Weekend Gamer: GOG and LEO

 

Some Weekend Gamer news, as we close out the 2025 year. In November, Amazon’s Prime Gaming changed its name to Amazon Luna. Luna is Amazon’s cloud gaming service, which started in 2020 and is largely ignored by many gamers, including myself. I personally don’t use cloud (or stream) games, due to my unreliable internet connection.

If you are a Prime member, you can still redeem video games for free. I have personally collected a ton of free games, even though I sometime already own them. What is even cooler is that, starting in Summer 2024, they also partnered with GOG and Epic Games.

The free Epic Games are rarer, but this month we got Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, Dreamscaper, Gas Station Simulator, and New Tales from the Borderlands. Basically, four games a month (one free game a week). That’s better than nothing.

As for GOG, I’m always happy to see those free games, even though I own many of them already, including the Fallout series and Forgotten Realms (Dungeons & Dragons). I can’t believe I already paid for them when they were on sale. I should have waited!

I am a big fan of GOG, as I have previously went on record to say that it is likely be my #1 PC gaming solution now. It is because the company doesn’t employ any DRM on their games. I believe in GOG and what they stand for.

GOG was created by CD Projekt RED, mostly to sell their games (Witcher) directly to their fans. They also carry other old, or rather “good old games”, and their mission is to keep classic games alive. Making sure old games works on modern computers, etc.

Recently, in a press release (2025-12-29), GOG announced new ownership of Michał Kiciński, who now owns 100% of GOG.

The press release mentioned that he paid PLN 90.7 million, which is $25M USD. I don’t know if GOG was in operation trouble, because I noticed that they recently opened up a Patron to ask fans to help support them to restore or renew game licenses. I do know that GOG is nowhere near as big as Steam, which is massive in the PC space. If you own a PC and play games, you have Steam.

Epic Games gives away free games, yet they are nowhere near Steam’s level. MicroSoft realized their mistake and is fighting back with their Xbox PC App, and, despite their “Play Anywhere” initiative, I honestly don’t know anyone who is supporting Xbox. Even I had to slow walk my support since they tried to raise their games to $80, raised console prices (twice), and a 50% hike to their Game Pass. Originally, I was on board to buy the Asus ROG Xbox, but when they revealed their price to be $1,000… I had to say ‘no thanks’, and slowly stopped buying Xbox games (I was buying them in anticipation to play on the ROG Xbox).

Steam is still king. They make so much money that their founder Gabe Newell owns a $500 million yacht and also owns the yacht company that makes that yacht. It’s probably cheaper to buy the company just to get replacement parts and services, I guess. Newell gets 30% of every game sold, so he’s rolling in cash… which brings me to the point that he wants to make a profit on the upcoming Steam Machine. Dude, you have $10 billion dollars, you can absorb some loss. Others have mentioned that the Steam Machine might cost as much as $900, which is ridiculous. I’ll keep an eye on the price, but I personally believe that the machine should only be price at $300 or less. If you can get it at that price, I guarantee you that you’ll beat PS5, Xbox, and Nintendo.

 

As you may or may not know, I currently do not have home internet, due to cancelling and unable to reactive (Straight Talk couldn’t do it due to incompetency) my Straight Talk Home Internet. The Straight Talk Internet service costed $45 a month for 100mbps, with an upfront cost of $100 for the modem. So, I have been looking around for a reliable home internet solution, preferably cheaper than $45 a month. At the moment, I’m using my phone’s internet (via hotspot), but it’s not always reliable (I’ll get disconnected if I’m connected for too long) … and when I’m away from the house, none of my “Internet of Things” (such as digital photo frames or internet security cameras) will work. Still, for being free unlimited internet (at the cost of my $25 phone bill), I can forgive Visible for an outstanding service, so far.

In early December, I just discovered Amazon Leo (which stands for “Low Earth Orbit”), the upcoming satellite internet service that will rival Starlink. I actually had no interests in Starlink, because of its high upfront cost ($350 to $600 for its modem). However, with its recent introduction of their $5 Standby service, which promises superslow unlimited internet access but is actually not advertised, I’m somewhat interested now.

Hopefully, Amazon Leo will be a better value … maybe partially subsidized by Amazon Prime or advertisements (which are found on their cheap Kindles). I believe if you must have an Amazon Prime to get cheap service with Leo, then they can boost their users by the millions (even for users who don’t care for the free two-day shipping or Amazon Prime Video).

Here are Starlink’s pricing to get an idea of what Leo may cost:

The Amazon Leo hardware will come in three configurations: Leo Nano (7×7” – 100 Mbps), Leo Pro (11×11” – 400 Mbps), and Leo Ultra (enterprise-grade antenna – 1 Gbps). Obviously for consumers, residential users, we only have two options – the Nano or the Pro. Based on pricing for the hardware, I am predicting about $150 to $300… that’s just my hopeful pricing. As for service, if I can get home service at 100mbps for less than $30, I definitely won’t mind paying the extra cost for the hardware… especially, if I can get constant, reliable, fast internet.

P.S. Since my phone internet disconnects at random sometime, playing online-only games like Path of Exile 2 or Fallout 76 are not possible because those games require constant connection.

Yours,