In Sweden right now there is a big debate about the Ipred 1 directive from European Union which is to be implemented 1st of April.
A lot of media people and politicians is telling us the internet users that the "copyright" must be preserved and strengthen. (The Ipred1 directive lets the mediarightholders get a users name from the isp from an ip and then can sue them in civil court as they do in Denmark for example)
So I just wonder, how is GOG.com going. The word from gamecompanies, movie and music producers tell us that they need to protect the content to get people to pay. My believe is that if you make a good service as GOG.com really is, without restrictions, drm and other bad stupid things people will pay.
Thought?
(I would love some stats from the GOG folks... )

a lotta people asked, I things must be doing rather well, because they never reply. Replying could put them into a position that's undesireable for gaining new IP to sell, so I doubt we'll ever see stats from the GOG.com team. but I imagine they're doing well because if they were doing poorly, at this stage in the beta they'd probably call it quits. They've gotta stay in beta for 2 years, and they haven't even hit the one year mark. It might be best to ask them specifically using a support email, or by giving a phone call to their headquarters. But anyway, they probably will not respond to this post directly, with the requested information (like exact stats or figures). If there is a response it'll probably be something along the lines of "We're doing well."
see here for previous posts:
http://www.gog.com/en/forum/general/gog_stats/23

I think since it is privately owned it is unlikely we will see any figures on how well it is doing. If it becomes a publicly traded company it will then be a matter of record.
But to be honest, I hope that day never comes or it may go the way of EA *shudders*
:oP

Well, going public and issuing shares is definitely a good way of raising funds when it's time to start expanding. I'd certainly steer my superiors in their direction to give the company a good, long look if they ever went public. This is exactly the kind of company our firm covers.

CD Projekt will debut on the Warsaw Stock Exchange in 2009. Information from one of the press conferences.

Since you have to buy a game in order to give it a "star rating," you can get an idea of how many sales GOG is making by looking at how many people rated a game. For example, Fallout 1 & 2 each have over 2000 ratings.
Not everyone will rate a game however, (I have Fallout 1 and haven't made a rating), so you can estimate that the numbers could possibly be quite a bit higher.
As far as going public is concerned, if you're doing fine without having to do so, it's better to keep a company private. That way you don't have anyone to answer to, (except your customers), or have any risks of hostile takeovers, firings, etc, happening. Why ruin a good thing if you don't have to? ;)

Moneymoneymoney.
Just look at the way Google's IPO skyrocketed when it went to market. It's not likely it could have financed some of the more megalomaniac projects it has rolled out with private financing.

Well, Google is an entirely different business model. With no product to sell, they had to get money from somewhere. How else could they afford to feed their thousands of employees 3 free gourmet meals every day? (Until the advertising cash came in, anyway.) ;)
That said, Google is a very rare exception to the rule. There are thousands of companies that go public that could only dream of turning into the success that Google has become. Many in fact, go out of business even after getting millions in financing ... remember Pets.com and the amount of money they burned through? The only cool thing that came out of that was the sock puppet. (I've got one that talks.) And they're only one example.

Have you had any problems with piracy? As I see it there is no need for piracy a gog due to the fact that it's cheap, available and easy.
So, the point with my first question is I really would like some good examples of how to do business in the "new digital world". Politicians all over Europe is screaming about hunting and punishing illegal file sharers when I think the problem is the business models used by music and movie companies.
(I don't want to start a flamewar about illegal file sharing, I'm just interested in the new type of businesses gog is doing. How can company sell "old outdated crap" without protection and make a profit?)

Well, if you go to The Pirate Bay (one of the most (in)famous torrent sites), and search for GOG.com, do you know how many hits you get? None. I'd say that's a hopeful sign.

I am not an expert (seeing as how I'm not the one who running a website like this), but... Luckily, older games, although theoretically prime targets for being stolen due to obsolete protection, are generally harder to steal because there's not enough interest in seeding them. Pirate sites are businesses too (making millions from ads, with the traffic they get), so they're also less likely to host older games for that reason too.
The vast majority of piracy occurs in the initial sales period when interest is highest, according to countless articles. Older games are well past that point.
I'm very pleased that GoG installers are not rampaging through the wild. That's exactly what none of us need right now.
I have a question... why on earth did this post get a -1?

newage pirates are looking only for "spectacular" and "HW Killing" games, just to tell friends "look n00b I hav GTA 4 zooned than ya" downloading those old miracles can destroy their line and running, or worse looking on those games can kill them. People who like those games are older and have little more moral inteligence than those little -censored- and know that sharing this could damage GOG, and we don't want to, do we?

Well, I actually did exactly that before I wrote that comment, which made me think my theory seems to be more or less accurate. If there is a simple, good and cheap service there is no need for piracy. A little like the long tail theory. Sell more cheaper.
As a fan of old games I unfortunately have to turn to dark sides of internet to get hold of old C64, Amiga and Arcade games. But on the other hand those cant be bought as easy as here on gog.