Simply after Christmas, the shock information emerged that GOG, the DRM-free distribution platform centered on basic video games, had been bought by Cyberpunk 2077 developer CD Projekt RED (CDPR). The purchaser was Michał Kiciński, who co-founded CDPR alongside Marcin Iwiński again in 1994, however who left the agency effectively over a decade in the past.
Initially often called Good Outdated Video games, GOG was launched by CDPR in 2008, and though it nonetheless retains its unique dedication to distributing older titles, it now additionally distributes new video games – like the controversial Horses from Santa Ragione, which each Steam and the Epic Video games Retailer refused to characteristic on their storefronts.
However why did CDPR determine to promote GOG? Why did Kiciński purchase it? And what does he intend to do along with his new buy? GamesIndustry.biz sat down with Kiciński and GOG’s managing director Maciej Gołębiewski to search out out some solutions.
Gołębiewski confirms that it was CD Projekt that initiated the sale, however provides that it did not come as a shock to him. “We now have completely different methods. GOG has a special technique, CDPR has their very own technique. So I feel at this level it was actually pure.”
The sale course of itself was very aggressive, though Kiciński says he nonetheless would not know who he was bidding towards to buy GOG. “We suspect that there was an organization from the United States, however we do not know the identify,” he says. “Till the very, very finish, we weren’t positive if we might be on the profitable facet of the course of.”
the numbers, GOG has by no means been a giant breadwinner for CDPR. In the first half of 2025, it recorded a net profitability of -0.9%, in comparison with 35% for the CD Projekt group as an entire. It was an analogous story for the 2024 financial year, when GOG recorded internet profitability of 0.6%, whereas the total group posted profitability of 47.7%.
It is tempting to think about that these weak figures had been the cause why CDPR determined to dump GOG, however Kiciński disagrees. “I feel the numbers weren’t the key level for CDPR to promote GOG,” he says. “That may be my hypothesis. I feel that was extra a strategic resolution, as a result of it is a quite common enterprise state of affairs the place you will have two companies, and one is way smaller than the different one. And it’s totally pure that the majority of the assets go to the components that generate greater margins. So in that respect, it was not straightforward for GOG to be in the one group with CDPR, with their blockbusters and AAA video games producing big earnings.”
NNw that GOG is totally impartial, it has an opportunity to shine. “Proper now, GOG will be the boss of its personal future, and there aren’t any priorities aside from being profitable on its personal.”
However what made Kiciński need to buy GOG? The fundamental cause, he says, is that as the unique founder of the firm, he thinks it has huge progress potential. “I see alternatives greater than negatives, that is my nature, and I see big alternatives for GOG to develop. And any person would possibly say that having a competitor like Steam with 80% of the market share is a large impediment, however to me it is the reverse. I see: ‘Oh, there’s one massive competitor, it’s going to be troublesome for them to defend the market, as a result of they have already got 80%, so it ought to be simpler to take the market from them.'”
However there have been emotional causes behind the funding, too. In any case, GOG is his child. “I nonetheless really feel hooked up, although I [haven’t been] right here in the campus for the final in all probability 13 years,” says Kiciński, who’s speaking to us from the GOG boardroom. “It is my first day at work since 2012 really. I stop CDPR when the Cyberpunk teaser launched. That was the final day I used to be in the workplace, when the teaser was revealed on YouTube.”
He did not need to see the firm being destroyed by the M&A course of, which he notes typically would not finish effectively for the agency being acquired. “I needed to keep away from the state of affairs the place GOG will likely be swallowed by some very massive company, and then the consumer database will likely be transferred, and the firm will likely be closed down, or the crew will likely be fired. This development of consolidation may be very seen in the gaming trade, and I do not suppose it’s totally optimistic.”
However there’s additionally a patriotic ingredient to the buy. “I feel that it is good that GOG is predicated in Poland,” says Kiciński. “It is a Polish firm, it is a European firm, and it helps to have greater variety in the gaming market. We now have a really lively video games improvement scene… any person counted more than 600 development teams working in Poland. And GOG is usually a very pure supporter of the efforts of these improvement groups.”
Taking on Steam
How does Kiciński hope to compete towards Steam’s close to monopoly of the PC market? He thinks it is about doubling down on what GOG is already good at. “GOG has its personal strengths and actually ought to focus on sustaining them and even strengthening them. There isn’t a have to attempt to be like the others. GOG has its personal identification and its personal uniqueness, which may be very a lot appreciated by players.”
Nevertheless, he does see room for enchancment in phrases of including higher content material and sooner infrastructure, in addition to extra dependable and easier-to-use software program. “Steam is profitable with its ease of use,” he says. “In that regard, I feel a lot will be carried out in GOG with out shedding its core values and the manner it operates in common.”
“Steam is clearly a Goliath,” provides Gołębiewski. “So for any firm to attempt to sort out Steam is a really laborious battle. We have seen Discord launch their retailer, we have seen Epic Video games launch their retailer – and due to the lawsuit with Apple, we all know how a lot it has value them to launch this battle towards Steam. So the incontrovertible fact that GOG is increasing, growing, and nonetheless kicking, I feel it is a testomony to the incontrovertible fact that GOG actually has its area on the market with its mission of making video games reside eternally.
“Every time an organization is making an attempt to win a market, it wants to only be higher at a sure section. In the case of GOG, that’s classics and fashionable classics. Our purpose and our imaginative and prescient is to only merely present a superior service.
“GOG actually has its area on the market with its mission of making video games reside eternally”
Maciej Gołębiewski
“Steam is doing an superior job, however they’ve completely different values. I am unsure what their mission is and what they stand for, however actually we are able to do extra for traditional retro and fashionable classics in phrases of accessibility, in phrases of discoverability. Nevertheless it’s not a contest in the fullest sense, since you do not need to wrestle with Goliath, proper? It’s good to have a special thought.”
Would edging into Steam’s market share essentially imply that GOG will begin focusing extra on newer video games? “In case you have a look at the finest video games of 2025, I am not saying that every one of them are on GOG, however some of them are, and annually we’re getting higher at getting new video games,” says Gołębiewski, pointing to titles like Kingdom Come: Deliverance II, Clair Obscur, and Hole Knight: Silksong being obtainable on GOG. “There’s extra and extra impartial studios which are prepared to work with impartial shops.”
Kiciński provides that GOG is not aiming to compete on AAA titles: “It is not the GOG manner.” He sees the future as being about higher collaboration with smaller builders and publishers, relatively than “competing for AAA smash hits and competing with costs.” That stated, GOG does supply common gross sales, and it does have a couple of AAA titles in the type of CDPR’s again catalogue – a key element of the buyout deal was that these get to remain on GOG for the subsequent six years. “I doubt that can ever change, as a result of it is a good enterprise for CDPR, provided that they’ve such nice royalty charges,” says Kiciński. Certainly, the phrases of the deal imply that CDPR will get preferential charges for its video games – Kiciński notes that if followers need to assist CDPR, GOG offers a much bigger share to the developer than every other retailer.
On the topic of royalty charges, Gołębiewski says that GOG’s are set on a case by case foundation, relatively than fastened at a typical fee. “The trade normal, the start line, is the 70/30 break up. And in most instances that is honest, however relying on the content material, relying on the […] relationship, if each events are pleased with the enterprise, we’d entertain completely different setups. I’d say that we’re simply extra versatile right here, and we actually attempt to assess every contract individually.”
“This additionally signifies that sure video games can have particular therapy in GOG,” provides Kiciński. “GOG is a really curated platform. That is, I feel, one of our strengths: we do not launch lots of of video games every day, 95% of that are actually not tremendous top quality. The sport Warlock, for instance, had a interval of exclusivity on GOG and superb promotional protection. So it helps extra builders to succeed in good numbers, although the market share of GOG just isn’t that massive.”
DRM be damned
One factor that has been a foundational pillar of GOG since the very starting is its dedication to promoting video games which are free of DRM – that’s, piracy-prevention know-how that requires issues like on-line activation or account linking – and Kiciński is adamant that this may proceed. “It is a core worth of GOG, and there isn’t any indicators that it’d die in any seen future. This isn’t solely an moral worth, however it’s additionally very pragmatic. It helps folks to take pleasure in video games it doesn’t matter what occurs with the software program offered by the platform or what web connection they’ve.”
“Most company folks, they make plain silly choices”
Michał Kiciński
This concern of entry is one thing that has been raised in the public consciousness lately by the efforts of the Cease Killing Video games marketing campaign, and Kiciński is dedicated to letting gamers take pleasure in video games “everytime you like – and no person can take it away from you.” He criticises current tendencies the place the gaming world appears to be going in the different course, “the place you pay full value, however your rights are extra as any person who rents the sport. I skilled this a couple of instances in my life the place some video games disappeared from my library, and I’ve no bloody thought why. So GOG is towards that, and it is a half of consumer-centric pleasant politics.
“And likewise there are different practicalities. Since the very starting, we have not seen DRM as an answer for piracy, as a result of the video games get pirated anyway, practically day one. We see DRM as one thing which might make the life of a authorized buyer harder. The solely cause to maintain it alive will be to please the homeowners of the video games, as a result of that is their requirement very often.”
In that sense, have publishers refused to do enterprise with GOG because of this of its insistence on making video games DRM-free? “After all,” says Gołębiewski, though he notes that it is a much less controversial concern now than it was in the previous. “We have misplaced some, we have gained some. Most likely there are additionally some builders that really select to work with us as a result of of this philosophy.” He makes the level that from a preservationist standpoint, “the much less third-party software program round the sport, the higher for its longevity.”
Kiciński has little time for publishers that insist on DRM. “Most company folks, they make plain silly choices. I had firsthand expertise of this with The Witcher 2, the place our personal writer sued us.” CDPR despatched out an replace to The Witcher 2 after launch that eliminated the DRM, which prompted Bandai Namco to take authorized motion. “They could not perceive that it [wasn’t harming] their enterprise as a result of the sport was already pirated. However they weren’t delicate to the voices of players complaining that the DRM was inflicting some errors or slowing down the sport.”
The future of GOG
Given GOG’s traditionally low revenue margins, we’re intrigued as as to if the new administration will likely be comfortable to proceed coasting alongside at minimal revenue ranges, or whether or not the plan is to spice up profitability. “Clearly, the purpose of each firm is to be wholesome,” says Gołębiewski. “So, for positive, the thought for GOG is to develop, be wholesome, and have wholesome revenue margins that enable the firm to develop.”
“I am precisely on the similar web page,” says Kiciński. “Being a wholesome firm means having wholesome outcomes.” However he provides that cash will not be the fundamental motivating issue, and as an alternative the focus is to “do job, have good merchandise and good companies, and then as a consequence and as a reward comes good cash.” It is a level that he thinks is clear, “however many firms disintegrate on that, placing the spreadsheets first.”
It helps that GOG is not instantly below strain to repay big loans. Kiciński nonetheless owns just below 10% of CDPR, and has beforehand appeared on the Forbes listing of the 100 richest Poles – therefore he was in a position to buy GOG utilizing his personal private fortune. Simply yesterday, he paid over the agreed $25.3 million to CDPR.
So GOG enters its newly impartial section on agency monetary footing, however there are nonetheless some query marks lingering over its future course. When GamesIndustry.biz spoke to GOG’s head of enterprise improvement, Bartosz Kwietniewski, at Gamescom in August final 12 months, he intimated that GOG was in shopping for up previous IPs and creating its personal remasters of previous video games, in an analogous method to the Atari-owned Nightdive Studios.
“If we had been the precise homeowners of these IPs, we might not solely repair them, convey them again, we might in all probability remaster them, do them justice,” Kwietniewski advised us. “I feel what Nightdive is doing is the excellent instance of what we wish to embark on: have these IPs, convey them to your engine, make them work, play higher than ever, doubtlessly do a non secular successor of the sport, or perhaps even a new installment of the sport, like what they’re doing with System Shock.”
Provided that Kiciński has solely simply been put in as the new owner, the firm nonetheless hasn’t determined whether or not it’ll positively proceed to proceed in this course. “It is going to take a while for us to align our plans,” says Gołębiewski. “In case you had requested me two weeks in the past, I’d in all probability have given you the similar reply as Bartosz did throughout Gamescom: that it solely feels pure for GOG to develop on its enterprise mannequin and get even nearer to the worth creation, to the inventive facet of issues for players. Immediately, I’d say that we have to discuss, and I hope it will likely be solely pure.”
“It is very near what I’ve stated about improvement and publishing, being near these processes,” provides Kiciński. We now have a really massive expertise pool in Poland in that regard. So it feels very pure to develop in that course, however it’s too early to say any concrete issues.”
After all, following in Nightdive’s footsteps can be no straightforward activity, and would require appreciable funding in increase an inner studio. “That is why in all probability it needs to be taken step-by-step,” says Kiciński. “We [haven’t discussed] any massive steps as of now, however the course is there, I’d say. […] And the expertise pool is there – and by there, I imply right here in Poland. For positive, there’s lots of work to construct this providing, however I feel we are able to do it.”