Which is probably why they're branching out into Indie and new releases as well.

I've always maintained that the more popular GOG would become, the more other Retailers would catch up on putting up the classics because the developers would spread them out. It just makes sense. (although I thought developers would do the work themselves rather than take GOG's efforts)

Yeah, I expected that to happen as well. But if GOG ends up doing all the hard work and someone else will then just take the same thing and sell it cheaper, well, I don't think the business model is very sustainable.

I agree, which is why I always felt they'd need to change at some point. Overall it looks like a good change though. They may not pick up the AAA games where publishers probably still won't feel ready to drop the DRM, but they could basically pick up classics + Indie + games that have outlived their main phase (say 3 years+ or something). That's still a large market.

Yeah it seems that Steam are putting stuff on sale when GOG do but cheaper and also running promotions in tandem. Initially Steam just had Deadly Shadows and to celebrate the release of Thief 1 & 2 yesterday they have bundled all 3 games at a cheap price point.

Look at what happened the other week when GOG released Anomaly Warzone, same day Steam had it on the daily deal for next to nothing.

I was waiting for a price drop on the Thief games here as I own all 3 already on first edition discs. With Steam doing the offer though I was more than happy to grab them there as I do use Steam as my main focal point for games and you cant beat the price in all fairness.

I love GOG (have a fair few titles in my library now) and also really like Steam so unfortunately GOG missed out on sales from me with these 3 titles. It is starting to look like there is going to be a price war between the 2 platforms which is good for us users but one of the businesses is going to take a serious hit.

I think GOG need to start releasing more titles as it is obvious that Valve have pricked up their ears when GOG started releasing newer titles. Get a bigger catalogue behind them and maybe think about fair regional pricing.

I bought Thief collection for just shy of £10 sterling, even if GOG did do a deal on this if I pay with my debit card the bank would charge me an extra £1.50 for the pleasure making the pricing the same as Steam if not a little more. Yeah a few extra goodies are always welcome with the GOG releases and appreciated but as a consumer if I can get stuff cheaper elsewhere without paying handling fees that is what I will do. You can get a lot of the extras like wallpapers round the net free, soundtracks and manuals are a bit different I will openely admit but these 2 things dont matter to me all that much.

I think GOG should seriously do something now or Valve could seriously dent their profits, act now instead of in a few months time or things could go south quickly.

There are probably enough people in the cosmos that abhor DRM that find GOG's offer more appealing in the long turn. Probably shouldn't worry too much, unless Steam inexplicably decides to go DRM-free as well, which I would only approve even though it would probably mean hard times for GOG.

I dont like using Paypal as they have done chargebacks and caused problems in the past even though money has been sitting there for payments. I do actually have a moneybookers card which I can use here and there is no fees on that but I have to top it up to use it. That is now my primary card here though, Steam I use my Visa debit or direct banking to pay for stuff.

All the more reason for GOG _not_ to stick only to old games which are hard to make work on modern machines. Obviously the work GOG has done is handed back to the IP holder, who then sells them to the likes of Steam.

So, the only real selling point in GOG over the other sites will be DRM-free, including the newer games. Sticking only to old games is a niche market already, and others are also entering that market, making it even less lucrative by itself.

True, yet some people even here still insist GOG is such a small fish that it is laughable to even think Steam/Valve would be interested at all by what GOG does.

Nevertheless, I'm not sure why Steam even feels the need for entering the niche market of old games which are supposed to bring much less money than new titles. Do they feel threatened about their future, e.g. Windows 8 with its official Windows Store may marginalize them in the long run? Hence, selling only pre-Win8 games might be their future anyway?

Flexibility is the key for GOG, that's for sure. They can't compete with other DD sites on the pricing front, so they have to make their games that much more appealing in different ways. Their ace is the fact that they have an audience of dedicated players who value their stance on the DRM front and can influence other people out there.

I'm pretty sure Steam does not feel threatened, least of all by the Windows Store, but we've been here before.

I think the answer is very simple: easy money. That's what GOG's role was in the grand scheme of things: showing everyone that a company's back catalogue can still bring in some neat profit. It's probably not all that much, but on the other hand, the costs of putting up Thief on Steam are negligible for Valve.

EDIT: Also, now that I think of it, the initiative may have very well originated with the publishers, not Valve. After all it's them who profit from this the most.

considering you basically still have to apply the community patch to both Thief Gold and Thief 2 no matter where you bought the games, i think you might as well just purchase the games on your platform of choice, and in this case the editions seem to be identical anyway.

i bought the Thief Collection off Ebay UK so i have no need for additional editions from GOG or Steam. the physical copy i bought was cheaper than any Steam or GOG offer will ever be, anyway.

This. I will always prefer a drm-free copy, even if it should be more expensive. The great ace of GOG is "you buy it, you own it" - there's no better sales argument. I would buy all my favorite games again if GOG would offer them as drm-free copys. We shall not forget the goodies as soundtracks, artbooks and guides - all of them make GOG's offer really unique.

Sure, there are annoyances, but you're skipping over the vast improvements to playability, feel and atmosphere. That tends to happen to us old folks, we focus so much on OMG QUEST MARKERS and ignore the fact that hey, combat is now bloody functional.

Forest for the trees, or some such thing.

HA! Yer no thief !!!!!

You don't need combat when you have a blackjack... and slippers! :p

My problems with T3 is they broke as much as they fixed. Controls are horrible. Physics are atrocious. etc. Its all opinion. ;)

I actually didn't mean Thief with that example, I was more thinking of Oblivion actually. Still, my point is we often focus on the changes or simplified aspects while ignoring the positive changes.