I'm thinking about adding "Bundle XPadder with certain $9.99 games" to the Wishlist. Would any of you fellows support that? How many of you actually use XBox or XBox-style pads (I use a Logitech Chillstream which uses the 'Xbox controller for Windows' drivers)? What about PS3 gamepad support?

I use xpadder on some games (eg Divinity 2 ED), its great.

No, it makes no sense.

If they did that they'd have to pay a cut to the developer for every licence they sell with a game even though the most anyone needs is one Xpadder licence.

If I buy 5 games with Xpadder bundled, GOG has to pay a cut for all 5 even though 1 would do me fine (and I in fact already own Xpadder so they'd be paying for 5 useless licences instead of 4).

This.

However, if they could strike a deal with the developer to do a standalone release of XPadder on GOG, it would be a different story.

Free, granted, but better? I'm not disagreeing, as I haven't used any of them, but I did research the features of a number of them a while ago, and it seemed to me that XPadder was by far the most advanced.

Can you recommend other free alternatives?

Please forgive my ignorance but what is XPadder for? I have a Logitch controller that defaults to X-Box controller functionality but it also has a switch to change to analog mode for older games that would require that. Is this still something that would be of benefit to me for certain games somehow?

Also, it sounds like XPadder is a commercial product that costs something to buy? Is that right?

The thing is that lots of old games have no form of gamepad support, so you need a piece of software that maps the various buttons/axis' on the gamepad to keys. Yes, that's right.

It would almost have to be stand alone, because you also have the problem of what if 1 customer buys 7 games with it bundled. It would be very difficult to try and put a number on how many copies were getting serious use.

Thanks very much for clearing that up for me. I've never used it but I'm pretty sure my controller comes with its own software for that purpose. Wouldn't most controllers tend to do the same? Maybe XPadder is just a nicer well made solution though?

Motioninjoy is pretty good, aimed at PS3 controllers but works for general ones too. Things like GLOVEPie offer huge amounts of customization, though it's aimed more at games that offered no controller support at all. JoytoKey is also pretty popular, though I haven't used it myself. Heck, I think technically there are even freeware versions of Xpadder too, at least according to the product's wiki entry.

An Xpadder license costs $9.99. It would be impossible to bundle it with a $9.99 game without raising the price of the package significantly. Most people would never use Xpadder, so it wouldn't make sense to charge them extra for something they don't need. In addition there's the problem of ending up with multiple licenses that others have pointed out.

Just buy it once from the developer, it's only ten bucks.

Not this.

My notion was that GoG would pay a contract fee to the developer of Xpadder for a "GoG exclusive" version, the same way Western Digital bundles a specific version of Acronis TrueDrive that only works with WD hard disks. GoG has to have enough money by now that bundling such an "exclusive" version of the software (embedded within each game) would only raise each game's price by three or four dollars.

Even if it didn't raise the price significantly, it's still pointless. See my previous post.

How many games would benefit from Xpadder ? (i have maybe 1 out of 30ish Gog games)