GOOD OLD DAYS
When GOG managing director Piotr
Karwowski started working at CD
Projekt as a web designer 20 years
ago, they faced a serious problem:
game piracy in Poland was rife.
Piotr Karwowski: In the early 2000s,
before CD Projekt got into game
development, we were distributing
games in boxes. Piracy in Poland was a
big issue, but what were immensely
popular were rereleases of classics in a
mid-price format, where in one box you
could find Baldur’s Gate 1 and 2, Icewind
Dale and Planescape Torment all for
$15, packed with maps. It was all about
focusing on value to fight piracy, and
also making it hassle free, with no
activations so it worked out of the box.In the latter half of the decade, as
digital distribution rose, CD Projekt
founders Marcin Iwinski and Michał
Kicinski saw potential in using what
they’d learned in fighting piracy for
something new.
Piotr Karwowski: I learned of the idea
for GOG sometime in March 2007. I met
with Michał Kicinski and he said he had
this cool idea and asked if I could kick
start it somehow. The idea was on a
post-it note with just four points: ’two
price-points’, ’DRM-free’, ’simple user
experience’, ‘classics’. There was no
grand scheme for how we’d do it. I felt a
bit scared. I had no idea how we’d do it.it.’ Others asked us how we’d make the
games work, because they didn’t have
masters for them. They were worried
that it’d take lots of their time, but it
wasn’t the case.
We did everything
ourselves, and we
had a motto: ‘The
only thing you
need to do is write
your signature and
then send us
invoices.’Persuading other companies wasn’t
the extent of GOG’s early challenges.
Another was how to build a platform
that would look nice, work smoothly,“INITIALLYTHEY JUST
DIDN’TUNDERSTAND
WHATWEWANTED
TODO”PiotrKarwowski
ManagingDirectorOlegKlapovsky
SeniorVP,BizDevand
OperationsMartaAdamska
HeadofBizDevMarcin Paczynski
Head of ProductGOG
One of GOG’s first challenges was
convincing publishers and developers
that the project would work. Oleg
Klapovsky is GOG’s senior vice
president of
bizdev and
operations, and
was the first
person to reach
out to potential
partners.
Oleg Klapovsky:
The reaction was
always different.
Initially they just didn’t understand what
we wanted to do. Then some publishers
looked at us and said, ‘Hey, you guys are
crazy. You won’t make any money out of10 Years of GOG
FEATURE