Hi I am new on this site, but I think I have some suggestions to get GOG.com to get more attention I think.

GOG should create a program manager like the one of "St**m" lol, so that it allows you to know what your friends are playing, manage your account, be able to receive messages while playing, see the new hot stuff, etc.

I know that GOG is about gaming freedom, but I think a program like that can be done without having to add DRM :D

I don't know if GOG already has something like that, I have not seen it; but if it exists, I am sorry for this thread :(.

This comes up from time to time, and the consensus is, why. They do have a downloader program that they're working on and that gets released from time to time.

A client that's more than just a glorified FTP or HTTP client would just cause problems for people trying to run the games on platforms other than windows without much benefit. Plus, at least for the older games, they don't get patched much.

That being said, now that they've done the unthinkable and watered down their mark, they might as well release a client that has patching facilities as an option.

To repeat what I said here:
http://www.gog.com/en/forum/general/gog_frontend_like_steam/post7

"As long as the client is totally and ultimately optional without exception whatsoever, I guess I have no problem. But honestly I do not want one."

As it is I have enough problems already with the new downloader needing .NET Framework as the requirement while the last one was working fine for me with wine in Linux.

How so?

There are people here whinging on about how indie games are "corrupting the GOG purity". It's getting rather tiring to be honest.

Mission creep and the likelihood of the community deteriorating even more than it has over the last couple years.

What's more they're trying to combine disparate communities into one forum and hoping that it will work. It could work, but as somebody who has been around here for quite a while and been on the internet for longer, I don't hold up much optimism. You're entitled to your opinion, I just happen to think that it's daft to spend years building up the brand and the community to change it so significantly. There are plenty of other places where one can get DRM free indie games, there are relatively few places where you can get DRM free old games.

I have no problem with them expanding, but trying to do so on the same site without providing a place for people to discuss both of the types of games they're trying to sell is hardly without risk.

I agree with this, although maybe not for the same reasons. Clients can be useful, but not if each service has their own separate one - then they become kind-of a burden. If every service has an API then someone independent can make a unified client - that would be much better. I have a feeling that we'll be seeing two or three of these crop up in the next year or so.

Not a fan of these clients, unless one can opt out of their use. I just don't like the way they shoehorn you into doing things their way, when I know my way is best for the manner in which I like to handle this type of stuffisses.

In the future, you can make suggestions here: http://www.gog.com/wishlist/site.

I think that the forum community, while vocal, represents a small percentage of their customer base so I doubt very much that a clash of personalities in the forums would hurt their bottom-line much (plus, if it gets bad, they can always hire a moderator for that which for a company that already has dozens of employees like GOG is a small overhead).

However, I must say, I've been curious about Indy games for a while now.

If GOG wasn't offering them, I probably wouldn't be playing them, because I only buy from GOG at this point (budget reasons).

Their price are very affordable (not much different from the rest of GOG's catalog) and I'm getting a bit jaded with higher budget games anyways (big production value, but often lack originality).

So to me, it sounds interesting.

The thing is that now that they've also done away with their pricing scheme there isn't any reason why anybody should be buying from GOG rather than directly from the developer.

Most of the indie games I've bought over the last few years were DRM free and where the developer got pretty much all of the money.

Indie games aren't likely to get any cheaper here than they are already available from many developers or through the ridiculous number of bundles. There are already enough of them at bargain prices due to the glut on the market that you're not likely to see them any less expensive or any more convenient by being brought here.

Now, retro games, many of those are hard to get DRM free or otherwise and it's really where they ought to be focusing. Burying the games under what's likely to be a substantial number of indie releases isn't something that I would expect to help that aspect of their business.

That being said, I don't really care that much, but usually my intuition on these matters proves itself in time, I just hope that this is one of those times where I'm wrong.

I understand that in the long run that they need to expand their offerings, but doing so on the same site commingled with the older games is just a really bad way of doing it. I was already annoyed at them over the give away fiasco from last December, but I get the distinct feeling that GOG has forgotten to worry about those of us that have been loyal customers over the last few years.

It would have made far, far more sense for them to expand their product lines into C64, Amiga and various console games that aren't readily available as it would maintain the branding of the site and fill a need that isn't as well served as it ought to be.

But, that's just my personal feelings.

Until they a) stop releasing old games, or b) start releasing old games entirely at the $15 price point, I am not worried. The only way GOG is going to be able to compete with the other DD services is by expanding. These are just growing pains. If the other services like Steam and Origin eat up the entire market, there won't BE any more games for GOG to release in 5 years.

About the community, though, the best way to make a good community is to BE AWESOME. When you are awesome, it rubs off on the people around you, and then they become awesome as well. That's how the community works now, and increasing the size of the community won't "dilute" the awesomeness, it will only make it spread more... provided we continue our quest for personal awesome.


Back on topic, I don't want a client. The downloader is plenty enough for me, especially now that it can download the extras. (Some of those extras are pretty large... like Alone in the Dark 2 + 3 as ENTIRE GAMES in the "extras" section.)

I'm fine with it as long as it's optional. But what I'd really like to see are the friends features you get through the Steam client. See friends' play histories, recent forum posts, reviews, wishlists and so on. This could of course be done in a hypothetical GOG client, but could also just be added as a site feature.

We already have one. It's called "Windows".