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General discussionNEWS: GOG Galaxy to start selling EPIC games(1045 posts)(1045 posts)
(1045 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted October 03, 2020
I don't understand why they made this deal with Epic to sell their exclusive games on GOG Galaxy. I suppose it is for more users to use GOG Galaxy, but I would have preferred something more like offering exclusive discounts to the users of said platform before this.
Posted October 03, 2020
People underestimate the sheer amount of attention that epic alone has. A lot of people buy games from EGS and thats an undenyable fact. I assume that they're at least way bigger compared to GOG, even considering their bad reputation amongst some people.

It wouldn't suprise me if they were taking over CDP, but thats doubtful, considering that GOGs has to have their entire core philosophy intact or else they wouldn't work. If epic wants money they could buy off CDPR but I doubt that its worth the hassle.

Not only that but Cyberpunk 2077 is going to be releases on EGS as well regardless, so buying over CDP and CDPR won't change a thing and only negatively due to the core philosophies that taints GOG reputation way more than it helps them.

I do agree that GOG staff needs to get it together and update their installers to be up-to-date with what GOG Galaxy offers though and its a huge shame that they don't. From the games that I download through their installers I've always asumed that they keep their things up-to-date but I was wrong.

Regardless, GOG staff and EGS staff shaking hands seems to be sweet as long as GOGs core philosphies still apply to costumers. And perhaps it will also mean that EGS may provide some of their games DRM free as well. Hopefully this is going to become a win-win situation for everybody.
Post edited October 03, 2020 by Dray2k
Posted October 03, 2020
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mrkgnao: That's a good approach, as long as you don't care whether the game binaries are up to date or not:
https://www.gog.com/forum/general/news_gog_galaxy_to_start_selling_epic_games/post281
https://www.gog.com/forum/general/news_gog_galaxy_to_start_selling_epic_games/post291

Or actually work as intended:
https://www.gog.com/forum/general/news_gog_galaxy_to_start_selling_epic_games/post297
I hear you. I'm very careful to pick the games that either no longer need support or that will be supported.
Posted October 03, 2020
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Ganni1987: I believe this is just the tip of the iceberg, with Epic already in, what's to stop them from getting UPlay, Origin and the whole gang now? Will be a matter of time before this stuff will be introduced.
There is no doubt about it, in the press release they make it clear that their aim is to bring all the existing stores together.
Posted October 03, 2020
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Dray2k: People underestimate the sheer amount of attention that epic alone has. A lot of people buy games from EGS and thats an undenyable fact. I assume that they're at least way bigger compared to GOG, even considering their bad reputation amongst some people.

It wouldn't suprise me if they were taking over CDP, but thats doubtful, considering that GOGs has to have their entire core philosophy intact or else they wouldn't work. If epic wants money they could buy off CDPR but I doubt that its worth the hassle.

Not only that but Cyberpunk 2077 is going to be releases on EGS as well regardless, so buying over CDP and CDPR won't change a thing and only negatively due to the core philosophies that taints GOG reputation way more than it helps them.

I do agree that GOG staff needs to get it together and update their installers to be up-to-date with what GOG Galaxy offers though and its a huge shame that they don't. From the games that I download through their installers I've always asumed that they keep their things up-to-date but I was wrong.

Regardless, GOG staff and EGS staff shaking hands seems to be sweet as long as GOGs core philosphies still apply to costumers. And perhaps it will also mean that EGS may provide some of their games DRM free as well. Hopefully this is going to become a win-win situation for everybody.
Sweet, hopefuly, win-win.

Sigh.
Posted October 03, 2020
I wonder if this all is just a indication of how hard it is to be a DRMFREE only store in today's market. We have places like itch.io and Humble Bundle DRM FREE but they are not SOLELY dedicated to DRM-FREE only.

Perhaps, all of what GOG is doing is a what they need to do to stay a float in the sea of stores for computer users to get their games.
Posted October 03, 2020
low rated
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lazydog: Sweet, hopefuly, win-win.

Sigh.
Doesn't change the reality of things. GOG either tries to survive while making some really tiny compromises or they don't.

You can be disappointed and I'm not saying that you shouldn't, but don't expect a miracle where GOG will dominate the gaming scene. I'm implying that GOGs core philosophies are enabling users to use the games as freely as possible and that alone puts GOG and everyone working for them in an unfortunate and difficult position. I don't have to tell you how flawed that logic of providing DRM-free games actually is if you think for a second that video games are simply products to be sold and make money from and not much else if compared to the grand scheme of things. Money is the main drive of anything, including technological progress, after all.

Without DRM (even considering so far to say that early 80s copy protection is DRM), many video games wouldn't exist in the first place. DRM has always existed in one form of another. The reason why GOG as its modern iteration still is so famous and well liked is because they always have acted against the core principles of such capitalism of the video game industry and people acknowledge and like that. GOGs foot-on-the-ground is reminding people that even mild DRM is not immune of critique.

Not to mention that the capitalistic principles that make the video game industry progress is incredibly flawed by itself but thats a story for another time. But this doesn't change the reality that GOG is a small store, at least compared to the big boys.

In a way, GOG really is the gallic village from the Asterix comics or the Rebel Alliance from Star Wars. In a way that makes me appreciate them even more, considering they were fighting against the very core principles that make the video game industry work in the first place for almost 40 years now.

Again, as long as the core principles that make GOG thrive (providing DRM free games) most people won't bother about any of the possible shortcomings, as disappointing some of these issues actually are. Disappointed people who post in this thread probably make up approx. 0.0005% of GOGs entire constumerbase after all. In the grand scheme of things, most of your voices don't matter at all. At a worse case, even if literally 100% of people would be against the idea, for a store like EGS such amount of buyers are not really considerably large. The EGS client userbase is probably several magnitudes larger than GOGs.

I don't even think that GOG is simply "bowing down to the chinese overlords". They're simply being diplomatic and we can only speculate about the possible positive or negative impact these decisions might have, if they have them at all. I'm pretty much sure that its just the community overblowing stuff again.

All I mean is that as long as the "GOG-EGS-Alliance" is fruitful for all parties in the long-run, everybody wins. I've been browsing this board for long enough to know that most apocalyptic scenarios made up by users here were nothing but lurkwarm air at most and I'm fairly certain that this will again be the case.

Should I've been wrong then we're simply fucked lol so don't expect me to share my fallout-style beehive hut made with sticks and stones with you after the great DRM-war of 2022 has subsided.
Posted October 03, 2020
high rated
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lazydog: Sweet, hopefuly, win-win.

Sigh.
avatar
Dray2k: Doesn't change the reality of things. GOG either tries to survive while making some really tiny compromises or they don't.

You can be disappointed and I'm not saying that you shouldn't, but don't expect a miracle where GOG will dominate the gaming scene. I'm implying that GOGs core philosophies are enabling users to use the games as freely as possible and that alone puts GOG and everyone working for them in an unfortunate and difficult position. I don't have to tell you how flawed that logic of providing DRM-free games actually is if you think for a second that video games are simply products to be sold and make money from and not much else if compared to the grand scheme of things. Money is the main drive of anything, including technological progress, after all.

Without DRM (even considering so far to say that early 80s copy protection is DRM), many video games wouldn't exist in the first place. DRM has always existed in one form of another. The reason why GOG as its modern iteration still is so famous and well liked is because they always have acted against the core principles of such capitalism of the video game industry and people acknowledge and like that. GOGs foot-on-the-ground is reminding people that even mild DRM is not immune of critique.

Not to mention that the capitalistic principles that make the video game industry progress is incredibly flawed by itself but thats a story for another time. But this doesn't change the reality that GOG is a small store, at least compared to the big boys.

In a way, GOG really is the gallic village from the Asterix comics or the Rebel Alliance from Star Wars. In a way that makes me appreciate them even more, considering they were fighting against the very core principles that make the video game industry work in the first place for almost 40 years now.

Again, as long as the core principles that make GOG thrive (providing DRM free games) most people won't bother about any of the possible shortcomings, as disappointing some of these issues actually are. Disappointed people who post in this thread probably make up approx. 0.0005% of GOGs entire constumerbase after all. In the grand scheme of things, most of your voices don't matter at all. At a worse case, even if literally 100% of people would be against the idea, for a store like EGS such amount of buyers are not really considerably large. The EGS client userbase is probably several magnitudes larger than GOGs.

I don't even think that GOG is simply "bowing down to the chinese overlords". They're simply being diplomatic and we can only speculate about the possible positive or negative impact these decisions might have, if they have them at all. I'm pretty much sure that its just the community overblowing stuff again.

All I mean is that as long as the "GOG-EGS-Alliance" is fruitful for all parties in the long-run, everybody wins. I've been browsing this board for long enough to know that most apocalyptic scenarios made up by users here were nothing but lurkwarm air at most and I'm fairly certain that this will again be the case.

Should I've been wrong then we're simply fucked lol so don't expect me to share my fallout-style beehive hut made with sticks and stones with you after the great DRM-war of 2022 has subsided.
One simply cannot promote a DRM free guarantee whilst on the other hand endorse DRM purchases.

Why is this so hard to understand?
Post edited October 03, 2020 by lazydog
Posted October 03, 2020
high rated
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lazydog: One simply cannot promote a DRM free guarantee whilst on the other hand endorse DRM purchases.
Of course one can. It's called hypocrisy.
Posted October 03, 2020
Very simple as long gog sells drm free games i will support them but should they go the dark path they won’t see a dime anymore
Posted October 03, 2020
low rated
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lazydog: *snip*
I sort of wrote the reason why inside my comment wall. In case you couldn't notice it, true DRM-free never existed in the first place. It is an uphill battle that sooner or later had to result in compromises. Let me phrase it differently and elaborate a little bit.

Regardless of GOGs true stance which we don't know, they still provide DRM free games. They're just promoting games from other stores. Its optional and not a requirement for their philosophy to function regardless whether or not you like absolute purity. Its only a double standard if they would apply the same logic to the games they're selling on their own and not things such as promotion events or promoting their or other stores (you can promote your store even through other things without mentioning the name, see Gabe Newells GOG quote that also promotes his store due to his name). I don't see this happen here as it would compromise their absolute core principles of selling DRM free games while providing full support (sans the fact that GOG staff is neglecting some of their offline installers but judging of what people say they're either too occupied with other stuff or they lack personal).

Even considering that we don't know GOG-staffs possible motives that may have lead to such a management decision, if we follow your logic and think about it a bit further, you must apply the same reasoning not only for the shops but for any costumer as well. You can't sell games you're making or providing if nobody wants to buy them for whatever sane or insane reason and vice versa. You're leaving out a huge chunk of people who would also purchase things from other stores while making reasonable or unreasonable decisions. That is not up to us to judge. The same reasoning applies to the stores who participate in events that may or may not help in further promoting themselves.

*tinfoilhatmodeon* I mean if we actually ask questions, why is a company such as CDPR then selling their games on stores that promote DRM such as Steam and EGS with the same benifits that the GOG store provides (discounts, sales)? They're onto something bad lemme tell you! The truth is out there and CDP is all evil!

Joking aside, you shouldn't be sad or mad if GOG is promoting the EGS or vice versa. Remember that one hand washes another. If we look at this from a different angle, I think the CDP/CDPR/GOG-staff/Flying Spaghetti Monster wants to promote their name through the game Cyberpunk 2077. If people are able to associate a name of a game with a certain thing, similar to how people associate Gabe Newell with Valve and Steam now that would be a huge gain for GOG even compared to the time when they've released The Witcher 3 and when people began to slightly associate the name of that with what GOG is doing (which was pretty much an unknown term for most people even back in 2015).

EDIT: Can't please everyone regardless of the compromise made.
Post edited October 03, 2020 by Dray2k
Posted October 03, 2020
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russellskanne: Wow. I didn't know the situation was THAT bad. I'm aware of few days or weeks delays, but this?!
Could you make a dedicated thread/post about this from A-Z in exactly this format, so this gets the attention it deserves?
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mrkgnao: I'm sorry. I no longer have the willpower to do it once again, for the umpteenth time.
This is terrible (the situation with offline installers, not your willpower). Could you possibly post a link to an existing thread about this, that lists which games have very outdated offline installers? It seems like a very important thing to have in my favorites.
Posted October 03, 2020
high rated
These news scare me, I'm not gonna lie. To me GOG always stood for DRM free games. I always saw Galaxy as an option, something to organize your games, have them in a neat launcher while all your games are still completely DRM free. I have never used Galaxy by the way.

Now with the Epic partnership they've basically announced that they don't give a shit about DRM free anymore. Where will they go from here? This just goes against everything GOG stands for. Will we have to look for a new place to get DRM free games soon?
Post edited October 03, 2020 by DrmSucksMaster
Posted October 03, 2020
high rated
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mrkgnao: I'm sorry. I no longer have the willpower to do it once again, for the umpteenth time.
avatar
Time4Tea: This is terrible (the situation with offline installers, not your willpower). Could you possibly post a link to an existing thread about this, that lists which games have very outdated offline installers? It seems like a very important thing to have in my favorites.
There isn't one. Not anything even remotely up to date.

The best I can offer you is the output of a MaGog search.

This is the list of GOG games that MaGog thinks might have differing offline and galaxy installers for Windows:
[url=]http://www.an-ovel.com/cgi-bin/magog.cgi?ver=1102&scp=gdspuriolnc&dsp=iD&ord=&flt=Ddv~owgw~&opt=n[/url]
And this the same for Mac:
[url=]http://www.an-ovel.com/cgi-bin/magog.cgi?ver=1102&scp=gdspuriolnc&dsp=iD&ord=&flt=Ddv~omgm~&opt=n[/url]
No such list for Linux, because there are no such things as linux galaxy installers.

As usual, GOG's forum software messes up the urls, so copy-paste, rather than click.

Notes:
1) GOG's version system is a complete mess, so I had to develop a complex heuristic algorithm to allow MaGog to guesstimate which versions differ. The algorithm is not perfect --- it has both false positives (MaGog thinks they're different, but they're really not) and false negatives (MaGog thinks they're the same (so they're not on the list above), but they're really not). Like I said, it's not perfect, but I've refined the algorithm over many months, and I'm fairly confident it's reasonably good (despite a couple of minor known bugs and despite having many false positives (better safe than sorry)).
2) The links are live links, so if GOG fixes something (e.g. releases a new offline installer that matches the galaxy one), that game will disappear from the output. Similarly, if GOG messes something up (e.g. releases a new galaxy installer without an offline installer), a new game will appear on the list.
3) This is a MaGog output, and since MaGog doesn't cover games added to GOG in the last year, any outdated installers for these games are unknown. You're on your own there.
4) MaGog's version comparison algorithm ignores patches, so if a game has an offline patch that is newer than the offline installer, and together they bring the offline version to match the galaxy one, MaGog will still list such a game. Luckily, nowadays GOG rarely releases standalone patches without also releasing a new full installer, so it's not a big issue (but you still need to weed these out yourself). However, I now notice that two of the games I had listed before (Trine and TW3) do have such a standalone patch, so they are not in fact outdated, assuming you're backing up patches alongside installers. Sorry, my bad. I'll delete them from my post above.
5) Don't be alarmed by the large number of games listed. It's not as bad as that. Because of GOG's versioning mess, I expect a large number of these will ultimately prove to be false positive. If we ignore games that are outdated only by 1-2 weeks, which GOG might still fix by themselves, I'd guess that only about 40% of the list will prove to be truly outdated. It's still tens of games, but not as bad as it might look at first glance.

What you want to look at is the section called "Latest Versions" under each game. Let's look at a few examples, to explain how to work with this (again, since this is live output, some of the examples may disappear when GOG makes changes).

EXAMPLE #1
===========
13th Doll: A Fan Game of The 7th Guest, The:
Windows, Offline: 1.1.2
Windows, Galaxy: 1.2.0 {2020-05-11}
Mac OS X, Offline: 1.2.0
Mac OS X, Galaxy: 1.2.0 {2020-05-22}
Linux, Offline: 1.1.2
As you can see the Windows installers differ (1.1.2 vs. 1.2.0) and it appears galaxy's is newer. You can always see when the galaxy installer was released (date is YYYY-MM-DD, so 11 May 2020), but the offline installer's date is listed only if I own the game. Since I don't own this game, MaGog doesn't know when the offline installer was released. However, we can be fairly certain that the offline installer is outdated and that GOG has forgotten about it, since the galaxy installer is almost 6 months old. This is what I would call "Galaxy not optional for 5+ months".
As you can also see, in this case, the Mac installers do not differ and are both up to date.
As you can further see, the Linux offline installer is outdated vis-a-vis the windows galaxy installer. If you want, MaGog can generate comparisons between any pair of installers (e.g. Linux offline vs. Windows galaxy, or Linux offline vs. Windows offline). But that's a different story, as it probably requires getting binaries from the developer. Anyhow, just let me know.

EXAMPLE #2
===========
Ancestors Legacy
Windows, Offline: 64721
Windows, Galaxy: 64724 {2020-09-25}
Here again, the installers differ, but we can see that the galaxy installers is "only" 1 week old (25 Sep 2020), so there's still some chance that GOG hasn't forgotten about the offline installer and will release it "soon", even without your intervention.

EXAMPLE #3
===========
Carmageddon 2: Carpocalypse Now
Windows, Offline: gog-28 {2015-09-16}
Windows, Galaxy: 1.02A {2017-04-05}
This is a game I own, so we can see the offline installer's date. We can see that the galaxy installer is 18 months newer than the offline one. This doesn't automatically mean that the offline installer is outdated. GOG sometimes changes the galaxy installer for technical reasons without actually changing its content, which changes the date. Usually when they do that, they don't change the version number, or they do change it by appending an "a" (this is a very clever scheme, because no other entity on the planet ever changes a version by appending an "a" to it, so it is entirely foolproof). Accordingly, MaGog's algorithm assumes that two versions that differ only by an "a" are the same (not perfect, but reduces a lot of noise). Unfortunately, in this case the two versions (gog-28 vs. 1.02A) are from two different versioning systems, so it's impossible to say if they're the same, which is why MaGog lists this game. There are two ways to know if the versions differ: (a) ask GOG (this requires you to believe in what they say, which might be difficult for some), or (b) install both versions and compare them (this obviously requires galaxy and owning the game).

EXAMPLE #4
===========
Drive on Moscow
Windows, Offline: 1.16b
Windows, Galaxy: 1.16 {2019-02-12}
This looks like the offline installer might be newer than the galaxy one. A rare occurence, but not unheard of. Hard to tell without the offline installer's date (missing since I don't own the game).

EXAMPLE #5
==========
Dungeons & Dragons: Dragonshard
Windows, Offline: N/A {2013-04-03}
Windows, Galaxy: 1.02.0001 {2017-10-05}
Sometimes GOG doesn't bother to have a version number, in which case MaGog lists it as "N/A". This can happen for either offline or galaxy installers (or both).

EXAMPLE #6
==========
Might and Magic 6-pack Limited Edition
Windows, Offline: Swords of Xeen: 1.0 {2019-03-20} *** MaM 1: 1.0 {2019-03-20} *** MaM 2: 1.0 {2019-03-20} *** MaM 3: 1.0 {2019-03-20} *** MaM 4-5: 1.0 {2019-03-20} *** MaM 6: gog-42 {2015-02-26}
Windows, Galaxy: Swords of Xeen: 1.0 {2019-03-14} *** MaM 1: 1.0 {2019-03-14} *** MaM 2: 1.0 {2019-03-14} *** MaM 3: 1.0 {2019-03-14} *** MaM 4-5: 1.0 {2019-03-15} *** MaM 6: N/A {2015-05-14}
Some games have been unbundled by GOG (i.e. one store item, multiple library boxes). MaGog lists all separate library boxes under the same one store entry, separating them with " *** ". In this, you can see that SoX and MaM1/2/3/4-5 are ok, but MaGog lists this because she's not sure about MaM6 (versions differ and galaxy installer is 3 months newer). Again, no way of knowing without either asking GOG or installing both versions.

I guess that's enough for now.

If you (or someone else) are serious about pursing this, I recommend you open a new thread, copy-paste this post of mine, and start contacting GOG about the games that you consider relevant. Let me know if and when you create this thread --- I will follow it, answer questions and offer advice.

Good luck.
Post edited October 03, 2020 by mrkgnao
Posted October 03, 2020
high rated
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mrkgnao: I'm sorry. I no longer have the willpower to do it once again, for the umpteenth time.
avatar
Time4Tea: This is terrible (the situation with offline installers, not your willpower). Could you possibly post a link to an existing thread about this, that lists which games have very outdated offline installers? It seems like a very important thing to have in my favorites.
The situation with the offline installers is in reality worse than you might think.

If you believe you now can just use something other than the installer setup to get to your game files, you are now wrong. GOG ships their installers now with a garbled mess of a cache directory of some sort and a special installer subroutine re-assembles the files, so you HAVE TO RUN THE offline installer. My guess is that GOG did this to make linux users doing repackging with WINE much more painful and forcing them more or less to use GOG Galaxy under Wine.

Oh and the offline installer makes a HTTP request to GOG after installation (for tracking installations), as well as the uninstaller. If you don't believe me, just use WireShark or a firewall which logs connections on the installer.
Post edited October 03, 2020 by coffeecup
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This is my favourite topic
Community
General discussionNEWS: GOG Galaxy to start selling EPIC games(1045 posts)(1045 posts)
(1045 posts)