I am just thinking that there will be a tiny bit less of a load on GOG once Windows XP is off the table. Doesn't seem too unreasonable in my mind.

Just don't get your hopes up is all I'm saying.

I see so many recent releases on GOG that have native Linux versions, and it is such a shame that GOG do not offer the Linux versions for those games. They do already have sufficient Linux games that they would have a respectable selection already if they were to start adding Linux versions.

I already have a decent list now of games that I would buy from GOG the instant they add the native Linux versions.

I fully concur. I, as a loyal GOG customer, have held off from buying games on Steam in the hope that A) they will appear on GOG and B) that GOG will support GOG in the very near future. GOG is really pushing its luck with me. One thing that I have noticed, however, is that Wargame: European Escalation does not even have the Mac OS client on GOG. I do hope that it comes soon, for I doubt GOG is as kind to add the Linux client once Linux is supported when the Mac OS client has not even been added yet.

Paradox, one of the first and strongest supporters of Linux ever since Steam for Linux came out, has had extensive talks with GOG about putting its games on sale with our favourite digital retailer but to no avail apparently.

i hope GNU/Linux will be sported by gog, there are many that want to leave microsoft os behind

I wish those people voted on the relevant requests to show this!

Source. Wish GOG saw it that way as well.

This sounds very unpleasant: I.e. they are tied to Steam because of some code? Very lame. But if that code is redistributable, then what's the problem for them to use other services?

SteamWorks provide net code and matchmaking abilities through their API. A developer can opt to use SteamWorks for network play or develop their own code. Developing own code means that different versions are compatible, using SteamWorks mean using a ready made package, so less developing time and less bughunting needed. Paradox opted for SteamWorks, though I'm unsure if the games they had DRM-Free were compatible with Steam versions or not, but the quote saying that playing through steam is much better than before makes me think that while they did have their own code, it was messy.

So what happens if Steam goes bust tomorrow? Will their game go bust as well since Steamworks is not redistributable? If so, it's lame to use such thing as a dependency.

If Steam does go bust, then the net code will no longer work. Same thing as if any server network goes down, or a network protocol becomes depreciated. If in 5 years we move exclusively to IPv6, will LAN play that expects a xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx address work? Or will the games lose multiplayer functionality? Sure, a wrapper may become available, but that doesn't make it ok to use a technology that may become obsolete.

So, a calculated risk of effort vs reward.

If you are talking about the game being playable or not, as far as I know there are generic ways to bypass the Steam requirement, though they may not be as simple as copying 1 file. But again, same thing as games that came on floppies and used a floppy-check.

That is why I only buy Valve games off of Steam because those will never leave Steam anyway. Natural Selection 2 is making my resolve weak, however. GOG needs to hurry up and support Linux so I can do my 500$ worth of GOG games giveaway to Linux users.

It won't, I can pretty much tell you that for a fact.

Well, that's just the thing tho - Steamworks provide just about the best framework for videogame development I have ever seen. It's all in one package - reliable MP service (now bear in mind half the games I try to get running in MP just don't work, unless they use Steamworks, then they work flawlessly without any effort.

Think about it for a second, I don't think it's all that hard to imagine why would I like such a service,) handling of patches and expansion packs, effortless mod nexus feature. Now those are the major ones - then there's a lot of minor stuff, like possibility to directly tie your game with community features and make stuff like tutorial videos, walktroughs etc. easily accessible directly from your game, achievements etc.

And the last thing that's not quite as apparent to you as a customer, and that's visibility. Even if there's a lot of crap on Steam, what is and isn't on the service goes trough a redaction and selection process. Even if your title appears on the main page once, amongst new releases, it'll get a lot more hits and views than on any other service out there.

Now, can you imagine how much development time and money does all of this save? You could argue that 'But games that don't need it came out before and had such features!', but I have not seen an implementation of all these features that would be as reliable as what Steamworks provides you with. So basically, a dev studio is faced with a choice: Either they put a lot of development time and money into making these features themselves, inherently inferior to what Steam would give them freely, or they just spend more time on making the game they want to make. For many developers, that choice is really not all that difficult.

Now, you're saying that it's lame to use such a thing as a dependency - however, if open source community wants people to stop using Steam, they need to come up with a competitive API. Now that would be awesome - but chances of it happening are very small. Until there are freely redistributable dependencies with the same functionality as Steam has, decision to use it won't be 'lame', it'll be 'cost-efficient'.
I'm actually hoping that if Steam ever goes down the drain, someone manages to create a wrapper on top of its functionality. Since it's a unified API I doubt it would be that unrealistic.