Was just thinking that a lot of time and effort and stress would have been spared for us and them both if they'd have done it like they're doing with Linux now, "hey guys, we're planning to do this in about 6 months' time, how does it look to you?"

I don't think that they're comparable matters, i.e. a certain way does not apply to all situations. The demand for Linux support has been expressed for quite a long time (years?) by the community; that alone made it an "easier" decision for GOG and was guaranteed to be received positively. Regional pricing is something that GOG thought necessary/ acceptable to introduce in order to push GOG's business. I suspect that it'd have gone down more or less the way it did now, only six months earlier, especially if it would have been introduced as "Good news!".

It's not reasonable to expect that they base every business decision on what we think. In the "Getting back to our roots" thread, Marcin & Guillaume said: That doesn't mean that they'll ask for our opinion or permission whenever they're about to make a business decision (key words: we're doing it), just that they found out the hard way that there are ways and means to get users to support their future plans. Whatever expectations were born from that sentence, it'd be wise to keep them realistic.

Game Wisdom - April 22, 2014
Interview with Piotr Szczesniak
http://game-wisdom.com/guest/selling-the-past-gog

Huffduffer - May 2, 2014
Interview with GOG.com VP of Marketing Trevor Longino on PC Gaming of the 80s and 90s
http://huffduffer.com/smokler/160010

Eurogamer - May 19, 2014
GOG "would definitely consider" Steam-style Early Access
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-05-15-gog-on-early-access-definitely-not-every-game-should-be-permitted

That's a risky one... Quite unhappy with the concept, because it makes for even less actual community input. I mean, you move away from publishers, but onto paying customers who may give input on your game, leaving those who may be interested in it after it's actually done still out in the cold, sort of "hey, you want to be in on the discussion about what this game will end up being, pay up, otherwise buzz off". Besides that, it'll need to be with some firm guarantees on the part of the developer that they'll deliver a properly finished game (as in not just something that says finished but is still a buggy mess or doesn't contain what was initially advertised) in due time, and if they don't those who paid can get their money back.

""Definitely not every game should be permitted," he added, "and consumers should have an option to opt out if they're really unhappy. It can be done better still. [Steam] were the first to do it so big kudos for this one; a lot of developers - I was talking to some and they're really happy with it. But the good ones! It's always the good ones."

WHAT?

umm.... what about Desura, Gamers Gate, Humble WIdgets and many others.... I think even Shiny Loot sold Alphas before Steam did...

I´m looking forward to it. It´ll be a main accelerator for crowdfunding, as me and countless others really dislikes that the early access-BackerBetas are often SteamExclusives!

I feel like there are more important things GOG needs to be concerned with, but that's just me.

I'm thinking a new client and servers for multiplayer will be added this year and will be the big e3 announcement.

Article about GOG considerations on Early-Access games.

Eurogamer, Monday, 19 May 2014

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-05-15-gog-on-early-access-definitely-not-every-game-should-be-permitted

I think that's cool if it means more highly-desired games will be able to come (like Homeworld), but if it's just used for a bunch of F2P multiplayer titles I'd find that depressing.

There are quite a few classic games here that no longer have active servers and it would be a feather in their cap to provide access to multiplayer for many games in this way. I could see this as being a good selling point if they would offer services to allow these games to have multiplayer once again.

Maybe I'm completely off base and the e3 announcement will be something different. It will just be a wait and see.

Yeah, if they could somehow take the pain out of setting up multiplayer for people (depending on difficult it is for certain popular games; I can't say myself) that would be steller.

I think we'll at least see GOG announce they've developed a much easier way for people to get patches, as apparently the current method is very annoying.

I just hope at least part of the big news we get relates to games high up on the wishlist, not unknown indies.