Launch of Good Old Games During communist government rule of Poland (the
Polish People's Republic), copyright laws went largely unenforced, and copyright infringement was rampant across electronic media. Following the change of government, consumer perception of copyright in Poland remained largely the same, making it difficult for legitimate sellers of electronic media;
pirated and bootlegged versions were often sold in open markets right next to boxed copies of legitimate items, but for a fraction of the cost. CD Projekt was founded by Marcin Iwiński and Michał Kiciński in 1994 for the purpose of trying to bring legitimate sales of foreign game titles into Poland, knowing they would have no easy way to compete against
pirated copies. They would obtain import rights from foreign publishers, and where possible, provide in-game localization for text and voice lines, typically through
reverse engineering to
decompile the game's code. They would then package the game with localized instruction manuals and other physical goodies, hoping that the added features would draw buyers away from pirated copies. Their first major success was with ''
Baldur's Gate'' (1998) with which they had 18,000 units sold on its first day of release in Poland. Their first challenge was to find a publisher that would be willing to work with them. They spoke to several who were generally unaware of CD Projekt. Their first big break was from
Interplay Entertainment, who knew of the company's past work, and allowed them to offer their games on the service. A spokesman for Good Old Games reiterated that the site was not being shut down, and confirmed news would be forthcoming about changes to the service. A clarification posted on the site on 20 September 2010 said they had to shut down the site temporarily "due to business and technical reasons", with industry journalists believing the shutdown may be related to the nature of
DRM-free strategy, based on Twitter messages from the company. On 22 September 2010, GOG.com revealed that this shutdown was a marketing hoax as part of the site coming out of beta. The site's management, aware of the reactions to the fake closure, stated: "First of all we'd like to apologize to everyone who felt deceived or harmed in any way by the closedown of GOG.com. As a small company we don't have a huge marketing budget and this is why we could not miss a chance to generate some buzz around an event as big as launching a brand new version of our website and even more important, bringing back ''Baldur's Gate'' to life!" During the presentation, GOG.com's co-founder Marcin Iwiński and managing director Guillaume Rambourg had dressed as
monks to atone for their sins. The relaunch of the site was considered by Rambourg to have been successful, having brought new customers that were previously unaware of GOG.com. As promised after its relaunch, GOG.com was able to offer several
Black Isle Studios games such as ''
Baldur's Gate, Planescape: Torment and Icewind Dale which have previously been unreleased through any download service due to legal issues about the ownership of Dungeons & Dragons''-related games between
Atari,
Hasbro, and other companies. On 27 March 2012, Good Old Games announced that it was branching out to feature "
AAA" and
independent titles in addition to older games. The site was rebranded to GOG.com.
OS X and Linux support In October 2012, GOG.com announced support for
OS X. They included the previously Steam exclusive (OS X version)
The Witcher and
The Witcher 2, both made by CD Projekt Red. GOG.com gathered user feedback in a community wishlist, and one of the most demanded feature requests was support for native Linux games, which gathered close to 15,000 votes before it was marked as "in progress". Originally GOG.com representatives said, that there are technical and operational issues which make it harder than it seems, however it's something they would love to do, and they have been considering. On 18 March 2014, GOG.com officially announced that they would be adding support for Linux, initially targeting
Ubuntu and
Linux Mint in the fall of 2014. On 25 July 2014, Linux support was released early, and 50 games were released compatible with the operating system.
Expansion to DRM-free video On 27 August 2014 GOG.com announced the launch of the new addition to their service – distribution of DRM-free films. GOG.com offers DRM-free downloading in
mp4 format and streaming of video in standard and DRM-free HTML fashion which doesn't bind users to any specific platforms or devices. Movies are made available in Full HD 1080p, 720p and 576p for limited bandwidth or download quotas; however, a few titles do not have the Full HD 1080p format available. GOG.com started by adding 21 documentaries about Internet culture and gaming. They also have plans for adding fiction films and series; according to GOG.com's managing director Guillaume Rambourg, they were in talks with many major studios. While studios' representatives liked the idea, they also were reluctant to let go of their current DRM approach until some other major studio would make the first step. Still GOG.com plan to work on overcoming the initial reluctance and moving DRM-free video forward.
Policies On 9 December 2013, GOG.com introduced a
money-back guarantee for the first 30 days if customers face unresolvable technical problems with a bought game. On 26 February 2020, GOG extended this policy to offer a full refund up to 30 days after purchasing a product, even if it was downloaded, launched, and played. Beginning 2 April 2015, GOG.com began to offer DRM-free downloads to holders of game keys from boxed copies of select games whose DRM validation systems no longer operate; examples are the
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series and the
Master of Orion series. Over $1,700,000 of retail game purchases had been redeemed through this system by November 2017.
FCK DRM Initiative In August 2018, GOG created an anti-
digital rights management program called "FCK DRM". The homepage of the initiative offers links to the websites of
Defective by Design, the
EFF,
Bandcamp,
itch.io,
Wikisource,
Project Gutenberg and other projects that promote
free culture.
Layoffs and end of the Fair Price Package In February 2019, GOG announced layoffs and the end of its Fair Price Package program. When a game was purchased in a region with higher prices than most others, this program would provide the purchaser with store credit equal to the difference in price. Some insider sources in GOG told
Kotaku that GOG was "dangerously close to being in the red" and that the market's move toward higher developer revenue shares would affect the company's profitability.
Partnerships with cloud streaming services On 19 November 2020, Nvidia and GOG announced a collaboration that allows GOG.com users to launch
Cyberpunk 2077 through the cloud gaming service
GeForce Now. Both companies announced they also expect to support
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt in the future and that they "have more news coming soon". On 18 March 2024, GOG announced a partnership with Amazon to integrate their large library of games directly into the cloud gaming service,
Amazon Luna. Then on 19 June, the first wave of GOG games were integrated into the streaming platform, including
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided,
Stardew Valley, and
Hollow Knight, with more games to come later on. According to GOG, users will need an active
Prime or Luna+ subscription to access their library through the service, but will not need to repurchase their games through Luna to play them. Additionally, supported games purchased through Luna will be automatically added to the user's GOG library.
GOG Preservation Program On 13 November 2024, GOG launched the GOG Preservation Program, an initiative aimed at ensuring the continued availability and compatibility of classic video games on modern and future systems. The program, introduced to coincide with GOG's 16th anniversary, initially launched with over 100 titles. The GOG Preservation Program formalizes GOG's past efforts to restore and update classic games. In previous years, the company had already worked on several titles (such as
Alpha Protocol,
Wing Commander III: Heart of the Tiger and the original
Resident Evil trilogy),
addressing various technical issues with the PC releases. Soon after the launch of the Preservation Program, Blizzard requested the removal of Warcraft 1+2, two games listed under the preservation program. This decision resulted in user backlash targeted at Blizzard from GOG customers, generally believing the decision went against the goals of the Preservation Program. GOG announced a partnership with the European Federation of Video Game Archives, Museums, and Preservation in January 2025 to support its ongoing preservation efforts. GOG also unveiled the "Dreamlist" feature the same month, which allowed players to raise awareness by prompting publishers and rights owners to release their classic games into the GOG storefront.
Anti-censorship initiatives In August 2025 GOG launched the Freedom To Buy initiative in response to
Steam and
itch.io removing games from their platforms due to pressure from payment processors
Visa and
Mastercard. In co-operation with other games publishers, a bundle of 13 games containing adult content was made available for free for 48 hours as a way of "taking a stand against the quiet erasure of creative works from digital shelves." Later the same year, GOG vocally supported Santa Ragione's horror game "
Horses" after
Valve refused to publish it on Steam without explanation, stating “We’ve always believed that players should be able to choose the experiences that speak to them." With Valve's decision leaving the studio at a "high risk" of closure, GOG featured it prominently on the website and announced that in order to “support the Santa Ragione studio in this difficult time, we’ve decided to launch pre-orders on Horses".
Sale to original co-founder GOG.com was sold by CD Projekt to , one of the original founders of GOG, in December 2025. The sale allows GOG to remain independent of CD Projekt, though the studio will continue to support GOG for its games. With its independence, GOG intends to focus more on preservation of video games while maintaining its ongoing support for DRM-free games. == Approach ==