That time when they offered free games to people that owned the Steam version. That time when they made a hilarously infunctional client/launcher. That time they introduced "achievements" and assorted other cereal box backside level customer loyalty schemes like Valve does. That time they started to hide the exe installers in your account and started to call those "backup installers" like those are not really why you bought the game here. That time they introduced "player profiles", never created a functional opt-out option, and sent their community into a flat out riot. That time they created their version of Steam Early Access so they could sell unfinished shit too. And right now they're desperately trying to create a program that lets developers automatically make a bad port of their Steam game to sell it on gog.

The list goes on.

GOG didn't really "make a play for Steam market share". They simply started scraping between Valve's toes.

The lens I usually watch this through is through extrinsic vs. intrinsic reward schemes. Intrinsic: You play a game because it's fun to play the game. Extrinsic: You play a game because you get virtual medals for doing so.

I don't care for achievements, I think they're just pathetic popups of poop, but if the younger players want those because Valve has somehow made them the gold standard of PC gaming, and if I can get a DRM free installer that doesn't have those, I can let people have and enjoy their achievements, no problem.

But if I play a game that's clearly only fun when you get showered with virtual trophies all the time, I do get to call it the game design from hell.

Important point in my opinion.

It's a perpetual motion device that only runs in reverse, and it's been at work on gog for some years now. Developers release on GOG way later than day one and should know that a week two release costs them and gog more than 90% of the potential sales. Month 2, month 3? Forget about it. These devs see the sales, think "not worth my time", and release even later or not at all next time.

At the same time, gog is getting a reputation for late releases, more people flock to the monopoly, meaning even less sales for future actual day one releases.

Take Atlas Fallen. Big kudos to Deck 13 that they'll release here. Huge kudos that they announce it, and openly say that and when they'll release. But they'll release in September, four months after the Steam release. And these are professionals. They KNOW they'll sell jack shit here four months after the game is out on Steam or piratebay or whatever crappy ftp the asshats are using these days. They release here as a status symbol. It signals "We don't really like the monopoly, we're actually the rebels". But the flag they're waving is the size of a post-it.

Nowadays, a GOG release is a pity release by developers who can't bear their fans nagging them all the time, or a status symbol. And when they eventually do their pity release on GOG, they will promptly be labeled something something second citizen, and/or bombarded with negative reviews by people who never bought the game.

And a developer whose releases are actively greeted with open hostility on gog is very unlikely to ever come back. Doesn't mean people have to eat every shit developers are dumping on GOG, but there might be a big red line crossed when people who never bought the game on gog are throwing a hissy fit over missing achievements or soundtrack mp3s or cosmetic patches or censorship that isn't.

I mean, I'm definitely still bummed out that my version of Return to Monkey Island doesn't have the adorably useless pre-order item even though I bought it day one here and would have pre-ordered if that ever was a possibility. But it was a great game, and that eventually counted more.

Positive outlook: Image & Form / Thunderful seem to be very loyal to the gog community, and I usually love their games. The Plague Tale makers release here day one, and I really hope it pays out for them. Wadjet Eye's next game Old Skies will probably be on GOG day one, whenever that may be, and I just love that stuff. Outcast 2 is coming, and that really looks to be incredible once they manage to get the awkward controls in order.

Maybe you can think of a few devs too who never let you down on GOG.

That's the server-side part. It still needs the client-side part for people who are using Galaxy and connecting to the server and another client-side part for people who want DRM-free games that don't need to download from the server...

That's irrelevant. If one does the transaction on Steam, it's giving money to Valve. It's telling them "good job for making this not available elsewhere!" It's reinforcing those same facts to the developer.

The answer is NOT TO GIVE MONEY to the DRM system peddlers. Nudge the developer to stop being so anti-consumer, and move on. Every transaction on a Steam is a transaction in favor of more DRM, a transaction in favor of more lock-in and exclusives, and a boost saying "I hate PC gaming and want it to be as shitty as possible!"

I can't help but agree with you 100%. It's sad gaming world we live in nowadays . I'm up voting your post!

Side note to my comments before:

I think it's also important to remember that GOG has a certain kind of "main audience" i,e, old school PC gamer types and this might reflect on which games do well here. Something like River City Girls or whatever would probably sell a LOT worse here than a CRPG or point and click adventure game. So this developer's comments shouldn't be applied to GOG as a whole.

It wouldn't surprise me at all if something like Pillars of Eternity sold a LOT better on GOG than something like his game.

BRAVO!!!
Take my upvote!

Yup, hence why the meme Good Guy Valve is a thing and still persists.

In the world of video game publishers that are greed with microtransactions such as EA, Ubisoft, and Square Enix; Valve is one of the few publishers that have the esteemed reputation of making good games without microtransactions (I think the only others being a handful like CDPR and PlatinumGames before their flops). Due to Valve not really making any recent flops in games, they are still held in very high regard.

They don't even consider that good achievements exist.
For example the challenges in platformers or roguelikes, that extend the gameplay and allow some competition.
And the "Make your own" phrase is just silly, it could be applied to any game feature, or even the game itself.. -_-'

Even if one is an hypocrite, he can be still right in some occasions.
And Sweeney is correct about Steam, even if he would do the same thing (or worse).

RCG is a niche title in a niche store, the game didn't released on day-1 where 75% of the same often come from, when you rerelease a title probably some people will buy it, but not enough to justify an employee exclusively to upload the build on another store, this is a common problem with medium size studios. My opinion is that once they polish the game enough, they are going to release the game here,

I admire your conviction but truth is the war is over, Steam won. There's no fight left to have, you can change nothing. If you refuse to buy DRM'd games then more power to ya, but a Steam boycott accomplishes f**k all.

Just about. I'm probably going to end up buying a physical Switch version off Play-Asia and calling it a day, and if those are out, eh. I don't need DRM and I'm not some game-addicted crackhead, but I know where the industry is going. It's going to never grow beyond the tribal base that it has, and that's because the businesses involved are more content to enforce their tribes' position than to loosen up even a little bit for the broader market.

You wouldn't, because M$ where the first to forcefully introduce them, as far as I can tell/remember, and Sony on the PS3 took after it. The first PS3 titles didn't have any.

But to be fair and clear: games had them way before. Looking at titles like Vagrant Story (PS), where you got 'titles' for certain tasks, beating the game within 10hrs and such. Or as a real hard example Star Ocean 3 (PS2), which even had it's own save block on the memory card just for the trophies and lot's of tasks to complete.

And if trophies would be universally such a bad thing, why are there even attempts like retroarchivements?

With all such gimmicks introduced, I am just sad that you seldom get anything out of it. Getting an achievement should also give you a reward in game to not disjoin it from the actual game. And that's actually a thing I am missing most. All the stuff you would/could unlock ingame are now outside of the game or even have to be bought (like costumes/skins for example).

I don't think there was much of a war to begin with. Steam dominates the market at the moment. Doesn't mean it will do so in 10 years.

I agree that personally boycotting it won't change much.

However, there is something intrinsically human about not wanting to support something you despise.

I'm personally not ashamed to admit that I viscerally HATE the way they operate and what they represent. If I could press a button that would make that company implode (without killing anyone of course), I would press it right now and would consider that I've done the Steam user base a great service by making it very clear to them how much they've been duped and not letting them waste any more money than they already have on that sand castle.

To be even clearer, it's not even the ownership vs rental argument (although I do strongly advocate for an ownership alternative to rental always being available when it is feasible). I'm fine with rental when it is transparent and honest (and I personally use Netflix). When it comes right down to it, it is the sheer dishonesty and greed of the platform that really gets to me. It is really about transgressing core personal values for me.

Given the above, not argument about the futility of it would convince me to spend even 1$ to support them, although I'd gleefully spend 10$ to undermine them.

Agreed. I personally do not boycott Steam per se, I just refuse to buy a purely digital product that I do not de facto own. No proof of purchase and ownership besides a database entry somewhere. So if I find boxed games that require Steam activation, I don't really have a problem with that and still get them. But I never buy boxes that only have codes in them, it has to contain at least one disc.

In that case, if Steam kicks the bucket, I can grab the box with the game and beat with it over the head any would be complainers when I go and torrent the game so I can play what I paid for. So all the games I have on Steam (a little over a hundred) are either freebies or boxed games that required Steam. That is the only way my Steam library ever grows. Haven't spent a cent through Steam directly in my 12 years of having an account there.

On GOG, I have the offline installers, which I can just burn on a disc and treat as any other old retail games I bought, so I have no issues purchasing here.