GOG declares ‘The future of preservation is decided by players who give a sh*t’ after New Blood CEO expresses concern for the storefront’s lifespan

The newly-independent classic game slingers at GOG would like you to know something: the whole business of keeping old games going only works if you give a damn about it, so please do so.

GOG was responding to comments made by New Blood CEO Dave Oshry, who told RPG Site that GOG’s up against the fact that it’s “still 1 to 5% of the sales on Steam… I love their preservation efforts and everything they’re trying to do, but they need enough people to give a shit, or how long are they even going to be around?”

While GOG didn’t quite strike the same tone—not only is it probably bad PR to suggest your storefront is inches from the woodchipper, but in my own chat with the new bosses, they suggested it had been doing pretty well of late—it did agree with Oshry’s overall point. “[Oshry’s] right about one thing: game preservation only works if people care,” wrote GOG on X.

That does not mean going about your day while sometimes ambiently remembering that Heroes of Might and Magic 3 was really good (though I think you should do that too), it means, well, giving GOG money, for one thing.

It also means showing rights-holders you care about forgotten series and trying, as much as you can, to buy things without DRM. “Buy DRM-free, vote on the Dreamlist, join GOG Patrons. If games matter to you, show it. And let’s prove together that preservation isn’t niche. It’s necessary.”

Which I suppose is true. I’ll be honest: though I like GOG as a storefront and agree with its quest to keep old games alive, my skin does always crawl a bit when profit-seeking entities adopt the stance of a moral crusade. It rings a little of the classic Stewart Lee “Values of the Carphone Warehouse” bit. But my cynicism aside: there are plenty of people at GOG who truly care about this stuff, and I would like them to keep having the opportunity to act on it.