Posted July 24, 2019
high rated
I just filed a bug about the Steam integration (https://mantis2.gog.com/view.php?id=4385) and it was closed with this note:
"Thanks for feedback. The integrations for platforms other than GOG.COM and Xbox Live, are created by the community not by us. We can reach out to the developers of those integrations and suggest them some changes, but we won’t be able to make those changes ourselves."
I have to say this gives me a very bad feeling about Galaxy being the "platform of platforms". The Galaxy 2.0 website sells this as "All your games and friends in one place," saying "Install and launch any PC game you own, no matter the platform."
OK, but right now, there is only one official integration (Xbox). All of the other integrations, including Steam, by far the biggest PC gaming platform, are "community integrations". Which is fine if GOG wants to outsource help to the open source community. But these integrations are your product's #1 selling point, not a random plugin or mod. Every bullet point on the Galaxy 2.0 website relies on these integrations working properly.
GOG needs to take responsibility for fixing issues with the community integrations. You either need to commit to working with the open source developers who are maintaining these integrations and fixing issues, or fork the integrations and make them "official", or build new "official" integrations for the major platforms. Otherwise, Galaxy 2.0 is just a place to collect your GOG and Xbox games, plus maybe some other platforms (* But use at your own risk, and no guarantees that it'll work or continue to work), and that's much less exciting than what we've been promised.
(Maybe GOG is planning to build an official Steam integration before the official launch of Galaxy 2.0, who knows. I think it would be really unwise to launch this product without some better guarantee that it integrates with Steam other than "I dunno, we're not responsible for it.")
"Thanks for feedback. The integrations for platforms other than GOG.COM and Xbox Live, are created by the community not by us. We can reach out to the developers of those integrations and suggest them some changes, but we won’t be able to make those changes ourselves."
I have to say this gives me a very bad feeling about Galaxy being the "platform of platforms". The Galaxy 2.0 website sells this as "All your games and friends in one place," saying "Install and launch any PC game you own, no matter the platform."
OK, but right now, there is only one official integration (Xbox). All of the other integrations, including Steam, by far the biggest PC gaming platform, are "community integrations". Which is fine if GOG wants to outsource help to the open source community. But these integrations are your product's #1 selling point, not a random plugin or mod. Every bullet point on the Galaxy 2.0 website relies on these integrations working properly.
GOG needs to take responsibility for fixing issues with the community integrations. You either need to commit to working with the open source developers who are maintaining these integrations and fixing issues, or fork the integrations and make them "official", or build new "official" integrations for the major platforms. Otherwise, Galaxy 2.0 is just a place to collect your GOG and Xbox games, plus maybe some other platforms (* But use at your own risk, and no guarantees that it'll work or continue to work), and that's much less exciting than what we've been promised.
(Maybe GOG is planning to build an official Steam integration before the official launch of Galaxy 2.0, who knows. I think it would be really unwise to launch this product without some better guarantee that it integrates with Steam other than "I dunno, we're not responsible for it.")