First let me say that I do not think EA is really the devil and that they are responsible for bringing great gaming experiences to millions of people, myself included. But...

In the past few years I have seen what I perceive as a split in the video game industry into two camps.

On the one hand I see companies like CD Project or Valve (any many others). These studios create games that are huge, slightly rough around the edges, intricate, and can be played for +50 hours without becoming stale or repetitive. These seem to be companies that exists "by gamers for gamers".

On the other hand you have EA or Ubisoft (and yes I know the difference between a studio and a publisher, I will get to that at the end). These games are short, streamlined, and polished. After 15-20 hours of play you u can pay for the last third of the game though DLC or put it back on the shelf.

Personally I think both of these camps provide great gaming experiences and have a place in my library. But...

I cannot help but think of Bioware, a company that 5 years ago was clearly in the "by gamers for gamers camp". After mergering with EA, Bioware was adamantly that nothing would change in the quality of their games.

Here in 2011 we ended up with Dragon Age II (and to a lesser extend Mass Effect II). I enjoyed both of these games but I cannot help but feel that I am being nickel and dimed to death.
Want to interact with all the characters that our wonderful writers have created? F*** you, pay me. Want a different outfit? F*** you pay me. Want some fleshed out side content? F*** you pay me.

To me GoG is the high temple of the first camp. Want an RPG that will make you laugh and cry for 50+ hours? We'll sell it to you for 5.99, no activation code required.
Linking up with EA will most likely result in 20 new classics here on GoG and northing else happening past that.
But when I logged on to "the big announcement" I was slightly perturbed. EA functions like any big companies in any other industry: They want to make as much money as possible while spending as little as possible. I would prefer that type of ideology stay as far away from GoG as possible.

Would love to hear others thoughts

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

They've finally taken one in the right direction.

OMG.....EA coming here is good, as it's the games we want & that's what we're getting....not the company or it's policies.

EA used to be a good and decent company - Bullfrog & Origins were two of the biggest names making games for them, which made dozens of classics over the years. They used to earn their name before 1996-1997 when it all started to go downhill - ironically, the time when Dungeon Keeper was released and Mollyneux left Bullfrog because he felt EA was forcing it to become too big.

Times and industry have dramatically changed during the years.

I'm not a fan of BioWare games (really tried, but couldn't "get into" Mass Effect), but the whole mess around DA2 is bulls**t at best. It's really horrible that today you can go to shop, pay 60 bucks for a game, go home and see that you bought about 80% of game, rest must be additionally payed.
And Activision (company I care about only because they own id's back catalogue) is going for something even more evil with MW3, with rumored necessity to pay some dollars each monty to be able to play multiplayer and download new maps.

It's a massive success for GOG (there's no "of" in the title, chap ;)) that they were able to get the rights for those 20-something games, which were previosly banished into second-hand/ebay hell.

So yeah, hooray for GOG.

At least the big publishers (EA, Activision, Atari, and -to a lesser extent- Ubisoft) are pricing their old games sensibly and not forcing GOG to put $9.99 price tags on each of them.

eXTRAS IN A GAME ARE EXTRAS, AND NOT ALWAYS "TAKEN" FROM THE MAIN GAME BUT MADE AS BONUS STUFF SPECIFICALLY FOR SELLERS. lOL, JUST BE HAPPY YOU GET A GAME TO PLAY AT ALL.

(soory about caps...I'm not retyping that.)

Yes and No, First off I am not talking about pre-orders, I am talking about DLC.
A good example there would be Civilization 5 DLC. It was clearly finished in the state it came and could be played almost forever.
For those interested in different civilizations or units you could pay or to get the DLC to change the already complete game experience.
On the other hand would be Mass Effect 2 if you want to find out what happens to Liara ( A huge character from the first game) that will be $9.99 please.

And the Liara story isn't needed to enjoy ME2, so your point is invalid.

Agreed but do u think Bioware would have pulled a stunt like that pre-EA? doubtful

That has nothing here nor there to do with our conversation......

You find out what happens to Liara even without the DLC. She went to that Asari world and ridiculously traded archeology for espionage.

This tread started to get side tracked on Liara.
My point is that I genuinely feel that the people who work at GOG love games and the people at EA love money and are very powerful. I am not a huge fan of them interacting with each other.

PS-I believe a saw Rick Asherton do a live "rickroll" at the Macy day parade, if anyone understands that example...

I have to ask: what did you expect? A change in policy while joining GoG? Take a moment to count how many games WOULDN'T be available on GoG right now, because the studio / publisher falls into that category.... I'm a long time Civ-fan since the first one came out. I still haven't bought Civ 5 because of the way DLCs are handled. An additional fee for different maps / leaders? No way, waiting for that "complete" edition, sry Sid.
I still haven't used my Cerberus code to get the free DLCs for ME2. Have no intention of getting DA2 or ME3 before a GotY edition is available - since this means waiting 1 year or more, I'd probably wait even longer and get it on sale.

It's not GoG.com who has to follow some principles here for a chance of a change - it's us gamers.

EA is a publisher dealing with a store, not a publisher dealing with a developer. All that matters to GOG is the backlog of games they're sitting on, and that happens to be a hell of a lot.