Like i said, don't think it had much if anything to do with 'GOG treatment' as you put it, although having said that, im sure there are certain games (more than a few) Gog (available no where else) seemed to have put a fair effort in technical wise to make sure they worked with normal systems.

The other thing is the legal agreements they would have had to come to with the publishers/owners of the product - if it was complicated to get agreement in place, and it happened because Gog was able to get it done, i cannot blame them for getting a specified agreement. Gog is still a business & BG/BG2 are well known brand in gaming circles - like any business they want to see fruits of their labour. Note im not saying they Gog should be the only seller of the discussed product mate.

Wasn't this only a recent happening?

so? the point is you can no longer claim that Valve games are Steam-exclusive.

Then I guess my point is that we should not be talking about Steam/Origin Exclusives but rather Steam/Origin required games?

Baldurs Gate has to be made fit for Steamworks somehow. In the same manner you could make Steamwork titles fit for other distribution channels. Just license the Steamworks API and leave the DRM out or replace by some other DRM. Saying they just aren't released doesn't say anything about why. The answer is: They don't want competition. In a way exactly the same case as with Baldurs Gate from GOG, only GOG has smaller leverage.

wut? a game doesn't have to be a SteamWorks title in order to be sold on Steam. in fact, the vast majority of Steam games are NOT SteamWorks titles.

no. SteamWorks is a complete suite, not just a DRM solution. it comprises the client and its download channels, automatic patching, DLC distribution, multiplayer matchmaking and hosting, cloud saving, achievements etc.

you can't just tear SteamWorks out of a SteamWorks title.

who? Valve? their games have just been made available on Impulse...

Baldur's Gate hasn't been GoG-exclusive for a while now...

You're right. The preparations (adding to a list in the client, ...) are probably minimal.

I don't want this. I want to open Steamworks for everybody. License it. Because it is whole suite it should work. Just leave the DRM out of the whole suite.

Publishers of Steam exclusive titles? When is half life coming to GOG?

Sign of GOG's smaller leverage in this game.

Confused. What Steam Exclusive titles? If they're on Impulse then they are not Steam exclusive. Just because they're not on Gog, does not mean it's Steam Exclusive .

but SteamWorks IS open to everybody. SteamWorks is not a DRM scheme per se. the DRM only comes from the fact that SteamWorks functions account-based, as does Origin or Battle.net, though the latter does not require its own client.

the whole point of SteamWorks is to provide an all-in-one package for publishers. one account, one multiplayer hub, one distribution channel.

look, if somebody decides to publish exclusively through Steam then that's their choice. you reach an audience of some 30 million gamers and get as much exposure as you can possibly get as far as PC gaming is concerned. for many publishers, that's apparently enough.

hell, Notch made a fortune selling MineCraft exclusively on his own website! and you want to tell me selling a game on Steam alone isn't enough?!?

When is Half-Life coming to GoG? when is WarCraft 2? when is The Need for Speed? what's the point of that question? compared to what PC gaming has to offer, the selection on GoG is tiny.

obviously, but why should they be GoG-exclusive in the first place? like i said, the games require no work to get to run on modern systems, so why exactly would they even have to be GoG-exclusive for a limited period of time? there's no reason, unless GoG was the first digital distributor to ask for the games.

some people hate steam here with a passion , no facts you post will have an impact on them, the smart thing to do is , enjoy steam yourself add friends who like it and watch the steam hate threads here and have fun. Gone are the days when people just wanted to play games and have fun , instead we waste time arguing on unwanted stuff like drm and exclusive crap.
its not just here , they argue like this on steam forums too, what a waste of time

Almost always Nobridges and Epsylon if it's on the Steam forums ^^

Just like nitpicking :)

And yes, despite it being a good deal right now, I don't think Gog's prices match up to something like the Master Edition :)

But, it's a collection so it's not completely fair to compare. But if you're interested in that it's the better deal by far, and I am ^^

you're right.

these days, it seems to me that a lot of gamers are looking for excuses NOT to play a game. what's up with that? as a passionate gamer, i hate to miss out on a promising title, yet i look around and the impression i'm getting is that an increasing number of (vocal) gamers are doing just the opposite: they're actually searching for arguments against games, for excuses that "allow" them NOT to play the games. this boggles my mind.

i know its mind boggling when a drm-free champion has stats like this on the forum
Join Date: Jun 2009
Reputation: 1402
Posts: 4,017 [99.9% of them are drm hate posts/anti steam etc]
and makes thread saying has no time to play the games and wants to sell off the game accounts, really is this what gaming is all about ?

It's a metagame, you see.