Good. No need to write anything on my own. Same here (minus the buy from steam thing) :)

MOAR.

About sums it up.

I want me some Oblivion love!

Well, I freakin' love Oblivion!

Hey Gog and Bethesda, Here's a crazy Idea: take advantage of the new Fallout craze and give us Fallout 3....and New Vegas. Especially New Vegas! *nod*

I suspect that Bethesda will only bring Skyrim to GOG.com when GOG Galaxy has a comparable integrated mod workshop like feature like Steam has, so that people who buy the game and are interested in modding will have a relatively similar experience and ease of use rather than dividing the overall game features/user-friendliness etc. between storefronts with different experiences. Some gamers will naturally want a similar experience no matter where they purchase the game, while other gamers wont care if there are differences so long as they can still use the feature somehow, and yet other gamers would perhaps prefer to see games here and don't even care at all about mods. Either way however, a game developer decides themselves whether they wish to provide a unified experience or to give a different experience to customers depending on where they purchase their game. Some companies try to stick with a unified way of doing things for their game or games, and others may have other motivations or perhaps just want to max out their sales opportunities and put less concern on a unified experience.

Take "Full Spectrum Warrior" for example. On GOG there is no multiplayer, while on Steam there is multiplayer - so I bought it on Steam on sale even though I really wanted to buy it here. I wasn't going to give up the multiplayer feature option. That company decided to divide their userbase which isn't right or wrong but rather just their choice. Other companies may not want to divide their userbase on such an issue as it can have negative consequences also such as people buying the game for multiplayer, downloading and installing it and finding out that the GOG version didn't have multiplayer. Sure it's easy to blame them for not reading every letter on the game card to find out in advance, but it's not unreasonable for someone to make the assumption that the game is the same no matter where you buy it either, and that can lead to an angry customer regardless of whether one takes the stance that the company was wrong for dividing the userbase, or the customer was wrong for not reading the GOG game page to find out whether multiplayer was supported. An angry customer is an angry customer whether it is justified or not and that can have backlash. That will vary from game to game, person to person and each one is a unique case really.

I think some companies just do not want to take certain chances outright at dividing the userbase either on any of their games or perhaps on specific titles. One could argue that they're dividing the userbase by requiring people to use Steam and not having the ability to get a game DRM-free on GOG also as an option and there is truth to that too. In the end, every person's desires can't always be met for business or other reasons and someone has to make a call.

I think there are many games released in the last 5-10 years that are very Steam integrated which their publishers would only consider releasing on GOG if they are willing to not only embrace DRM-free, but also have similar integrated infrastructure present to what Steam's APIs provide. Galaxy certainly is providing similar features such as achievements, matchmaking, auto-updates, DLC integration and other features in the future too, but it's just not there yet. Even when it is there though, games need to go through some non-trivial re-engineering to retrofit them from Steam to Galaxy and that costs money too, so some games are likely to get it and others may not.

Having said all of that, I have faith in what GOG hopes to accomplish and that they'll continue to provide an ever more compelling platform to convince publishers to come on board in the future and that we will see more and more titles show up that we never would have expected to come here, possibly even including Skyrim some day. :) I do hope they create a MOD workshop in Galaxy though as that's a great integrated feature to have rather than needing to use 3rd party offsite tools or copy files by hand. :)

My guess on another forum is around 2027 (~12 years).
http://www.gog.com/forum/general/what_game_will_never_be_released_on_gogcom

As far as mods, I'd be more interested in them integrating modding functionality from the Nexus sites within Galaxy. If they could reach some sort of agreement with that site, they could integrate a number of games that exist on GOG with an already established mod database.

Out of interest which of the Bethesda releases is the most recent?.
Only problem is, a significant number of mod authors and mods are not available on said steam mod workshop for skyrim - as a poster above indicated - Nexus is very very popular mod site lot of people use -- its very handy download mods separately and not having one auto update and break.......

Morrowind, 2002
Redguard, 1998
Quake, 1998
Battlespire, 1997
Daggerfall, 1996
Ultimate DOOM, 1995
DOOM II + Final DOOM, 1994
Arena, 1994

Tell me if you also want the Fallouts included in the list.

I have a problem with the whole mod workshop concept. Mods and mod integration should be an external component made by and for players. Mods and mod workshops should never have been integrated into games as release features. That's another reason why Steam is ass. It created a complicated and unnecessary feature that limits access, bottlenecks innovation, and restricts publishing avenues. Bad ideas flying around in all directions these days.

Agreed.

Sounds more like a "let's add DRM to mods" thingy - it may sound altrusitic on the surface, but allows "them" to be the gatekeeper controlling if you get to use whichever mods or not.

That's not a view that everyone shares however. It isn't about being necessary or unnecessary, it is about convenience. Owning a computer is not necessary, nor owning a car - but depending on one's personal desires in life owning these objects can be extremely convenient.

The benefits that an integrated mod workshop provide to me personally as a gamer are:

1) If I do not use or care about mods, then an integrated mod workshop feature has no effect on me because I simply wont be using it at all. It is optional, I am not forced to install mods nor to care about them.

2) If I do use and care about mods, then I'm still not forced to use it if I don't want to. There are other sources of mods out there such as Nexusmods and one can use the Nexus Mod Manager if preferred, or just download the mod files manually and unzip them in the correct place if that is the desired level of control wanted. Again, integrated mod support can be ignored and have no impact on the user who wants to do it themselves.

3) If I use and care about mods or am even just curious, I can explore the world of mods with a very easy to use integrated user interface which is either built directly into the game (ie: Portal 2), and/or available in the distributor's gaming client interface (ie: Steam), and it is extremely easy to use to subscribe to mods and install them, uninstall them, rate them and keep track of them, share with friends etc. This is something that millions of gamers myself included want as a part of our gaming experience - integrated convenience. There is next to zero impact on people who do not want to use it for whatever reasons and so no particularly good reason to not do it.

Calling it DRM is a fear argument that holds no water. You can go on Steam and install Skyrim mods by downloading them through the web browser or an FTP program, then unzipping them at the commandline in Windows and moving the files to where they need to be if you like, there is absolutely nothing whatsoever about copy protection involved in the experience.

Integrated mod workshops are conveniences, just like having integrated automatic update mechanisms (which games have done for eons now both standalone and through gaming client services alike).

In the end though, if someone doesn't like these features they simply don't have to use them at all, but game companies are not going to stop adding conveniences for the masses because of the fears of extremely small number of people's irrational fears and resistance to change.

If a game company does integrate this sort of feature in a way that does actually restrict freedom or cause a real world problem for someone however with a specific game - then don't buy that one game. One game company putting out one game with a feature designed to be restrictive for evil purposes and provides a bad experience doesn't mean 50 other companies can't do the same type of feature and do it in a way that provides a great experience with flexibility. We vote with our wallets or we at least have the potential to do so. That's why I will buy games on GOG, and will buy some games on Steam with much more scrutiny, but will not ever buy games on Origin or Uplay. I've got my ideology and only spend my money where a game, it's distributor, publisher and developer all provide an experience for that title that I find to be acceptable. I welcome integrated mod workshops which are done for end user convenience and not to restrict or limit what a user can do. If a company's heart is in the right place then chances are the majority will love it. If they're doing something unpopular with consumers then chances are that it will backfire on them (as Bethesda learned this year for example).

In the end, everything becomes exactly as it should be based on supply and demand and whether or not people open their wallets and hand out their money. :)

I would love to see Oblivion, Fallout 3 and New Vegas on GOG. Also Doom 3 BFG Ediiton would nice to have here as well

In my opinion, it's great to have an official place where you can get mods but it shouldn't be tied to the store you bought your game on.

So, tell me how I can download Workshop mods without owning the game on Steam.
Last time I checked you could not do that.