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General discussionIs GOG changing to be more like Steam?(137 posts)(137 posts)
(137 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted June 07, 2017
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eisberg77: They haven't gone back on their principles at all. because their principals have always been providing DRM free games, and that is what they are still doing with no indication of that ever changing.
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227: Just because DRM-free is the only principle left (and with a giant asterisk and "only applies to offline games; please don't pay attention to Gremlins, Inc in the corner over there" disclaimer written in small print) doesn't mean there weren't others in the past.

[url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110414150425/http://www.gog.com:80/en/about/]https://web.archive.org/web/20110414150425/http://www.gog.com:80/en/about/[/url]
Thanks for the link! eye opening to say the least..
Posted June 07, 2017
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227: [url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110414150425/http://www.gog.com:80/en/about/]https://web.archive.org/web/20110414150425/http://www.gog.com:80/en/about/[/url]
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zeogold: THIS is what it looked like? Holy moly, even the way they talk is mad different.
I can understand some of the viewpoints of the old-timers who say the place isn't what it used to be a lot better now.
It was better when everything was 15+ years old. I give them a pass on having The Witcher games because it's the same root company but all the other modern stuff distracts from what brought me to the site in the first place; old games I missed out on back in the day.
Posted June 07, 2017
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zeogold: THIS is what it looked like? Holy moly, even the way they talk is mad different.
I can understand some of the viewpoints of the old-timers who say the place isn't what it used to be a lot better now.
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MrPopo: It was better when everything was 15+ years old. I give them a pass on having The Witcher games because it's the same root company but all the other modern stuff distracts from what brought me to the site in the first place; old games I missed out on back in the day.
These new games will eventually be old games. If a developer is willing to sell their games DRM free with full installers on a digital sales platform, then it is great they can put it on GoG. Saying that GoG should have stayed with old games only is cutting the nose off to spite the face.

So right now it is far better than what it was when they began, because I prefer to have my games to be DRM free and have an option to download the full installer.
Posted June 07, 2017
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227: Just because DRM-free is the only principle left (and with a giant asterisk and "only applies to offline games; please don't pay attention to Gremlins, Inc in the corner over there" disclaimer written in small print) doesn't mean there weren't others in the past.

[url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110414150425/http://www.gog.com:80/en/about/]https://web.archive.org/web/20110414150425/http://www.gog.com:80/en/about/[/url]
Even earlier:
https://web.archive.org/web/20081001085111/http://www.gog.com/en/intro
Note that there was no mention of regional pricing at all at that point. That "original core principle" was a later addition. =)

Also, why would anyone "pay attention" to Gremlins, Inc.? The single player-only version bundled in with it can (only) be played fully offline; the only not-intrinsically-online features one would miss out on vs. the "main" version when doing so are the DLC -- which is kinda lame, but they're all apparently cosmetic (kinda lame themselves, in other words), so one wouldn't be missing out on much. (And one would still at least have the option to use the DLC, since the single player game comes with the online-enabled version.)
Complaining about this is ignoring the spirit of "DRM-free only" while focusing on the letter of the policy.
Posted June 07, 2017
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227: [url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110414150425/http://www.gog.com:80/en/about/]https://web.archive.org/web/20110414150425/http://www.gog.com:80/en/about/[/url]
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zeogold: THIS is what it looked like? Holy moly, even the way they talk is mad different.
I can understand some of the viewpoints of the old-timers who say the place isn't what it used to be a lot better now.
Exactly. Most of my early game purchases were games I already owned and one in particular - Space Rangers 2 - was a game I grabbed after having the boxed edition that had StarForce DRM on it, screwed one PC hard and I had to work hard to get rid of it.

It's this one right here:

3. You buy it, you keep it.

Don't let your DRMs turn into nightmares (clever, no?). You won't find any intrusive copy protection in our games; we hate draconian DRM schemes just as much as you do, so at GOG.com you don't just buy the game, you actually own it. Once you download a game, you can install it on any PC and re-download it whenever you want, as many times as you need, and you can play it without an internet connection.

Of course Gremlins Inc. has shown this is completely false now.

The anger is not having a client, it is changing client from Optional to Mandatory and the bait and switch of DRM-Free to full-on-DR. But they pulled back a bit on the complete DRM, but that is just for now, within two years GOG will be complete full-DRM.
Posted June 07, 2017
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HunchBluntley: Note that there was no mention of regional pricing at all at that point. That "original core principle" was a later addition. =)
Huh, didn't know that. I only linked to that particular capture because it was around the time I signed up and that's where my nostalgia lies. The watering down of the extras bothers me more than anything, anyway.

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HunchBluntley: Complaining about this is ignoring the spirit of "DRM-free only" while focusing on the letter of the policy.
Oh, absolutely, but I think there's something to be said about taking a hardline, letter-of-the-law stance on the issue. It's not like they're ever going to come out with a "good news: GOG now has DRM for your convenience" news post; the difference between the old days and now are little concessions that have built up into something much larger, and while Gremlins isn't something that personally affects me or is particularly insidious on its own, these small compromises haven't proven to be as harmless as they first appeared. Selling content that only works on the DRMed version of the game is pretty troubling in that sense because while it may only be meaningless DLC fluff in this case, who's to say that'll be true of every game?

This is admittedly a personal line in the sand that I don't expect everyone to share, but it's incredibly grating nonetheless.
Posted June 07, 2017
They are slowly becoming like STEAM in that they are nearly catching up with the games I own on STEAM. Hopefully someday pretty soon I can uninstall STEAM.
Posted June 07, 2017
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227: [...] The watering down of the extras bothers me more than anything, anyway.
Maybe the bulking up of the release calendar over the years means that some people who used to seek out and/or prepare extras got shunted to more crucial tasks, like testing.

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HunchBluntley: Complaining about this is ignoring the spirit of "DRM-free only" while focusing on the letter of the policy.
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227: Oh, absolutely, but I think there's something to be said about taking a hardline, letter-of-the-law stance on the issue. It's not like they're ever going to come out with a "good news: GOG now has DRM for your convenience" news post; the difference between the old days and now are little concessions that have built up into something much larger, and while Gremlins isn't something that personally affects me or is particularly insidious on its own, these small compromises haven't proven to be as harmless as they first appeared. Selling content that only works on the DRMed version of the game is pretty troubling in that sense because while it may only be meaningless DLC fluff in this case, who's to say that'll be true of every game?

This is admittedly a personal line in the sand that I don't expect everyone to share, but it's incredibly grating nonetheless.
I'd say the compromise, if anything, is that GOG bothered to offer the fluff DLC here at all. (They almost certainly wouldn't have just a few years ago.) They very specifically did not bring Gremlins, Inc. here until there was an offline single-player build available. There is really no difference between this title and the numerous previous ones that require registration with a third-party service for multiplayer. GOG has carried games with that kind of "DRM" for several years.
Post edited June 07, 2017 by HunchBluntley
Posted June 07, 2017
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eisberg77: Other than the regional price, in which they give in store credit to cover the difference, nothing else has changed. And they were stuck between 2 principles that could not co -exist. Staying in business and giving in store credit was the better option to go.
I don't really mean in terms of principles, I mean in terms of the feel of the thing.
I can see now how people got the whole feel of "GOG is a friend" or whatever. It looks way more...human, for lack of a better word. Maybe the people at GOG were just different back then, maybe it was never true, who knows. But I can definitely understand how the feeling came about.
Posted June 07, 2017
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mechmouse: If a game lacks LAN play, its not GoG's fault for giving the developers the tools for Hosted services, its the developers Fault for not including LAN.
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Pheace: This I *absolutely* disagree with.

If GOG's going to be offering developers convenient 'pre-made' multiplayer matchmaking to developers I *am* going to fault GOG for not including a convenient LAN/Direct connect option because the likelyhood of a developer putting extra Dev effort into multiplayer after picking up a pre-made matchmaking system is extremely low, and you're not going to tell me GOG isn't aware of that.

It's obviously not *entirely* their fault, since the dev opts to use it, but GOG is certainly making it easier to ignore for them by offering what they have.
But GoG are not giving them the Multiplayer code for the game logic on the developers servers, all they're doing is offering a managed gateway.

Any code for LAN connectivity would be no more simple or enhanced than the current code offered by development tools.

Its still requires the developers to put multiplayer server code into the client for LAN game to work.
Posted June 07, 2017
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HypersomniacLive: What I meant is that it's not that they schedule announcements of controversial decisions around planned releases of games in high demand, and not the other way around. The goal and purpose is the same in terms of end result, of course.
I know what you mean, but what I meant was the goal and the purpose itself. In a comment before yours I had already specified that GOG can make an announcement at any time but that's not what my post was about.
It was supposed to be about them ensuring that such an announcement is followed by games high in demand. This is of course easy to do by deciding when to make an announcement based on the release schedule. Since my point was supposed to be about the goal and purpose, it confused me how your point was mine in reverse.
However, sure I failed to make my point understandable.
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HypersomniacLive: Regarding your question, I have to give it a bit of thought, and do some digging in order to recall specific examples and be accurate. I'll keep your post link, and get back to you on this.
Thank you. Since I haven't been here as long as many regular users, I sometimes read about GOG's past decisions and don't really know anything about the context. This is especially interesting to hear about because it is relevant right now. :)
Post edited June 07, 2017 by 0Grapher
Posted June 07, 2017
If I hadn't heard of GOG (by accident!) my interest in PC gaming (after over a decade of working on console games) would not exist.
Business has to evolve - they made mostly the right choices along the way and fingers crossed they would get more and more AAA releases at the time same time or shortly after the Steam availability.
I think it's quite an achievement.
Posted June 07, 2017
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227: Just because DRM-free is the only principle left (and with a giant asterisk and "only applies to offline games; please don't pay attention to Gremlins, Inc in the corner over there" disclaimer written in small print)
This asterisk is nothing new, the whole, "DRM-free only applies to single player part of games, no guarantee for the MP part" was there since the very beginning of Gog.
Posted June 07, 2017
I think GOG try to be competitive for this era.

GOG is fair to me. But before i start buying anything from GOG, i always do some base research of the game and I think twice before i buy something.

STEAM is STEAM and nothing else. I am not fan of STEAM but i have few STEAM games. This year i have played only one STEAM game and it is Europa Universalis IV.

My friend is STEAM lover because he plays some multiplayer games with buddies of him. Me and my friend have had different game taste and i like to play more single player games.
Post edited June 07, 2017 by shadow1980jpv
Posted June 07, 2017
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eisberg77: yes, I forgot about the regional pricing. So you would rather miss out on all kinds of DRM frre games that you get an installer for, perhaps GoG eventually have to shut down because they couldn't get more games in their catalog to keep their business going and profitable, just so you can keep a regional pricing (which by the way they make up for it by giving you store credits)?
The regional pricing is being forced on them, and if they want to stay in business it is what they have to do.

So it was either you only see a very small catalog of games, GoG does not make a profit, they go out of buisness and you lose access to your games and just hope that none of your back ups go kaput for some reason

or

They do what they have to do to stay in business, do the regional pricing in order to gain more titles in their catalog, and thus making sure you have continued access for your games through their service.

Which would you prefer.

Cause them going out of business would also be going against their principles in providing an everlasting service for their customers.

So what are they supposed to do when they are forced to choose between 2 of their principles and neither can co-exist?
Note that this whole argument can also apply to a mandatory client and DRM.

i.e. 'They do what they have to do to stay in business'. And what happens when that means they have to make Galaxy mandatory or else no publishers will play nice in the sandbox, so no new titles for their catalog?

Won't/can't happen? Well, what many people are pointing out is the 'feature creep' has been happening for a long time. To mix metaphors, GOG is slowly turning up the heat on that pot of water and some of the frogs are getting uncomfortably hot.
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This is my favourite topic
Community
General discussionIs GOG changing to be more like Steam?(137 posts)(137 posts)
(137 posts)