Charmer Developer CD Projekt has confirmed that it has sold PC gaming marketplace GOG back to co-founder Michal Kicinski, parting ways with the DRM-free store. Since 2008, when the store was first established by a Polish game developer, the marketplace has become a popular place for gamers to pick up DRM-free versions of a number of popular games. GOG has continued to grow in the nearly two decades since its inception, hosting popular games such as Baldur's Gate 3, Tomb Raider titles and many more, without any DRM restrictions.
GOG's recent efforts have placed a strong emphasis on game preservation, with the company making strides towards maintaining older games. GOG launched the GOG Preservation Program in late 2024 as a new initiative to restore older games and make them available to play on modern hardware. The GOG Preservation Program has its hands in a plethora of re-releases of popular older video games, including the original trilogy Resident Evil games and Alpha protocolalong with a number of other titles. Now, CD Projekt is officially parting ways with GOG, selling the platform to one of the people who helped found the marketplace.
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CD Projekt is selling GOG back to its original co-founder
CD Projekt has officially confirmed that it has sold GOG back to original co-founder Michal Kicinski for approximately $25.2 million USD. In its official press release, CD Projekt cited its desire to refocus the company's efforts on video game development, devoting its “full attention to creating high-quality RPGs”. GOG will continue to operate independently under Kicinski after the sale, with a deal already in place with the Polish developer to market future CD Projekt games. In his official statement, Kicinski praised CD Projekt and GOG co-founder Marcin Iwinski, feeling that both parties share GOG's vision that games truly “belong” to the players who buy them.
CD Projekt CEO Michael Nowakowski had similarly high praise for the GOG co-founder in his statement. Nowakowski thanked the GOG staff for their “years of collaboration” with CD Projekt to manage the platform in conjunction with the Polish studio. Nowakowski also highlighted the change in hands as a “goodbye” for fans and reaffirmed CD Projekt's intention to bring all of its new games to GOG, including those in development. The Witcher 4 and Cyberpunk 2. GOG management also assured fans that the change in hands is not due to financial difficulties, with the platform seeing an “encouraging year” in 2025.
CD Projekt is preparing big game projects
The sale of GOG will allow CD Projekt to devote all of the studio's efforts to its exciting new projects. The developer gave fans a first look The Witcher 4 with a cinematic trailer at the Game Awards 2024, with the franchise shifting its focus to Ciri, Geralt's adopted daughter. CD Projekt requested a greater focus on narrative selection in the next installment Charmer a game that is supposed to be the first entry in a new trilogy of games centered around Ciri. CD Projekt is also working on a new multiplayer game set in space Charmerit is said to be a multiplayer game.
CD Projekt's most iconic franchise has expanded far beyond its novel roots in recent years. Success CharmerThe novels and video games spawned a popular live-action series on Netflix, p CharmerThe fourth season will premiere in October 2025. The franchise has also received a slew of spinoffs, receiving everything from a board game and tabletop RPG to a standalone video game based on Witcher's Gwent card game. CD Projekt also revealed a remake of the original Charmer a game to be developed by Polish game studio Fool's Theory. CD Projekt moving from GOG will allow the company to redouble efforts on its games while giving the marketplace back to one of its original founders.
Source: GOG, IGN
