So the concept of GOG is to download full copies of games without DRM and stuff, physically own them without restrictions, a trustful approach toward the gaming community and I appreciate that. Still, when we're talking about newer titles that are big and heavy in hardware requirements for many gamers it's more important to have convenient access and play them in decent quality than to physically own them.

I see cloud gaming (streaming games from central servers without having to download and install them) as a great option for the PC. fE I got a pretty weak machine. It can run some games, probably most of the old games in the GOG collection, but I can't run newer titles fluently. I'm not willing to spend lots of money on gaming gear, so I just skip these games. But if there was a cloud streaming service for the PC (OnLive went under and Nvidia's is currently just for Shield products) I would be interested in it.

How about you? Do you think that cloud gaming could be the future of the gaming industry or will people continue to download and install games on their local machines?

Where I live I can't stream games.

How do you think I feel about Cloud? :P

I think this is the way the industry would like things to go. That way they have total control over games and can charge you whatever the hell they want if you want to keep playing and also can charge subscription fees.

Personaly, I don't like it and would stop gaming altogether if things go this way. Well, I'd still have all my old games to play, but I wouldn't buy into a cloud gaming model.

I'd never use it.
I like to own my games. And I like to be able to play them OFFLINE. Not everyone has stable or fast internet. Or you don't want to be always connected to the internet. You would also be unable to modifiy your game in any way. And you would of course loose any access to your game once the service goes offline.

Do not want.

Didn't he spend about 30 episodes beating "I wanna be the guy"?

While it might be attractive to some people cause it very convenient I wouldn't use it cause its totally depandable on constant online requierements (basis of drm technology). As long as I can get games drm-free on gog I'm a happy camper.

I don't imagine such a Big-Brother scenario. After all, we all depend on basic services. We pay a monthly fee for our internet, TV or phone, electricity, heating, water supply, etc. It's not really that new. Most of us depend on these services that are managed beyond our control. And concerning the pricing, well, that's what competition is for, to keep prices reasonable.

Well yeah, but like Matruchus and myself said, take the 'Big Brother' thing out of the picture and you still have the fact that being dependent on an internet connection simply won't work for a lot of people. I'm not a big believer in the overlord theory either but it doesn't matter because there are more basic reasons it's not an all around good idea.

I don`t like the concept of cloud gaming (reasons: see posts above) but I like cloud saving for games. I hope GOG will add this soon.

I'm a really big fan of not having to be online to play a single player game. No reason for them to be able to control when, where or how I play my games. If I want to cheat, it should be allowed. If I want to hack the exe to make something work, I don't need a big gaming company telling me that its not allowed to mess with the game.

I kind of like the model we have going on for movies. There is such a ridiculous amount of content to be consumed that nobody can reasonably buy it all. For most stuff it doesn't make any sense to buy it. You want to experience it, to enjoy it, but then move on. With something like Netflix I can enjoy seeing a massive amount of content without having to buy it.

Then there is something that comes along and it is something you want to experience over and over, or matters to you in a way that you want to get your hands on it - to own it. With movies I want to own I want something tangible, or mine. Something un-tethered to an external requirement. When I don't have internet I know I have my favorites and I know I don't need anyone to enjoy what I paid for. If I'm broke I don't even need to have enough money to pay for a subscription. I think being able to own stuff and having full control over it is important. I wouldn't want to see ownership be obliterated by subscriptions.

However, there are lots of big games I've never played. I might like trying out a few without needing to commit to buying. On the other hand even though games are more expensive initially than movies, they tend to go down in price faster. I think the cost of movie ownership is way over priced in most cases. $5 movie bins usually don't have much of anything good in them, but $5 can get you some really, really good games if you hit a sale. Of course some of that may be because most of that is going to be tied to Steam or something which isn't really ownership (which is why we should be investing in GoG and a more real sense of ownership.)

If the world is just going to throw in with Steam then we might as well get rid of the pretense of ownership and just go with subscription gaming. Although with cloud services and the idea of streaming games I worry a lot about latency and video quality issues for twitch critical games (which I tend to play more of). I also worry about how the industry doesn't want to provide ownership and subscriptions, and it is really resistant to provide ownership at all. It is more than happy to create an illusion of ownership, but then when it comes to the real thing, well, we all have a long list of games we wish were on GoG but aren't.

I guess the short version is, I'm not against it as long as it's just one path to consume entertainment. I'm not against paying a low fee to consume large amounts of vapor content as long as I know that is what is happening. Once it becomes the only way to consume content, tries to masquerade as ownership, or it obliterates actual ownership or the ability to go offline I have a problem with it.

Haven't really looked into it, but it has potential. As you mention, it would help out those who don't have the hardware necessary to run the more demanding games. Further, it could reduce compatibility problems / difficulties with each user's specific hardware / OS / software configuration.

As for the fees and such, I prefer the current method: pay once, play whenever and (potentially) forever.

Thanks alot for your profound feedback guys!

Yea, I see it as an additional service that people could really enjoy. There is no need to abandon one for the other. You could still dl your games and play them locally if you liked that more. I'm sure a platform like GOG will continue to support all options.

I find that good things are both, old and new, or maybe neither, just timeless. Cloud computing is not a new concept. Before there was home computers and eventually PCs, there was the mainframes, supercomputers shared by lots of users. Ok, they were not really meant or used for entertainment back then, but still. Nowadays, as connectivity has improved so rapidly this concept could be a nice alternative to heavy local hardware.

I personally am not a possessive type. I'm happy to have access to the things I like. My harddrive is mostly unused. I couldn't do without my internet connection, that's true. But why must I? Why would I want to pull the plug when the content is out there in the cloud? And excuse me, there is so much free content, so much entertaining stuff that I can watch over and over again. Ok, maybe there is some ads in between but I can accept that.

Internet has become a basic service for me tho I was born in the 70s and lived through the 80s, where there was none of it, where we had our C64 and a couple of floppy disks to play around with. I'm glad these days are over. I'm glad that I can use this media, can access content, communicate with people for just a little money. For me the internet is about sharing, making content available globally, so you don't have to store it locally. Maybe our nostalgia sometimes hinders us to see the benefits and potential of this innovation.