Good Old Games Competes Not with Steam But with Piracy

Good Old Games might not be the biggest players in the digital distribution space but one of its executives says that it's main competition is not from Valve's Steam but from the piracy driven black market.

Speaking to MCV Guillaume Rambourg, who is the managing director working at Good Old Games, has stated, “Our main competition has always been piracy not other digital platforms. Despite being aimed at a niche audience, GOG.com has become the second most popular digital distribution platform for gamers. Steam is obviously competing in another league here, both in terms of scale and target market. Still, our niche is comfortable and shields us from the competition, which allows us to keep on cultivating our singularity and propose a pleasant alternative to gamers.”

The executive also talked about how digital distribution services can convince players to actually pay for their games, saying, “To beat piracy, our offer to gamers had to be both hassle-free and rewarding. If you make the overall experience more troublesome than downloading and playing an illegal copy, then all you can achieve is encouraging users to give piracy a try.”

Rambourg again stated that central Good Old Games concept that creating technical hurdles between the player and his game, via DRM measures, will only drive more players towards pirated games, which often work better and faster than licensed ones.

The managing director says that it's a good idea for all big publishers to go through their back catalogues and move their classic games to Good Old Games, because it allows them to get a solid revenue stream with a limited investment.

He says his company works with abandonware sites and persuaded them to redirect traffic to GOG in order to make it more visible to those who love old games and would like to get them via legal means and will full support.