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CD PROJEKT and GOG co-founder Michał Kiciński acquires GOG from CD PROJEKT (www.gamingonlinux.com)
submitted 10 months ago by [B] to c/gaming@lemmy.zip
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[–] 9 points 10 months ago

So confused if this is a good thing, they seem to paint It as one, I'll need to look into Michal.

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    [–] 5 points 10 months ago

    Makes a lot of sense. GOG would have been an easy thing to sell off if financials weren’t going well. This way, GOG can be protected (100% owned by the founder with no shareholders) should the worst happen.

    Hopefully this could mean GOG has a daring plan ahead (I’ve long thought they might take a gamble on a Linux client that packages Proton/DOSbox like Steam.

    Here’s hoping GOG continues on strong into the new year and beyond!

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    11 comments in c/pcgaming@lemmy.ca view that post
    [–] 26 points 10 months ago

    Well... This makes the tip jar less shitty?

    I dunno. Considering the past few earnings reports were REALLY bleak, this reeks of do or die for the brand. And I've seen these kinds of situations play out as demonstrating value to sell to a new owner too many times.

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    [–] 14 points 10 months ago (5 children)

    Can someone who's more well versed in business explain what this means? From my understanding, nothing really changes as the owners of both GOG and CD Projekt is the same dude. But I'm sure there must be a reason why this was done.

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  • [–] 28 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 child)

    Michał Kiciński is not the owner of CD Projekt. He was a co-founder, but left the company in 2010, though he still owns shares in it.

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  • [–] 5 points 10 months ago

    Ah, okay now this makes more sense. I misread and thought he was the owner of CD Projekt, and he got his own company to sell GOG to himself. Thanks for the clarification!

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  • [–] 12 points 10 months ago (2 children)

    I'm not an expert by any means and find this a little confusing too. The three possibilities seem like:

    1. The business needed a cash influx and because CD Projekt and Michał Kiciński still seem to believe in GOG's mission, "purchasing it" was a way of injecting money while setting a ceiling on risk for CD Projekt versus simply keeping it on the balance sheet and spending more on it.

    2. They truly think that separate businesses will operate more efficiently and that the missions weren't aligned enough to be in the same org structure. This seems possible but no way to really know.

    3. They want to make GOG more appealing to developers who may not trust it if it's tied so closely to CD Projekt. This seems unlikely, since Epic, Valve, etc all have self-published games by the platform owners on their storefronts.

    Or some combination of the three... The timing seems to be to do it by end of calendar year to make a clean break on the books, at least.

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  • [–] 3 points 10 months ago

    Could also be a case of Michał Kiciński truly believing in the mission statement of GOG and wanting to free the organisation of any shareholders to be beholden to so that GOG can operate at near-breakeven if need be instead of having to maximise profits to please shareholders.

    This is of course giving him a massive benefit of the doubt, but I guess I still have a sliver of hope for humanity somewhere in my rotten applecore of a heart.

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    • [–] 5 points 10 months ago

    Does this mean gog is under a private business now?

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    [–] 3 points 10 months ago (2 children)

    Whoa, this sounds like drama. Though over what, I don't know. I didn't know CDPR's co-founder left awhile ago.

    What's going on there at CDPR, and why would GoG want to get out from under them?

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  • [–] 5 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    Different businesses with different goals, no drama

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  • [–] 7 points 10 months ago

    That's what I feel; CD Projekt is a bigger studio with more demands on it now than they were a decade ago, and GoG has grown and has different needs. Splitting them up and allowing them to operate independently is likely the best way forward for both of them.

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    • 5 comments in c/news@lemmy.linuxuserspace.show view that post
    [–] 5 points 10 months ago* (1 child)

    Making it independent from CD Projekt is probably a good thing for conflict of interests, but this seems like it will ultimately change very little as it's moving from ownership by CD Projekt (and a small group of CD Project co-founders) to 'independence' from CD Projekt and ownership by a single CD Projekt/GOG co-founder - who remains the second-largest share owner of CD Project.

    It only cost him ~$23mil USD BTW, which sounds like a bargain to me, considering CD Projekt Red (while owning GOG) was mostly recently valued around $10bil US between market cap and assets, and GOG's slow-but-consistent increase in popularity..

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    • [–] 2 points 10 months ago* (2 children)

    How did cd projekt acquire gog from cd projekt?

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