.
26:56Because we do realize that we have a unique place in here.
27:02Okay.
27:03Thank you.
27:04And, guys, as I said, this was the last question from my side.
27:09Before setting you free, can you tell us something about any big classic video game that soon will come on GOG?
27:17Or you can't.
27:18So, we have something cooking up.
27:23You can give me hints, you know, like there is this kind of character.
27:27What we can tell you is that by the end of this month, GOG is going to be celebrating 17th anniversary.
27:39We're going to, as per tradition, we're going to have a sale for this occasion.
27:45But, alongside the sale, we plan to have a lot of things for people.
27:50A lot of new releases and some extra goodies, new stuff, additions.
27:58And, basically, just stay tuned for our birthday.
28:01Yes, stay tuned.
28:02This is going to be a lot to celebrate.
28:06And, we do plan like a packed anniversary.
28:09So, hope people will enjoy it and celebrate it with us.
28:13Okay, that's great to hear.
28:15And, I'm sure that on GameSelf, we will be ready to, let's say, give the right amount of space to the GOG video games.
28:25So, guys, that's all from my side.
28:27I thank you once again for being with us today.
28:31So, guys, wish you a great day.
28:33And, yeah, thank you once again.
28:35Bye.
28:36Thanks for having us.
28:37Bye-bye.
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