Both the Double Fine and Wasteland 2 Kickstarter projects have indicated that they will be offering DRM free versions of their games.

My query is, do you think it would be a good idea for gog to negotiate with both developers to distribute the DRM free version of the games?

My view is that it may well be. Double fine has something like 80,000 supporters and Wasteland 2 has 20,000 and rising (there would surely be some double up), it would be very likely the supporters of these kinds of games, would also be interested in purchasing some good old games. Obviously many would already be active members of the gog community, but it may be a way for gog to add a few thousand new members interesting in good old gamey goodness.

thoughts?

Well, I'm a backer, but I'd definitely buy GOG copies of Wasteland 2 to give away. Now, I'm sure what you're saying is pretty obvious to GOG and most of the people here. Understand that if there's even a chance of this, GOG may not be able to comment on it just now.

From FAQ
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Can I get my digital copy on Steam, if I want?

Absolutely. The digital copies will be made available through Steam and other DRM free digital distribution methods.
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So I guess that's the plan. We will see W2 here :-)

Not sure about the kickstarter projects, but I do want to see Stacking and Costume Quest on GOG.

This.

And there are not so many "other DRM free digital methods", and this is really great opportunity for GOG.

They should but only if the final games prove to be good. After all at least the first letter in GOG should remain somewhat true.

Apart from this the philosophy is very GOGlike. It will be easy to negotiate the worldwide rights. So they definitely should! The initial price should be 20$ or below.

edith: It would be really nice if Double Fine and Wasteland would publish statistics about how many copies are sold over each channel.

I'm really, really hoping they both consider GOG as one of the DRM-free options!

If anyone has registered or paid and they have suggestion boxes or feedback addresses, perhaps it would be worth posing the question to Schafer & Fargo?

I would love to see the original Wasteland come to GOG.

Why couldn't they just sell it DRM free from their own site? Do they need to go through a distributor like GOG?

Or is it mainly the exposure, and the fact that people are more likely to buy from a service they already use?

Well it lets just see what happens after the game is released, as buyers at certain tiers can download the drm free version from somewhere at some point - i'd guess off their site but havent seen anything in regards with this though.

We can certainly hope that we see distribution through here, but of course, the world runs on money. To get it, you need the numbers. And right now the numbers lie with Steam (Origin maybe? I have no idea if anyone even uses it). I actually think that we might see Double Fine use their own independent distribution to be honest, if they decide to be purely DRM free and avoid Steam. I guess we'll find out though in.... what, 8 months?

If GOG is expanding into new games like they say then they've got to support those who uphold the same ideals and help them make a success of it.

Steam may have, in a lot of ways saved the PC as a gaming platform. But its current market dominance sends a clear message to publishers that DRM is accepted. GOG know that changing that is an uphill battle, so any chance they get is one they should take.

Heh, that's a nice idea. In some way both games resemble the good old games. DFA might even revive classical adventures.

There IS a reason why people still talk about a nice little game called "Day of the Tentacle" even 20 years later. Or, more to our case, about "Monkey Island".

When the Double Fine Adventure is out, I would really like to know how many backers preferred the DRM free version and how many backers the Steam version. This is as close to a natural experiment as you can come. The people already paid, there is a Steam and a non-Steam version with approx. equal amount of content, the price for both versions was the same, no reason to pirate because already paid for, and the total number of backers is known. Only the personal taste decides. It would be so interesting to see these numbers. It would be a perfect test for the popularity of Steam and acceptance of DRM.