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Tex Murphy has entered the building!

Tesla Effect: A Tex Murphy Adventure marks the triumphant return of everyone's favorite trenchcoat wearing, fedora bearing private detective, Tex Murphy! Thanks to the power of Kickstarter and legions of devoted fans, Tesla Effect: A Tex Murphy Adventure is available now--DRM-free on GOG.com--for $19.99! (We're so happy about this that some of us are squeeing like little girls!)

The year is 2050. The place: New San Francisco. Someone has made sure that our rough-around-the-edges hero has forgotten the events of the last seven years. What appears to be the world's worst hangover is just the beginning of Tex's troubles as he tries to recollect just what the hell happened. Stuck in a maze of unsolved murders and hidden agendas, Tex must solve the mystery of his own past and that of the lost technologies of Nikola Tesla. Can Tex regain his memory in time to restore what's been lost and stop a terrifying future?

If you have a hankering for old-fashioned FMV with a modern flavor, sleuthing while dropping some pithy one-liners, then look no further than Tesla Effect: A Tex Murphy Adventure available NOW on PC and Mac, DRM-free for $19.99 on GOG.com!

Important notice!
The Tex Murphy Video Contest is now CLOSED. We are drowning under a torrent of awesome entries and we will announce the winners soon!
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djdarko: On a side note, for this being a huge FMV game, I'm really surprised that they didn't include video content as a bonus, such as interviews and out-takes and things of video nature.
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FrasierWCrane: There will be a documentary for Kickstarter backers later on, I don't know if it will be available for others as well.
During there Twitch stream yesterday the also discussed that they maybe will release some of the outtakes but they don't know anything specific right now - they really concentrated on bringing the game out up to today, nothing else.
That's how it should be, bonus stuff should be a bonus, otherwise you end up with indigo prophecy
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Phasmid: Holy moly, 15 GB! That's near four times my download cap, and for an indie game.

No, it isn't, as a rather important step has been left out. You also have to run the game at least once with the client installed to finalise the installation, a step that is noted both in the preorder thread, in the DRM free games on steam thread as being essential in general; and indeed in this very thread. That, most definitely, is not the action of a mere download manager as some claim, and most definitively constitutes DRM. If you don't run it without the steam client that first time it will not work. Of course, for a GOG version or a DRM free disk version that step isn't necessary any more than installing extraneous software of any kind is, so it's by no means an inherent factor in installations in general- it's a deliberate behaviour.

Imagine, if you will, that instead of it being called the steam client it was called the securom or tages client and it required you to download via it and run the game at least once with it. Would such behaviour then be regarded as DRM free? Nope, the squeals of outrage would deafen half the planet. Sheesh, Securom launch control which literally checks only the install date, on install, vs release date is (rightly) considered DRM, and its behaviour is far more benign, DRM wise.

People like steam and don't want it to be drm because drm is bad while steam is good, so they'll do anything to avoid that logic disjunction.
Well said, +1.
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Phasmid: People like steam and don't want it to be drm because drm is bad while steam is good, so they'll do anything to avoid that logic disjunction.
To the point. +1
Post edited May 07, 2014 by Ichwillnichtmehr
Goddammit, I wanted to be positive about this release, it's probably a great and worthy Tex game, but why can't I get a GOG code? I backed the Kickstarter for fuck's sake, without my pledge and that of all the thousands of other backers this game wouldn't have even got made, and they cannot do the tiny thing of giving me a code on the distribution platform I prefer? You know, this is third Kickstarter I've backed so far (Volgarr the Viking and Consortium first) in which the game has released on GOG but they refuse to give me a key there, I am sensing a acute sense of betrayal. I'm pretty sure the reason Volgarr didn't give out GOG keys was some kind of last-minute dickery with a publisher they used to get on distribution platforms. Is that the case here too?
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Crosmando: Goddammit, I wanted to be positive about this release, it's probably a great and worthy Tex game, but why can't I get a GOG code? I backed the Kickstarter for fuck's sake, without my pledge and that of all the thousands of other backers this game wouldn't have even got made, and they cannot do the tiny thing of giving me a code on the distribution platform I prefer? You know, this is third Kickstarter I've backed so far (Volgarr the Viking and Consortium first) in which the game has released on GOG but they refuse to give me a key there, I am sensing a acute sense of betrayal. I'm pretty sure the reason Volgarr didn't give out GOG keys was some kind of last-minute dickery with a publisher they used to get on distribution platforms. Is that the case here too?
Do you guys supposed that perhaps GOG requires a higher percentage of sale than Steam? It's the only thing that would make sense to me.

edit: they both supposedly get 30%
Post edited May 07, 2014 by djdarko
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tfishell: Would the Steam version be easy to back-up? Drag and drop the files in the folder into an external hard drive?
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StingingVelvet: Yup.
Then I assume the vast majority of games are technically DRM-free on Steam? I wonder how GOG would be doing if "word got out" that Steam isn't technically DRM. (I tend to think it's the exclusives here that have helped GOG out the most.)

EDIT: Eh, might not be worth discussing. In any case, backers who want GOG codes might contact Big Finish.
Post edited May 07, 2014 by tfishell
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StingingVelvet: Yup.
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tfishell: Then I assume the vast majority of games are technically DRM-free on Steam? I wonder how GOG would be doing if "word got out" that Steam isn't technically DRM. (I tend to think it's the exclusives here that have helped GOG out the most.)

EDIT: Eh, might not be worth discussing. In any case, backers who want GOG codes might contact Big Finish.
No... that's not how the majority of the games are. Most of them call home at least once when first installed onto a new machine - and if no-ones home, they don't start.
Post edited May 07, 2014 by djdarko
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micktiegs_8: I'd love to buy you, Tex Murphy, but I'm just awful at adventure games like this. Hell I can't even get past half an hour of Downfall before I'm stuck. Maybe it's all that exposure to terrible mainstream fps games that has killed some important thinky things in my head.
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lebowitz: All the Tex Murphy games (the FMV ones, at least) have a hint system. If you get stuck, you can easily get help getting pointed in the right direction. This was especially useful in the days before the internet and gamefaqs.
Nah, that would just ruin the experience. I'm not one to use help from these kinds of things, or even the internet.
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tfishell: EDIT: Eh, might not be worth discussing. In any case, backers who want GOG codes might contact Big Finish.
Tried that. I emailed BF telling them what I thought about being sent a Steam key. The reply I got was "I'm sorry you feel like that" and was told again that the download was DRM free and I could ditch the Steam client if I didn't want it. Nowhere in that 3 line reply was there a mention of a GOG code being supplied to backers.
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cyboff: and as usual - for those who pre-ordered it here and see game shelf with no installer in it - refresh your account by clicking here: https://secure.gog.com/account/refresh
Thanks for the link! I was about to send a complaint to GOG.com because the game hadn't shown up in my account. Now i can look forward to start playing the game after work.
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Phasmid: People like steam and don't want it to be drm because drm is bad while steam is good, so they'll do anything to avoid that logic disjunction.
I dislike Steam and hate DRM, yet I am somehow still capable of understanding that DRM free on Steam exists. Funny, that.
I would like some clarification from GOG team whether a publisher/developer can get free keys of their game like they can on Steam.

I strongly suspect that this is not the case and that the publisher/developer has to cough up the 30% (or a smaller fee) for each key they need. This would explain why so many projects are reluctant to distribute GOG keys.

I can understand GOGs position if this is the case, after all in the case of Tesla Effect they would have to foot the whopping bill of the bandwidth cost of 15GB times number of backers times number of downloads for each backer.

But it has to be said that GOG lowers their attractiveness as a storefront for both publishers/developers and gamers/customers at least compared to Steam. Of course I understand that Steams practice of giving out free keys is not out of goodwill but to get people on Steam, I just think that if GOG indeed intends to become storefront #2 behind Steam (like they once claimed), they should consider doing this as well.
hmmm, I was sure they were going to give me a gog key but apparently not

I'm not really anti-steam like so many others here, but I kinda feel tex belongs on gog!
Bandwidth cost is nothing for a distribution site like GOG, GOG should be willingly allowing Kickstarter projects to give out keys for GOG, because it would eventually mean more people signing up and creating accounts on GOG, and buying other games. There would be a decent amount of Tex backers who don't have a GOG account, but if they were given a key they would probably sign up just to redeem it. It's why on rare occasions GOG gives away games, to get more users, same reason they also try to get their big sales mentioned by video game news sites.
Post edited May 08, 2014 by Crosmando
high rated
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Lafazar: I would like some clarification from GOG team whether a publisher/developer can get free keys of their game like they can on Steam.

I strongly suspect that this is not the case and that the publisher/developer has to cough up the 30% (or a smaller fee) for each key they need. This would explain why so many projects are reluctant to distribute GOG keys.

I can understand GOGs position if this is the case, after all in the case of Tesla Effect they would have to foot the whopping bill of the bandwidth cost of 15GB times number of backers times number of downloads for each backer.

But it has to be said that GOG lowers their attractiveness as a storefront for both publishers/developers and gamers/customers at least compared to Steam. Of course I understand that Steams practice of giving out free keys is not out of goodwill but to get people on Steam, I just think that if GOG indeed intends to become storefront #2 behind Steam (like they once claimed), they should consider doing this as well.
Here's how it works:

"Please give us X amount of keys."

We reply:

"OK, here you go."

That's about it, really. It would be silly to charge developers for keys to their own game :)
Post edited May 08, 2014 by JudasIscariot