Any ETA on the 1.1.2 patch for Shadow Warrior? I tried dropping Flying Wild Hog a line about it on the Steam forums they frequent, but got no answer. You guys might want to remind them about getting the latest patch to the gog version if you haven't already as it has almost been 2 weeks since the patch hit Steam.

Damn, thanks anyways.

Have you tried Don't Starve? DRM-free version uses a launcher, which automatically checks developer's server for updates, and if newer version exists, updates the game. In addition it can check integrity of game's files, in the same way steam client does it with all steam's games.
So, i mean steam is not an excuse for laziness. Good devs know how to deliver. ;)

That's great, and it's nice when developers add features to their games like that. Steam isn't about laziness however. Steam provides developers with a set of tools that can help them get their game to market quicker by not having to implement everything themselves. This is no different really from a game developer deciding to use freetype instead of implementing their own font rasterization engine, choosing to use Source engine or Unreal engine instead of writing their own brand new 3D engine from the ground up, using Miles Sound System or OpenAL instead of writing their own audio engine and abstraction library, using DirectX and/or OpenGL instead of writing their own custom low level 2D and 3D drawing APIs, or using OS supplied system calls to open and read files instead of writing their own code for accessing the hard disk sector by sector etc.

The operating system exists to provide both hardware abstraction and a set of common APIs to simplify writing and deploying applications. Likewise, things like SDL, OpenGL, freetype, Steamworks, and the multitude of other ready to use APIs that numerous developers choose to use in their products also simplify the amount of work that needs to be done in order to finish a product and put it on the market. It isn't about being lazy, it's about getting a job done and making money sooner and choosing the tools that the individual developer or company deems will help them to achieve their goals successfully in the timeframe they would like to do so.

I'd rather not see games tightly married to Steam personally, but Steam does provide a number of very useful services and APIs that it is no shock are popular with game developers. The gaming market is highly competitive and saturated and it can be hard for a developer to be successful even with a great game simply because there are thousands of them out there. So if they can shave some time off development by relying on third party technologies which the overwhelming majority of their customers are not only going to not mind, but actually uses their preferred distributor and their tools, they're going to get to market more quickly and make money faster. That's just a sad fact I'm afraid.

Having said that, I would certainly hope that a game developer uses Steam and its services in a way that is easy to separate out from their code rather than have their code tightly coupled with Steam and unable to release on other platforms due to reliance on Steam technologies as distributor and DRM agnostic software is ultimately superior for the overall market. It can be a lot of extra work though to have to implement everything themselves. Not impossible, just not zero cost to them and not zero time to develop. Look at the Postal 2 update for example. It's been available on Steam now for half a year or more and while the developer claims to be working on the DRM free version for GOG et al. it still has not materialized yet. Presumably they're still working on it, but it takes time and extra cost to do, whereas there are arguably good reasons for them to have done it the way that they did because Steam allowed them to implement it much more quickly, and to reach the majority of their market first. Whether we love it or hate it, it is what it is though.

Hmmm, double-silent update?

Unless, just the forum sticky disintegrated and was born anew?

Collection re-check time!
It's been a few weeks since I last checked, so I don't know how old these updates are.
But they were not mentioned here as far as I can see and were definitely not mentioned in the sub-forums:

Alan Wake's American Nightmare is now version 2.1.0.24
Privateer 2: The Darkening is now version 2.1.0.5

No idea what changed.

Alt-Tab.

On the "Browse Games" pulldown menu on the website, the bottom link is to "Mac Games" which has a "NEW" highlight beside it indicating it is well... new. It's been that way now ever since Mac games were added to the website a very long time ago now. Mac as a supported platform is not really "new" anymore on GOG, so it seems odd that nobody has ever updated the website code to remove that "new" flag from it. Might want to pass that along to the web devs unless it is left like that on purpose for some marketing gimmickry or something. :oP That is fine too if it is just a gimmick as it's harmless, but it makes me laugh every time I see "Mac Games NEW HOLY SHIT WOW" when it isn't new anymore. ;o)

When Linux games first get released presumably later this year, please make the menu entry for Linux be: "Linux Games NEW OMGWTFBBQ HOLY FUCK!" Even if it's just for 10 minutes... but then leave it like that for 2-3 years just because it's less effort after to bother changing it. ;o)

Ok, enough of my silliness for the day... back to our regularly scheduled updates! :P

Great headline, lol. Or they can work in tiny penguin next to it, might be cool.

Ah ok, I overlooked that. Thanks for the information.

LOL that's a bit like
"Doctor, help me, I get a terrible pain every time I bend over"
"No problem, we'll just fuse all your vertebrae together so you can't bend over - problem solved!"

Yeah, I'm quite aware that, without access to the source there's not much else GOG can do and its a miracle they got this notoriously flaky old thing working at all but still...

The catalog dropped from 721 to 720 games, was something pulled or is that some weird after-effect of the Age of Wonders 3 release?