GOG Galaxy

Read this earlier and looking forward to it. I've never been fond of steam's DRM but you can not deny the simplicity it offers when you can just add a friend into a game with a quick invite.

On the flip side, you have some games with gog which are broken in the multiplayer component and you have a lot of people just saying the 'one click' install of software through the steam interface makes it so attractive over gog.

Actually the bulk of games of games I've been playing these past few years have been indie or smaller dev companies... at least all the good ones are. A few wouldn't be DRM free, but hopefully something like this will make it more attractive for devs. Especially since devs sometimes have issues with how games are patched on gog - and sometimes neglect gog versions as a result. Hopefully this wouldn't mean games are more left out in the cold in terms of patching but provides an easier system.

If they did a good enough job of it and gog attract more titles, I could foreseeably live without steam, aside from say, booting up L4D3.

Edit: @dreamer
The point is that steam/origin/uplay control the games. You are buying a subscription to the game and if they decide tomorrow that you can't play them, then they're gone. They can ban you, they can charge you for accessing the games, they can demand that your always connected, they can force their patches when you just want to boot up and have a single player game and if you don't like their software then tough luck. Steam fell very short up until recently and I had major gripes which they actually improved upon - you can now install to various drives and directories, you can now limit the net speed (so you're not hogging all the internet with just that).

It's unfortunate that the website that you bought from shut down. However, if Valve shut down, you'd have no games. If you kept your DRM free games, they'd still work. The difference is that the websites you bought from were probably very small enterprises while Valve is quite a powerful company - so it's likely enough that it'll stay around for a while. But we know how quickly powerful companies can fall - look at our banks - and the technology world is one of the most dynamic markets!

Monotype wrote: »

Edit: @dreamer
The point is that steam/origin/uplay control the games. You are buying a subscription to the game and if they decide tomorrow that you can't play them, then they're gone. They can ban you, they can charge you for accessing the games, they can demand that your always connected, they can force their patches when you just want to boot up and have a single player game and if you don't like their software then tough luck. Steam fell very short up until recently and I had major gripes which they actually improved upon - you can now install to various drives and directories, you can now limit the net speed (so you're not hogging all the internet with just that).

It's unfortunate that the website that you bought from shut down. However, if Valve shut down, you'd have no games. If you kept your DRM free games, they'd still work. The difference is that the websites you bought from were probably very small enterprises while Valve is quite a powerful company - so it's likely enough that it'll stay around for a while. But we know how quickly powerful companies can fall - look at our banks - and the technology world is one of the most dynamic markets!

But I can play my Steam games without even opening Steam. I can click the exe and the game will load. Again its up to me to keep the digital file in the case i get banned etc:

Not an option with origin, it doesnt work.

DRM to me is stupid fcuking Securom which came with disc based games and made it hard for me to play the game, theres a nasty one where you have to validate your activation which annoyed me a lot.

Suppose the obvious question is if GOG shutdown how would you access your DRM free games? Do people actually save the digital download?

dreamers75 wrote: »

But I can play my Steam games without even opening Steam. I can click the exe and the game will load. Again its up to me to keep the digital file in the case i get banned etc:

Only works with some games. Most will try to launch steam.

Suppose the obvious question is if GOG shutdown how would you access your DRM free games? Do people actually save the digital download?

Yes, you could save the install and it should work away. Moving an install could break it. Say even if your steam game worked without steam, if you moved it, it mightn't work afterwards. Depends on the game again though.

Overheal wrote: »

Steam had said since the beginning [if the whole thing flopped] that any purchased licenses that they had access to (their own and agreed third parties) would be released to the account holder. So you would have your CD key for all or most of the games you bought on Steam, and could use an alternative installer to recover them.

No, I think what you are referring to was a question someone posted way early on... I think it was on their message boards or somewhere, I can't remember exactly. It was was an off-the-cuff comment, not a solid statement. It is not in their terms and they actually removed where they had said it.
They said it near the beginning - most certainly not since the beginning. They're much more careful now about what they say and have promised nothing.


So think about it seriously - a company like steam runs out of business and there's loads of games by different companies - do you really think that they're going to fold up and say, "So long, it's been nice. Have all the games DRM free"? Doubtful.
By themselves most of the keys would be useless otherwise, because the companies would have to redesign all their installers.
What's more likely is that they'll be bought out and the new masters can change the terms to be worse (or better).

GOG Galaxy going 2.0 with other client platform integration

https://www.gogalaxy.com/en/

Cautiously optimistic. If they can make it work, great.

More details from DSOG;

Your Games.

• Import all your games from PC and consoles, build and organize them into one master collection. Install and launch any PC game you own, no matter the platform.
• Keep track of all your achievements, hours played and games owned.
• Customize your library by filtering, sorting, tagging, and adding your own visuals like game backgrounds or covers.
• Follow upcoming releases and discover games popular among your friends and the gaming community.

Your Friends.

• Bring together your friends from all platforms and see their online status.
• No matter on which platform your friends are, you can chat with them.
• See your friends’ cross-platform achievements, game time milestones and recently played games.
• See who’s the master collector, completionist or spends the most time playing.

Your Privacy.

• Your personal data will never be shared with third parties.
• We’re not spying on data from your computer.
• With a single click, you can remove imported games and friends data from our servers.

Your GOG Client.

• The best way to run and update your GOG games.
• Use features like cloud saving, in-game overlay, multiplayer & matchmaking, rollbacks and more.
• The client is not required to play your DRM-free GOG games.

More.

• Connect more platforms and add new features with open-source integrations.
• All customizations and changes to your library are saved in the cloud and synced between all your devices.
• Save any view like a customized library or favorite games and friends to access them instantly.

Anyone invited to the beta? starts today.

Received an invite today.

Installed it today too. It seems nice enough, faster than Playnite when I tried that.

One bug I noticed with Steam integration, I have games installed on both an SSD and HDD and it's only recognising the installs on the SSD.

Look forward to see how it develops.