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General discussionIntroducing Games in Development(760 posts)(760 posts)
(760 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted January 28, 2016
Excellent hand-picked games, 14-day refund policy, always DRM-free.

We want GOG.com to be the home of games that are both excellent and really worth your time.
In today's gaming world, we're seeing more and more titles that become hits before development dwindles down. We want to give you a way to enjoy what these games have to offer, a way that's comfortable and fair to you — the GOG.com way: that means evaluating each and every game, a 14-day no-questions-asked refund policy, and more.




That's why today, we're introducing the first five games in development:
Starbound (-33%)
Ashes of the Singularity (-25%)
Project Zomboid (-40%)
TerraTech (-30%)
The Curious Expedition (-15%)







The GOG.com way.
First and foremost: we're hand-picking only the games we can truly stand behind. Offering a selection of the most promising titles, and those most highly requested on the Community Wishlist, is our way of avoiding bloat and ensuring that every game will be worth your time.

It takes some confidence to discover games that are still being shaped — and to build that trust, every game in development comes with a simple refund policy: 14 days, no questions asked. It doesn't matter if you're having technical issues, if you don't think the game is sufficiently fleshed out, or if it simply doesn't click with you — all games in development can be returned for any reason within 14 days of purchase.

The GOG Galaxy client should also come in handy for games in development. It lets you control updates manually if you want, while the rollback feature allows you to easily restore any earlier version of your game if an update breaks something or makes unwanted changes. For games in development, rollback will also track and create historical snapshots throughout a game's development. That means you can always revisit any point in a game's history — for fun, or for science.






It's your call.
For those of you who prefer to wait for the final release, nothing will change. Once a game leaves active development, we will be making the announcement and giving the newest release proper exposure. Basically, business as usual.






More info.
Surely you have questions. You'll find many of the answers in the <span class="bold">games in development FAQ, including more details on the new refund policy. Our User Agreement has also been expanded to accommodate games in development — check out sections 6.12, 6.13, and 6.14 to find all the new information.




Enjoy your time with games in development!
Post edited January 28, 2016 by Konrad
Posted January 28, 2016
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vivalanwo: the risk of Early Access comes months later when it becomes apparent the devs have slowed down updates and dropped communication. Or worse have stopped updating altogether.
That is the main problem and risk yes and no matter how hard I think about it, I fail to see any solution to it but to avoid EA all together. But since I do think that it produces quality experiences and is a viable model when done properly, I still think it is good that GoG adopts it (challenging Steam is always good).

In fact, we can see Steam as a testing environment of sorts, if an EA game is getting its regular updates on Steam for a good while, it might eventually appear here. Curating in-dev games properly is the key!
Posted January 28, 2016
You know, for all the bits and quirks I think you have (regional pricing and strange sale cut rounding rules among others, hello Smutney, I hope I didn't make you sweat too much :D), you sometimes put some interesting things out.

I'm not much for videogames being sold before the development is finished (got a couple like Broforce and Mercenary Kings, not the worst to be honest) but I really appreciate the no questions asked refund rule (too bad there isn't a lot of chance to see that for full releases) but also, and I think the most important, the "in dev" label instead of the silly idiot-baiting "early access".

"Early access" denotes a positive quirk of an unreleased game, "Oh look you'll have an early access to this unfinished game!", while "in dev" is a purely descriptive, and honest, term.

So yeah, I commend you on that one.
Posted January 28, 2016
Early Access is not for everyone... if in doubt, pass on the game until it actually makes a full release. I've enjoyed Project Zomboid and The Curious Expedition for some time now... got my money's worth so I'm happy. I do hope they stick with games that are already fun to play (even if not complete - Subnautical comes to mind). I also hope the developers that use this "in development" on GOG to gather input as they do on Steam (at least the good ones do).
Posted January 28, 2016
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vivalanwo: Am I just not getting it or is the 14 day return policy just sort of marketing fluff? I mean yeah you can try the game out and if there's a technical problem you can refund it but the risk of Early Access comes months later when it becomes apparent the devs have slowed down updates and dropped communication. Or worse have stopped updating altogether.

There's absolutely no protection for the consumer in this (very real) situation.

On the plus side I guess we don't have to worry about microtransaction shops in early access games but that's about it.
As a rule of thumb (at least for me), I'd invest in an early access game if its state at the time of purchase already worth the price requested. Therefore, the 14 days guarantee is a perfect safety net since I can buy, test for several days and decide if it worth the price asked.

In that case, if I decide to keep the game after 14 days then, even if they never finish it, I won't feel cheated since I got what I pay for. If you buy (and keep) a game which is really early in its development stage on the basis of the promises made by the development team (because you have faith in them or you truly want to support a small team - perfectly understandable reasons), you should be aware that it's more a donation with the hope that they succeed to reach their goal.

After having said all that, I really think that it's like a lot of the recent features made available on GOG (movies, Galaxy...), it's good to have a choice and if you don't trust the "early access" system, simply wait for the game to be actually released and buy it then. It's just like before but at least people who want to try now at least have a chance to do so.

(and in a perfect world, this new feature would lead the kickstarter projects to deliver beta keys for GOG too instead of Steam only ones but that's really wishful thinking)
Posted January 28, 2016
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Impaler26: So GOG is selling early access games now...

Meh, we don't need unfinished games here IMO. Who knows when and if they will ever be completed.
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timppu: Won't this mean less "I have this on Steam already, so I'll pass!" messages from you? Or don't you ever buy Early Access games from Steam either?
Nope, this means that you can look forward to more "I'm not buying unfinished games" messages from me. :P

And i don't buy early access games on Steam. Though i did get some in bundles but i don't care about most of them.
Posted January 28, 2016
This is an interesting move. My initial reaction is a strong feeling that this is not for me. BUT, I'm not the only one here, and I am happy for things that provide GOG with more revenue to keep bringing the awesome to us.

As far as relating this to the current state of gaming and "what is considered a finished game?", we do expect support and updates for games that are considered full releases as well as games that we know are not finished.

There are titles on both sides of the "finished" line that are neither finished nor supported, but as consumers we tend to feel safer trading our money for something that is a "finished" release.

I want to believe that a game that is ready to start asking for money is a game ready for release. The developer can continue to tweak it as long as they wish. I love good support and updates from developers, and we see that for plenty of titles these days.

In the end it comes down to trusting the developer in any game purchase. Asking for money for a title that the developer considers unworthy of being called "released" lowers my trust (not an insurmountable obstacle, but one to consider).
Posted January 28, 2016
I get why people are not happy with GOG about this, because it usually takes a lot for me to jump into early access. With that I say most of GOG's initial offerings are tempting. Might wait on TerraTech and Starbound, but Zomboid looks like a lot of fun.

I'm a skeptic about the "curated" part since things like Paranautical have been let in before (though they are thankfully a lot more discerning than most), but as long as they keep with decent quality I won't mind Early Access existing. If it turns to crap, I've always bought the older titles first anyway.
Post edited January 28, 2016 by Projectsonic
Posted January 28, 2016
Hey - this means I can start spaming the forum with Clockwork Empires again!


Vote for it here - http://www.gog.com/wishlist/games/clockwork_empires
Post edited January 28, 2016 by amok
Posted January 28, 2016
low rated
No.

No no no no no no no no.

Fuck no.

Fuck this shit.

I am beyond dissapointed in you, GOG.
Posted January 28, 2016
high rated
As with any such move, some will be elated, some despondent, and some indifferent. For myself, I no longer back games in development (including on KS, where they are invariably among the worst projects at maintaining timelines and reaching completion). When the game is released on GOG, I'll check out the review and buy it then.

My Desura account is chock-a-block with perpetual alphas, and you see where they are now. But their open door policy contributed to that as well. Hopefully GOG's gatekeepers will do a better job at screening those who enter the sacred city.

EDIT: typo, of course
Post edited January 28, 2016 by IAmSinistar
Posted January 28, 2016
I'm fine with the 14 day refund window, not including the 14 day part on the front page seems a bit disingenuous though.
It just says "no questions asked refunds."
Attachments:
frontpage.png (74 Kb)
Post edited January 28, 2016 by omega64
Posted January 28, 2016
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timppu: To me this seems like a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" kind of situation for GOG. In either case someone will complain about GOG. Earlier it was because "why is GOG releasing this game here which has been on Steam Early Access already for months?". Now they are doing something about that.

I don't see how this affects me, or anyone for that matter, negatively anyway. I am not hot for buying beta games either... so I'll probably skip buying these beta games until they get the proper release. Yet, i am not opposing GOG bringing early games to GOG too, it probably makes sense to them (due to what I wrote above).
I think it would help if GOG would have some kind of listed ETA for the full versions of these games. One of the major reasons why many are hesitant to use early access games is the fact that the dev may abandon the game altogether. Plus a refund of only 2 weeks for these kinds of games seems way too low--I think they should have set it for at least 3-6 months since the future of these games can be very unclear.
Posted January 28, 2016
Awesome news! I've been hoping this would come to GOG :) Keep up the good work.
Posted January 28, 2016
No. No no no. No no. No. No no no no. No no. No no no. No. No. No no no no no. No. No no no. No no. No. No. NO. NO. NO. NO. NO. NO. NO. NO. NO. NO.
Early Access is the second-biggest problem with Steam currently (Greenlight being the biggest), and has resulted in me just getting a visceral negative reaction whenever I see a game being sold unfinished.
This is a bad, bad, bad, bad, BAD idea.
Posted January 28, 2016
Im still interested how the patching for non galaxy versions is going to work? I asked that before but no blue answered yet. The thing with early access games is that you can expect one patch a week if not more (if they are serious with game development). This works fine for galaxy but how will this work for the other game version.
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This is my favourite topic
Community
General discussionIntroducing Games in Development(760 posts)(760 posts)
(760 posts)