groze: Hate/complain about GOG threads are nothing new, and this looks and sounds in every way like one of those. Yes, GOG has made some questionable decisions in the past year and a half, or so, but the main experience is still largely the same. They may have shot themselves in the foot with the whole "ditching fair-pricing" affair, and, then, with removing most extras from their games and starting to have "deluxe edition upgrades" sold separately from the main base titles. Galaxy was rushed to meet up with Witcher 3's release, and that could definitely have been handled better; plus, though it *is* technically DRM-free and entirely optional, there are times in which I feel GOG is trying to make us use it. Personally, I have it installed but aside from trying it out because of the novelty, I still download and launch my GOG games the same way I always did, and everything works just as good as it always has. Galaxy seems more like a way for GOG to approach the Steam-heads that favour convenience and need a client to auto-update, download, launch and play their games. In time, as soon as Galaxy is full-fledged and gets out of beta, we'll see how successful they are at targeting that audience.

Now, Steam making this move is nothing that surprises me. Competition is always a good thing and Steam has been monopolizing the video game digital distribution market for way too much time already. GOG will not shake their hold on it, don't get me wrong, but it's good to see that they are being forced to become more customer-friendly because other stores offer better services and they can't afford losing their customers to a different digital outlet.

I don't know about any of you, but when I joined GOG it wasn't because of the extra goodies or the refund policy (it wasn't even a thing when I registered) or even the fair-price "core value" -- even though, to be completely honest, it was way cheaper for me, in Portugal, to buy games on GOG than on Steam, because of GOG's fair-price thing, back then --; what made me start using GOG was always the fact they advocate DRM-free gaming. And DRM-free is a big issue for me, as I worked for many years in a small publishing house that was 100% DRM-free and, albeit struggling at first, managed to make a difference and an actual dent in the book publishing system in this country. So, DRM is a very important issue to me and a lot of other people, and while GOG might seem to be ditching most of the things that made them "GoG" in the first place, as long as they remain DRM-free and have this great community and above-average tech support, they'll still be the best at what they do.

Speaking of support, I'm truly sorry if you had bad experiences with it, but trust me when I say most of the people who used it were largely pleased with it, myself included. With the changes in the website, the launch of Galaxy and of The Witcher 3, they're probably having a lot more trouble getting through all the support tickets, and that's only natural, since they're not that huge a team and they try and help each person individually, instead of just replying some basic pre-scripted standard response to everyone with the same kind of problem, like other stores tend to do, and even though they are under a lot of work right now, you can expect a response from them within a work week, which is more than we can say about Steam's own support.

Nothing wrong with not liking or not using GOG, or with not liking or not using Steam, uPlay, Origin, Desura, Humble Store or whatever. I think GOG is here to stay, their user base is growing by the day and despite the apparent backlash of the hideous pricing policy changes, the fact still remains that they managed to struck deals with publishers they wouldn't have been able to bring on board otherwise, and that ultimately means more variety -- and quality -- of games for all os us GOG customers. As for Galaxy, time will tell how it works out; as it stands now, it's pretty much an alpha build that has been called 'beta' for the release of CD Projekt Group's The Witcher 3, but if you think back, Steam's own client was broken until very recently (two or three years ago, maybe a bit more).

If you think DRM-free isn't enough to make GOG stand out from the rest, even if it is the "only thing setting them apart", right now, then feel free to move on to other store that suits your needs better. As for me and a whole lot of other people, DRM-free was always the main reason why we chose and stuck with GOG, and as long as they keep being DRM-free I'll keep buying my games through them.

N.B.: Do note that, this time around, it wasn't GOG letting go of a "core value/principle" or letting go of some policy; it was Steam themselves that finally gave in and adopted a consumer-friendly policy, something GOG has been doing for quite some time, now. So, I don't think GOG has to come up with anything to "fight this", they're already in the right track, so much so that they managed to get the behemoth that is Steam to consider and implement this refund policy.