Pretty much. I've talked to a few developers before who have said that, because of the APIs, they'd have to extensively retool a game in order to put it out DRM-free, so they weren't able to do it even though they actually wanted to.

They shouldn't have fallen into lock-in trap to begin with. But Steam makes it easy.

They have to or they won't get games... it's only going to get worse for them if they don't. The only thing they can do is make it as easy, if not easier than Steam. In an ideal world yes, but it's not an ideal world... and Steam doesn't want devs looking past it. Devs don't want to build the API's (unless building their own client) and their already to far locked into the Steam ecosystem.

And besides it's already to late for that argument on GOG, see Galaxy MP, achievements, etc. GOG has already built comparable API's...

Also being on Linux is even worse in that regard. Valve is literally the only reason Linux has become somewhat viable for gaming.

It may sound good on paper, but the companies that basically control PC Gaming (ie the gatekeepers) aren't going to spend time developing API's like network features that can be used outside of their ecosystem because this doesn't benefit them and to many devs today have become reliant on them in order to save time and resources.

Uhm, that's too much like saying people involved in open source development don't benefit from their own contributions to projects meant to be shared with others. That others would be leeching off of the contributors, and the contributors would suffer at the expense of others crushing the contributors with the contributors's own works.

I'm not the one to rehash the benefits of open development and sharing of code, I don't have the prose for that. However, I've heard there's been a lot already said about that out on the World Wide Web, even beyond proof of concept.

Speaking of which, what if GOG and Steam worked on such open developments, or together promoted such a development by game developers and other contributors?

No it isn't because people that do open source do it for a variety of reasons but mostly for the love of creating something open and free for all the use. Companies like Valve and GOG are doing for their bottom line, but yea in other ways they could potentially benefit but that's not important, controlling the market is... it's that simple, and making something open and free means your competitor benefits from your work. That's not to say Valve doesn't have an interest in providing fee and open API's (I believe they have on some things) but for the most part those interest don't align with sharing.

It's all about the intent behind the work and the motives...

Would this be great for us the consumers, yea that would be pretty cool. One unified set of API's that anyone (any client) could use, meaning we wouldn't be separated in online MP, meaning things like friend list could be shared between platforms. It all sounds good but Valve doesn't want to share in something like that, and like or not Valve holds all the cards with a near monopoly on the market.

If they did don't you think GOG/EA/Uplay would have all already did so or attempted to do so... and it's far to late to develop something like that now and hope it gains traction among devs. Devs have made it clear they feel Steam is "awesome sauce" so to speak... and GOG is an after thought.

But GOG has the ability to change that by competing with similar tools (ie API's) that devs have come to expect... that way they can take their game and move it from Steam to GOG with minimal development time, less resources, and without having to cut features.

These API's do things like provide network features, cloud support, achievement support, VAC for online, mod workshop, etc... anything Steam provides devs to integrate into their game. These API's are code that devs can "hook" into so to speak without having to code this stuff themselves. It makes providing this stuff easier and faster since Steam has already did the leg work. See Steamworks...

We know a enough based on dev feedback. They have expressed how much easier Steam is compared to GOG. We hear about "communication issues" with devs -> GOG all the time, because this stuff is handled via email.That's the thing with Steam you don't have to talk to anyone... this is by design. I'm not sure how the big AAA games are handled, but for indies you just pay a fee and once enough people vote in Steam Greenlight and say that want to play your game, your greenlit and then you can upload your game, patches, whatever all from your Steam account with no input from Valve.

Now I'm not saying that system is perfect and that it isn't abused because it is... but if I can upload patches/ my games from my Steam account, and get a whole butch of API's from Steam to better my product vs GOG where I have to manually submit patches and games (which depending on the method could take a long time), wait for them to test them and release them sometimes days later (and during that time take complains as to why the patch isn't on GOG), have to go through a long approval process, can't have DRM, and get access to zero API's (before Galaxy). Which one if I'm a dev looking at the market that Steam controls probably 90 - 95% of do you think I'm going to go with and which one am I not going to bother with?

What's hard with uploading patches? Make a binary delta (for previous version) + full new release update, and upload both to GOG server (then GOG will review and package it as needed, but upload itself is trivial, no?). There are also sync tools that work over the Internet which can automate this task.

I hear this complaint often (hard to manage patches), but I don't get what the difficulty is exactly.

I'm not sure if it necessarily more difficult or if it just that it's far less convenient. From what I understand with Steam this is as simple logging into your account and hitting submit, which then means that patch is instantly available. With GOG I have no idea, I'm not even sure they have any type of web portal or anything to submit games/patches... I've not heard devs talk about it anyway. I've seen one instance of a dev saying they had to FTP a patch for Linux users on GOG because Linux didn't have Galaxy yet.

So I think it comes done to the process being entirely streamlined on Steam, regardless of platform...

Then you get into the other area where GOG test patches, and takes days to upload them. This causes problems with devs because as I said, they are left fielding questions about where the GOG patch is and why GOG is taking so long. Devs really like when nothing gets between them and their customers. Not to mention this pisses off customers who are waiting for patches to new games, when GOG lags behind Steam. But hopefully with Galaxy now, this will start to become a thing of the past.

I've decided to try a bit harder at reaching the big publishers. Its has always been a worry and now confirmed that using official channels for the bug guys has no effect.

So I'm going to try a bit of a more direct approach and see what affect I can have.

I disagree. If you aren't going to answer the questions, then why host an AMA anyhow? It appeases no one to have a ton of questions with officially no answer.

As much as I'd like to know the details (Sorry but Phil McKrackin at Take-Square games is a jerk and happy to let the IP rot), but I can understand why they have to be vague. Personally I got some confirmation regarding a few things out of it.

I agree. I would have been fine had they answered: Sorry dudes, we cannot/want not say anything useful to the questions you sent to us. We thought you were asking about our favorite Netflix series or something like this, but all these questions about our work ....

I just didn't want to say it that strongly.

Because the idea of a Q&A was brought up a long time ago, and a few very...persistent forumites absolutely would not let the idea go. No sooner had fables started as the new CM, when this old "promise" made by a previous Blue was laid at her feet. It had pretty much become a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" scenario, so they probably figured they might as well be damned for doing in this case.
Given the focus of a lot of the questions, and the fact that those which had, in the past, already been asked in the forums had been met with radio silence, it was pretty much a foregone conclusion that there were going to be a lot of vague, unsatisfying answers given here.

Because they can answer some questions, and not others. So why not? I got an answer about the Neverhood, which they never talked before about.