It'll be fine. Of course, I still remember my confusion when seeing this new, unknown name "TheEnigmaticT" take his first stumbling steps of doing GOG's PR instead of the rather sure steps of the then well-known iWi (Marcin Iwinski).

My thoughts:

1 . IMO, a client application wouldn't do GOG any good. People would start to perceive GOG as yet another Steam clone. And it wouldn't help to assure that there's no DRM nor spyware hidden in it. GOG needs to make itself distinctive and do some cool stuff that the competition doesn't have. GOG cannot compete with Steam or Origin on their own ground. People would just say: "OMG, another piece of crappy software to install to play my games!" (even if it would be optional, because most people hardly care to be well informed on how things are _actually_ working).

2 . As for regional-pricing-vs-DRM-vs-new-publisher debate. We can forget about EA , Valve and Ubisoft selling their new games on GOG. They don't want to share profits and it's understandable. As for other companies, like Square, Capcom, etc. the way to convince them is to show them that the "GOG way" works, i.e. that they would earn lots of money by publishing new games here. Apparently GOG can't brab about anything like that. It's obvious that games on Steam are being sold in way more copies than here.
So, all in all, this is not about _convincing_ anyone. This is about DRM-free distribution of games _working_ or not. We need GOG to become more and more popular, we need gamers to be interested in owning DRM-free games and not buying Steam-infested crap.
Once GOG sales of, e.g. Indie games, surpass Steam sales, the big-shots will start to sell their new games here as well.

As long as the selling data is going to be like for Witcher 2: sold in the same time
- gog 40.000 copies,
- steam 200.000 copies,
- all the others together 10.000

At the moment recheable statistics show following sales for Witcher 2: 80% Steam, 14% Gog all the other together 6%.

How can anything change really if the sales statistics are like thet for most games. We can only hope Steam botches up really badly and looses its monopoly. Hope that Chris Taylors words about Steam loosing their lead in five years come true but im not sure about that happening.

The Witcher 2, being developed by "the gog people", sold exceptionally well on gog.com if you compare the percentages of sale with Steam's.

What we're usually looking at for PC games which still actually make an effort at alternative distribution methods is something like 90 to 95% Steam, 5 to 10% other distribution methods. That's the reality of the situation. Who's to blame? Naturally, PC gamers.

We can straight up forget about Chris Taylor's prophecy... I've just read up on it. Chris Taylor's words about Steam "loosing their lead in five years' time" are now more than three years old to begin with. Back then, the hope was still alive I guess. We're heading nowhere in the direction he describes. What's the sitiuation today instead? ALL of the "new players" are on Steam, ALL of them make 90 to 100% of their sales via Steam. NONE of them has even tried to establish their own distribution platform because they already know that PC players have become too stupid and unflexible to try something new, and of course the players "want all their games in one place". The Humble Store as the only "competitor" worth mentioning has become a used car salesman in the meantime, making their money as a Steam key reseller. Steam has loads and loads and loads of "exclusive content" without having to force it in any way, because developers decide that distributing via Steam is enough on the one hand, and because Early Access pretty much means timed exclusivity on the other hand.

There is no, absolutely no competition on the horizon for Steam.

What a shame I will be sleeping when the conference will be on - it's a middle of the night here Down Under then.... Anyways, GOG guys please follow your path - introducing more new flashy GOOD games here DRM free is a great idea - I bought Age of Wonders 3 and Blackguards and I will be buying stuff here more tahn at Steam (unfortunatelly I have to buy sometimes there - Fallout 3 and New Vegas..., but I only have 6 games there in comparison to my 32+3 free here). And don't worry much about Early Access/Alpha games - yes people buy this stuff but more often the product is in really bad state and then they complain and whine a lot.
I hope that Xenonauts will be here in two weeks (PLEASE!!!!!) as this site needs badly X-Com games or good classical re-imaginings like Xenonauts!

Yeah it really seems like that at the moment and explains why we can't get any new AAA releases here. They just control over 90% of the market as you said and can dictate which games can go drm-free and not. Don't know what can be done. There is just to many people using Steam at the moment.

Not quite 90%, because you have to take into account giants like Ubisoft and Electronic Arts as well in those statistics.

As of 2013 and according to Screen Digest Ltd., Steam has an estimated global 75% market share in PC game digital distribution, but most people don't really understand what an absurd monopoly that constitutes (it's a good deal more than google has in search engines, for example).

Yeah every company that has controlling share on the market has a monopoly. 75% or 90% there is no difference really since any of those percentages allow them to control the market. Even 40% would be enough if that were the controlling share. If Steam were a power company or some other company the market controlleres would have already broken the company in to two or several companys. There is just no competition and drm-free market at the moment is just a niche market. I mean basically any game you buy in retail now has a steamkey added to it. Just go to Saturn or Mediamarkt and look at the game covers.

Well, we can still vote with our vallets. That´s the best (sometimes only) instrument we have at our disposal.
That is exactly the reason why I stopped buying games from Steam in 2010/2011 and buying them more or less exclusively from GOG - because I wanna back the service (to me, GOG is omre than service) I believe in.

Yeah it is really the only thing that we can do. I actually obstained from buying Tropico 5 which I desperately wan't only cause of that. Still have a small hope of seing it here since its offered also in a non steam version almost drm-free (kalpyso launcher - account creation not needed anymore).

Looks like stuff just got real - the ad is the only thing on the front page, now.

I don't know. I find that Valve are getting lazy with steam. Sure it will probably still appeal to the mass market but I find that quality control is non existing now with Steam. It seems that any crap game is being released there now.

Their storefront is a mess, the features being added now are pretty useless, at least to me.
Customer support is crap..

Sure Steam has an almost monopoly on this market and they know that. But there is plenty of strong competition which offer something better than what Steam is offering and if they aren't being careful and just stay in their comfort zone of being no. 1 and thinking they don't have to evolve and offer better service they are doomed to fail.

For me it's quality over quantity, probably why I left Steam for GOG.

The frontpage is unchanged for me.

Steam has a real monopoly. Read a bit economical theory on monopolies. With that they can dictate prices, what can be sold where and how. Its nothing new really. They control the market and that is a fact.
75% market share is an insane amount of market. At this percentage the mainstream digital games market is more or less dead.

I don't like it but as long as Steam users are mostly happy with what they get on Steam -so long not much is going to change.

I suggest that gog replace the little bullet-point graphic with this

https://i.imgur.com/IVZBfT9.png