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General discussionIntroducing: GOG Galaxy, the DRM-Free online gaming platform(917 posts)(917 posts)
(917 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted June 06, 2014
Freedom of choice. Optional client. Cross-play. Coming soon to all gamers!

Earlier today (or was it yesterday for you?), during the [url=http://www.gog.com/news/cd_projekt_red_gogcom_summer_conference]CD Projekt RED and GOG.com’s Summer Conference we dropped the news about our next big step forward! GOG.com has always been home to more and more of the the best games in history (for Windows and Mac), both classic and new. Differing in shapes, flavors, and sizes they had one thing in common: they were mostly single-player, and our focus was mainly on the experience of a singular gamer. If that's your thing, nothing really will change. You can always enjoy your favorite games 100% DRM-free on GOG.com, with no need to activate your game online or remain connected to play your single-player title. Just like GOG.com has always been about.. But what if you want to play with your friends?

Today we are excited to announce GOG Galaxy, a truly gamer-friendly, 100% DRM-free online gaming platform that will finally provide the GOG.com community with the easy option to play together online. GOG Galaxy will allow you to share your achievements, stay in touch with your pals and get the updates for your games automatically. We've developed this technology to improve your GOG.com experience. We think GOG Galaxy really deserves your attention and we hope many of you will give it a try! But, here's the great thing: it is totally optional, so it's all up to you! If you do not want to play online, or use our optional client to access these features, then no worries, you will always be able to play the single-player mode 100% DRM-free, and download manually the latest updated version of your favorite title from our website. Now, for one more feature we call cross-play. We always believed in an open world for gamers, with no obligation to be tied to a specific platform or client; and this is why GOG Galaxy will allow gamers to play with their buddies who use Steam, without any need to use any 3rd party client or account, nothing, nada. We’re taking care of connecting GOG.com and Steam players, so just sit back, relax and give it a try.

See the outtake from the CD Projekt RED & GOG.com Summer Conference

Talking of which, we are proud to announce the soon-to-come launch of the beta phase for The Witcher Adventure Game, a faithful adaptation of the board game of the same title. It allows up to 4 players to play together, whether they use Steam or GOG.com. Cross-play at its finest! If you wanna get the chance to try it out, please visit and sign up to get in the queue for your beta access key. You can also simply take advantage of our amazing [url=http://www.gog.com/tw3]pre-order offer for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, which includes 2 beta access keys for he Witcher Aventure Game, delivered to you as soon as we start handing them out to public.

We believe GOG Galaxy has the power to provide the best of both worlds. Playing the single player mode of your favorite game, 100% DRM-free, while still having the OPTION to use our soon-to-come client for an enhanced experience (auto-patching, achievements, and much more) or play online with other GOG.com (and Steam) players if you so wish.

There will be more GOG Galaxy titles coming up this year, so stay tuned for more news and get the word around!
Post edited June 06, 2014 by G-Doc
Posted June 06, 2014
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zero_koop: Here is a logical reason to not like Galaxy: it takes company resources away from other areas of the business. Even if you don't like or use Galaxy, by buying games from GOG you in fact paying for Galaxy because your payments are funneled into the development of that project. Think outside the box. For the record, I love the idea of Galaxy and I can't wait to try it out. I'm just playing devil's advocate.
I'll play the angel's advocate, then. :D

How do you know resources are being taken away without being a fly on the wall? How do you know they aren't cashing in a loan to cover the expense, or that the money wasn't already allocated by them in advance for an expansion?

If the price for a game is static regardless, how does paying for Galaxy development affect you?
Post edited June 06, 2014 by JohnnyDollar
Posted June 06, 2014
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skirtish: If I purchase and download a game from GOG.com, is there a possibility that I will be locked out from using any part of it at a possible future date?
GOG already sells a few games that are totally reliant on third-party servers for all online functions (no LAN/direct IP capability), e.g. the Two Worlds series.
Posted June 06, 2014
mass effect 3's requiring origin to run rushes to mind. if they pull a diablo 3 preventing me from playing witcher 3 on a bus trip across the country with 0 internet i will not be happy

it's fine if it's just a auto update client and network bridge to steam (assuming from a technical stand point it will be the opposite being implemented, having the steam version of a game connect to a gog matchmaking server which just returns the ip of the other players so your game can then directly connect)

in fact they should be separating out the multiplayer connecting functionality of future games to an include file (such that it's a black box to the game,the game says i need ips of other players and this black box say here's some ips so the game doesn't know or care how it got the ips,so 10 years from now it can be swapped out as simple as replacing a dll file) thereby preventing a repeat of the games for windows and gamespy multiplayer shutdowns
Posted June 06, 2014
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zero_koop: Here is a logical reason to not like Galaxy: it takes company resources away from other areas of the business. Even if you don't like or use Galaxy, by buying games from GOG you in fact paying for Galaxy because your payments are funneled into the development of that project. Think outside the box. For the record, I love the idea of Galaxy and I can't wait to try it out. I'm just playing devil's advocate.
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JohnnyDollar: I'll play the angel's advocate, then. :D

How do you know resources are being taken away without being a fly on the wall? How do you know they aren't cashing in a loan to cover the expense, or that the money wasn't already allocated by them in advance for an expansion?

If the price for a game is static regardless, how does paying for Galaxy development affect you?
For the sake of discussion I'll respond, but honestly I hope you don't think I'm just being a jerk or anything. It's all one pot of money. If they're taking out a loan then it needs to be repaid. The only money coming into the company that doesn't need to be repaid is from the customer (they just receive the product in return). The only other possibility is if someone made a generous donation to fund the project or to code it themselves with no compensation (no chance this happened). As far as the static price argument goes, GOG first covers their expenses with their revenue and the rest is profit which either goes back into the company for future investments (like Galaxy) or is taken by the CEO or whoever owns the company. So by spending the "extra" money on Galaxy they are taking it away from another opportunity that maybe I would support (there is opportunity cost to every business decision). Again, for the record, I support what they're doing in this case. I was just thought it was funny that someone tried to argue that there is no logical way you can be against something that is optional. :) Cheers!
Posted June 06, 2014
Edit: Nevermind, I keep editing the post and I don't have the time to make it sound less offensive. Gotta go. :)
Post edited June 06, 2014 by JohnnyDollar
Posted June 06, 2014
I hope I can get a client on my windows and linux machine on day one.
Posted June 06, 2014
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JohnnyDollar: The only possibility? That doesn't sound very logical. :)

Not if the money was already allocated beforehand. Then you would have been supporting galaxy for the last x amount of years. Either way, you're someone on the outside that doesn't have a clue about the internals of the company.

Like I said above, on the outside looking in. It sounds too much like being an armchair GOG CEO to me.
You don't have to be privy to the internal workings of the company to know that development of practically anything requires resources, at the very minimum: time. You also don't need any special backstage passes to understand the concept of non-infinite resources.
I don't have a dog in this race seeing as I don't plan on using Galaxy and have no strong feelings about it either way, but about the only way I can figure you to believe that the argument of "using resources that could be used otherwise" doesn't hold weight or have merit is for you to not really understand the argument.
Posted June 06, 2014
It's a pity that it won't be FOSS software, but i have nothing against OPTION to use it, as long as it isn't going to:

1. Require Galaxy for multiplayer in a games that *were* working fine without it.
2. Require Galaxy for multiplayer in future games, that could be obtained anywhere else (inc. retail box) and would allow multiplayer without Galaxy requirement.

To sum it up on simple example - lets take thing like Spelunky. Apart from singleplayer and local co-op, It have a semi-nice feature of "daily challenges", that require integration with a "platform" (steam, as of current). Sure, it could be programmed otherwise, but that (bad) design choice was made by Spelunky's creators, and GOG could do nothing about it. So, for GOG's version, "daily challenges" simply doesn't work.

Now, if the Galaxy would allow the things like Spelunky's "Daily challenges" to work (because game's DEVELOPERS - not GOG - decided that they're going to make it require some suckin' platform/client), I have nothing against it. Heck, probably, I would even use it myself, sometimes, with just a little tone of disdain (but against devs, not GOG).

BUT, if - for example, again - things like Multiwinia or Freespace (names from top of my head) bought on GOG start to require Galaxy for using over-the-network multiplayer, that's different matter. I strongly doubt that it would be the case (already present games have their MP mechanism hardcoded, most of the times, and I don't see how GOG could be able to change it), but just in case...

Also, even if points 1 and 2 are OK lets add a point 3 here:

3. If it ever surface, that gog - in any form - encouraged developers to make multiplayer features *requiring* Galaxy to work (for example, by better offers for indie devs that do it Galaxy way) - that is, multiplayer unavailable to non-galaxy users - we're going to stop liking each other. And I very much want to like GOG in the future, as much as I do now ;)

If all those points are resolved "no worries", then 'good job, GOG', and thumbs up.

/Estel
Posted June 06, 2014
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Vestin: There doesn't have to be a single reason behind every single action. It does make things simpler when one suffers for what is right, since then the motive of self-interest can more easily be ruled out, but it's not unreasonable to assume that we can want good things that are also good for us. By analogy - companies do need to be profitable to exist, but don't necessarily do EVERYTHING just because they're after money, and they don't have to do things ONLY because they are after money.
Some artists like to create art while also getting paid for it. This doesn't mean they are only doing it for the money, nor does it mean they are only doing it for their own enjoyment, or for art itself...
Again - I mislike simple and singular motive attribution.
I agree. But i don't see how this prevents the opposite to be a possibility as well. And, as a matter of fact, i didn't wrote they won't make a good service that will be positive for the business and all customers as well. I just wrote i hope it doesn't turn out as being something bad for a part of the customers. There's a big difference.
Again, you are reading things into my thoughts that weren't meant. You should be less judgemental on other people's opinions and avoid jumping to conclusions. Let people be free to have their own opinions and express it, agreeing with them or not.

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Vestin: There is a very sharp difference between things one DOESN'T LIKE and things one doesn't CARE ABOUT.
Hell - that was pretty much my point. It's not like people "don't care about" the things they so relentlessly mention...
Well, let me reformulate then. I honestly think that achievements are, FOR ME, an unnecessary feature and that focusing on such things may be detrimental to the quality of the service because they could instead focus on something that i find more important and interesting.
I thought it was implicit that when i wrote i don't care about achievements that was the point. I usually don't express myself point by point, letter by letter. Maybe i'm overestimating people's comprehension?
Posted June 06, 2014
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hhdcsg: You don't have to be privy to the internal workings of the company to know that development of practically anything requires resources, at the very minimum: time. You also don't need any special backstage passes to understand the concept of non-infinite resources.
I don't have a dog in this race seeing as I don't plan on using Galaxy and have no strong feelings about it either way, but about the only way I can figure you to believe that the argument of "using resources that could be used otherwise" doesn't hold weight or have merit is for you to not really understand the argument.
You could also tell me that GOG are going to take a loss over the next 3 years and shut down from this decision. I tell you that statement has no merit because you don't have access to the relevant info. You say that it doesn't take access to understand that when a company spends more money then what they bring in they eventually go bankrupt.

GOG can grow exponentially and become a powerhouse in the industry during that time for all we know. I can tell you that GOG will see growth like they never have before from this decision, and because of that, GOG will have more resources to allocate to bringing old classics to the catalog.

Both arguments are based on assumptions with few facts other than company A is investing in X.

I understand it just fine. It's like speculative discussion held around the water cooler. It doesn't hold much weight at the end of the day.
Posted June 06, 2014
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zero_koop: *snip*
Again, for the record, I support what they're doing in this case. I was just thought it was funny that someone tried to argue that there is no logical way you can be against something that is optional. :) Cheers!
Understood. That statement does sound a bit absolute. I deleted my above response to you because I thought it might come across as too offensive, and was going to just leave it at that, but it was captured by another member already. Anyway, cheers back at you. ;)
Posted June 07, 2014
Great news!

PS: please don't use .Net/Java/Adobe Flash/Air.
Native languages and toolkits preferred. I love fast and smooth interfaces. Thanks!
Posted June 07, 2014
..far as the Galaxy drain on resources conversation goes... Hogwash! Viewed in these terms of resources, Galaxy is a growth investment. There is a safety net in growth. Growth near always requires investment. Investments towards improving user service are generally wise to consider.
Post edited June 07, 2014 by WhiteElk
Posted June 07, 2014
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Vestin: There is a very sharp difference between things one DOESN'T LIKE and things one doesn't CARE ABOUT.
Hell - that was pretty much my point. It's not like people "don't care about" the things they so relentlessly mention...
Bear in mind that "I don't care for" and "I don't care about" are two very different things. "I don't care for" means "I dislike", but some non-native speakers - like me - tend to incorrectly write "I don't care about" even when they mean "I don't care for". Slip of the quillboard.
Posted June 07, 2014
I have one SERIOUS question. If my INTERNET is down, will i be able to launch the client WITHOUT sign in and play my games?

IF i need to sign in, then this is DRM. Thanks
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This is my favourite topic
Community
General discussionIntroducing: GOG Galaxy, the DRM-Free online gaming platform(917 posts)(917 posts)
(917 posts)