I derailed this thread pretty hard by hating on Connect. :P

Aaaaanyway...

Which game does this concern? Deadline?

Thanks for the kind words! And don't worry, abandoning the mix didn't even enter my head. I was just trying to put my snarky comments into perspective.

well. actually they get potential new users that empower their monopoly...

+ they have plenty of ways to monetise users inside their client - for example they have marketplace and get like 15% cut from transactions there aaand all operations are made in fake steam money ( you can put your real money inside the system, but you cant legally get it out of steam vallet so basically you paid them in the moment you transfer you money to steam vallet)

And they constantly seek new ways to monetise users - pad mods on the way!

That's a very good question. I don't know.

I've asked micktiegs_8

Edit:

This does indicate that the post was about “Breach & Clear“…

Btw. thanks for maintaining the list.

Got the answer. micktiegs_8 was talking about Deadline.

Into the mix it goes.

I'll try to explain, probably unsuccessfully.

Imagine that next week GOG launches a 90% off sale on 30 games, with a small twist. The sale is available only to people whose user name begins with A through Y. Would you make the same arguments as you do above? Or would you feel unfairly left out?

Now, this A-Y sale would be unfair towards an arbitrary sub-section of the GOG user base. GOG Connect is not arbitrary. The main people who are left out are:
- People with very large GOG libraries. The larger one's GOG library, the more likely he or she is to have nothing to import.
- People who are ardent DRM-free or anti-client advocates, and have therefore never opened a Steam account and continue to refuse to do so.
These are not arbitrarily-insignificant groups. These should have been seen by GOG as their core customer base, people who have invested a lot into GOG. But obviously they have no problem alienating some of this group.

I don't feel that GOG owes me anything, but I still maintain that ignoring the small group that will not take advantage of Connect is not a particularly clever move.

They don't get free games, they just get another copy of the same game in another service. A bit like if EA Origin let me activate some EA games I have on Steam (or GOG) on the Origin service. Whee, I guess, but it doesn't make me feel I am getting free new games. Also for the "Steam or nothing"-crowd this is not that exciting either, they only really care for their Steam copies of games.

If you feel "GOG Connect" games should be in the "second class" list, how about The Witcher 1-2? Should they belong to the list as well because CDPR let Steam users activate their Steam copies also on GOG?

I guess people who have rebought some of their Steam games on GOG (me included) might now feel dissatisfied, but in the end I don't see it differently than a game you bought for a full price being suddenly discounted heavily, or even offered as a freebie.

People got the Fallout games for free on GOG while I had paid good money for the GOG versions before (even though I also had retail versions too)? Oh well, that's life I guess.

But they actually are. GOG connect gives GOG new users and a shit ton of positive attention and good marketing. Alienating 5% of GOG users and like 1% of all gamers total for something like this is a no-brainer.

I don't know if you're sarcastic or not, but anyhow, my original suggestion was simply to complement the scheme with a small symbolic consolation prize for people who opted out of GOG Connect (GC). That way nobody gets alienated.

Why would I be sarcastic? Do you genuinely think those two groups are majority in any possible context? Your suggestion was nice but completely disconnected from reality as well. GOG would have no means to check if a user has never used Steam in any capacity whatsovever. Anyone could click that 'opt out' button without no actual evidence.

My suggestion for opt out was that by opting out the user will be prevented from using GOG Connect forever, even if he later created a Steam account or changed his mind. The operation would be permanent (like GOG Connect itself). No need to prove anything.

And, no, I too think that these two groups are a very small minority, which is why I think from an economic point of view the gesture would have negligible and therefore would make sense. Basically, cheap publicity.

Maybe. I guess they only focused on the big picture. GOG connect suddenly got them on the frontpage of every gaming news site.

On the primary subject of the thread, a case could be made that Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion (from Ironclad/Stardock) belongs on the list at the moment.

As background: Steam users on the Steam non-beta channel get v1.82. The version released to GOG was v1.83, and that version was available on Steam in the beta channel around the same time as the GOG release. All good so far. The problem is that in late February, in an attempt to fix certain bugs identified in v1.83, the developer released a second build, confusingly *also* branded as v1.83, to Steam beta users. To mitigate confusion, I refer to this newer version as v1.83b, although as far as I know it is not tagged that way anywhere in the game files. Steam users can now choose between the non-beta v1.82 (which GOG never had) and the beta v1.83b (which GOG has not yet posted). GOG users have only ever had access to v1.83.

With that background, the argument could be made that GOG users get suboptimal treatment since:
1) GOG users cannot cross-play with Steam users. This worked until the Steam beta channel switched to v1.83b. Now, the GOG build is too new to play with the Steam non-beta and too old to play with the Steam beta. This would be fixed if Steam allowed users to pick their beta build, or if the developer provided v1.83b to GOG.
2) GOG users cannot benefit from whatever bug fixes are present in v1.83b. This would only be fixed if the developer provided v1.83b to GOG.
3) This kind of version skew is reasonable for a short period while the respective publishing groups get the content uploaded, links updated, etc. However, Steam's v1.83b was posted February 24 and as far as I know, there is still no word when, or if, v1.83b will be provided to GOG.

There are reports that v1.83b has not been promoted from beta to a full release due to other bugs identified while testing it. I am unclear whether those bugs affect v1.83 (offered from GOG) or are newly introduced in v1.83b while trying to fix other problems. There is an active thread in the GOG Sins forum about the inability to cross-play, and some of the posters there are quite irate about it. Supposedly, dropping in the main executable from Steam's v1.83b (if you can get it) enables using all the other GOG content to cross-play with Steam users. Thus, if GOG had an optional download of the v1.83b executable, users willing to risk the (new?) bugs in v1.83b could get cross-play support. I have not seen word on whether GOG lacks v1.83b because GOG does not want to push more beta versions or because the developer has declined to provide the newer betas to GOG for distribution.

I don't see how your example is related. This feature isn't "leaving out" anybody, it's just another feature. It's available to everybody, and either you use it or you don't. I'd argue it's different if you were getting free games or something, but you're not. What you're getting is a copy of a game you already paid for, just in a different format.
You're not being unfairly left out just because you don't use it. In your example of the sale, considering that the staff allow changing usernames, it would be simple for me to just alter my username to one with a Y, or open up a new account altogether. Similarly here, if I want to get in on this Connect business so badly and I don't have a Steam account, I can just get one.