Good Old Games Q&A

PC Gamer had a chat with Good Old Games’ managing director Guillaume Rambourg, which clarifies on subjects such as GOG’s recently announced decision to sell newer titles on their service, whether their commitment to DRM-free titles will ever change, and what they think they can offer to smaller publishers. Here’s a snip:

Do you think trying to make GOG.com a digital distribution service for new games will interfere with its original mission? It was a huge boon to GOG users when games from EA started appearing on the service. But now EA and GOG are digital distribution competitors, are they not? Will that interfere with your ability to reach agreements with publishers like EA?

Guillaume Rambourg: I think that calling what we’re doing a competition with services like Origin or Steam may be a bit misleading. We’re remaining true to our original mission of bringing DRM-free games to our users, adding in extra content, and keeping everything priced fairly across the whole world. This is the experience that a user gets when he or she comes to GOG.com, and that experience will remain unchanged.

Keep in mind that our initial plan for 2012 involved adding 20 (newer) titles that is to say, titles between one to three years old. These games are well past their initial sales rush and are in what you would call the long tail of their sales phase. GOG’s mission is to give these titles a second youth, making these games virtual (collector’s editions) with bundled-in extra goodies like soundtracks and wallpapers. Adding games like this to GOG.com certainly doesn’t compete with traditional digital distributors, but will really show off how DRM-free sales channels are an excellent complement to traditional game distribution.