GOG is pondering a subscription service

Sorry, I forgot to include "No" in the poll. ;p

It really depends what they offer in a subscription. Look at Xbox, the game pass is an amazing subscription service. I also don't mind the Humble Choice either. Most recently I saw Cities: Skylines getting a subscription service for all their dozens of DLC's. So for 8 bucks you get to use everything they got. I don't see that being a problem if you plan on using a service and dropping it. It can be cheaper in short them, but more expensive long therm. I'll still buy games over subscribing for a service.

GOG should be the last cffering a subscription. They define themselves as the platform where you have ownership over your digital goods by being able to download standalone installers.

I don't really care one way or another about subscriptions like gamepass. I don't use them myself unless I happen to win a free month or something, but I don't hate the idea.

It does seem odd that GoG of all places is offering a subscription though, since that goes against the whole idea of people permanently owning games there.

Meh. I'm not a fan of being forced to play what such services have on offer for a limited given time. And I doubt that GOG could finance giving ownership for these games, like Amazon does with Prime.

My wish is for Steam to do something like Choice. Untradeable and immediately activated on your account. Even if you already own some of the games. But with better games and no limited key issues in return. Heck, I'd already be satisfied if they allowed others to run such a service directly on Steam.

I don't care for subscriptions, don't have xblive, don't have ubi+, don't have netflix or paid youtube any of that. Certainly won't get GOG one either.

Just cancelled my Disney+ subscription. Somehow felt like they didn't actually care about the quality of the service and the content anymore. Increasing the price by over 50% for the 'full' subscription just felt out of place. I guess enough people will stay for their next Marvel/Star Wars fix.

I wouldn't care about a GOG subscription personally, but I guess it is a good thing if you include a good amount of classic retro games. We'll see.

I love, how playfull GoG is - In 13. More about You, Last question :D :D
But hate subscription

I am not inherently against subscriptions, we'll see what this ends up being.

I only don't mind subscriptions when it comes to physical goods

like a weekly meal delivery subscription

I have a feeling they would do it 'right'

... and it would be like a week-long, paid-for "free weekend" where a mix of currently-hot and under-appreciated games would get some spotlight.

I got the survey too, and it seemed to me that they were describing something closer to the Humble Choice model. The survey referenced being able to pause a subscription and to pay month by month. It was also linked to GOG's Preservation Program, which they launched not too long ago. It's a program designed to preserve old games (i.e. always keep them playable on current operating systems etc.) What I concluded from the survey was that they were thinking of a way to fund this program and maybe take it to a higher level.

I'd be OK with a Humble Choice type service, IF you got to both pick the games you wanted from it, and any leftover licenses they 'owe' you could be given away to those that do want them. I very much doubt they'd ever let you give your extras away though.

Their business practice collides with the idea of a subscription, you can't get an exe that doesn't work past a set date...
Maybe in-browser emulators for older games?

Not interested really, I'm thinking about buying most of my AA / AAA games I'd get (and is available there) on GOG, to get a proper backup. It's only matter of time until the inept, ratty hands of US politics starts to go after "violent" video games, and I'd rather be safe than sorry. (There are always other ways, but what I'd buy on Steam, I'd buy on GOG. If it's on GOG, it's free real pirate estate. But the dev deserves the money I'd pay on Steam, so...)

If that was the emailed labelled “hot or not?” I deleted it without opening it.

I'm assuming by subscription they mean that once you pay the $8.99 a month or whatever you permanently own all the games drm free in that subscription? Otherwise this defeats the entire purpose of gog. I wouldn't sub to steam, epic, ea, uplay, xbox, whoever. Subscriptions suck and they can eat shit.

Hopefully adobe is the first to eat shit with their sub system. Thankfully I got krita and davinci resolve, but I still need some alternative to photoshop but nothings exactly there yet. I don't even care about the ai features because I could literally edit a pic then run it through an ai separately.

If it's something like Humble choice or Prime gaming where you pay each month and they drop a random assortment of games on you that you get to keep forever I could see it working, but then again I'm already subscribed to Prime and I get my monthly GOG fix from there.
On the other hand if they're planning something similar to how EA does their subscription plan I'm not so thrilled, nor do I know how the heck they plan to implement such a thing while keeping the DRM-free system. Do they intend on coming to my house and manually delete the games and installers from my PC while I'm sleeping?

My guess is that the sub would give access to only preservation program games or random games monthly like "Twitch Prime" or "PS+" rather than "sub gives access to rental" like gamepass

I have way too many games to get sub going tbh.

I mean hell, my GoG alone is full of twitch prime games and theres 176 of them.
If those took on avg 10 hours to do, I'd have to play 1 760 hours. Even with something like 40 hour/week consistent playtime that would take 44 weeks to finish. And some of those games can be 100 hour RPGs!

however if its preservation program games I'd be interested for a while at least. I would like some RE 1-3 and Silent Hill 4. And blade runner.

https://www.smartsurvey.co.uk/s/MURG4B/?language=en

Survey link above is posted by a moderator on /r/GOG if not subscribed to GOG's email newsletter: https://www.reddit.com/r/gog/comments/1jnhiw6/gog_survey/mkl5gx9/

To that end, my thoughts on a possible GOG subscription membership after taking the survey.

Many features that could be packaged into a possible subscription do not touch the DRM-free games themselves that are sold on the GOG store, so both subscribers and non-subscribers would have the same accessibility to the available games. Rather the survey asks about perks such as votes being counted twice, instead of once, when deciding which games should be added to the store. Special discounts on buying games and premium cosmetics for your GOG account similar to Discord profile cosmetics. Automatic downloads of game files to a storage device (could be a one-button process).

I do not believe a subscription will work with GOG at all. Selling old games is a niche market and not enough new games appear on GOG to consistently attract users away from other game clients. If GOG does move forward with a subscription model, then the perks mentioned in the survey are a weak offering. The perks are nice, but also unnecessary to the experience in using their client.

I don´t see how a subscription service like Microsoft´s Gamepass would be incompatible with GOG´s motto. GOG has always been about options. Users who purchase games there have the option to use Galaxy or not, to download and install games through Galaxy or not. You have the option to play the games offline if you so prefer and store their installers offline (unlike every other site out there that uses clients).
A subscription means you´re renting not owning, so those games running only while you´re subscribed is not going against GOG´s idea of DRM-free if they´re just letting you try games before you buy, because if/when you buy them, then, you´ll have them DRM-free.
If the subscription is more like Humble Choice I don´t see the problem either as they´d be DRM-free and like someone said in another post, in the case you own some of the games, maybe they could offer a discount based on the games you already own or maybe not a discount but a gift link of those.
In any way I don´t see the problem as long as we have OPTIONS and the owned games (not rented through subcription) are still DRM-Free.

That's a really surprising move for GOG imo.
Of course I see the attraction: get people to pay for something they don't use most of the time. But it's really not like GOG's entire business model.

Kinda depends on what the subscription offers. I'm not really opposed to subs if they offer good value.