I for one would welcome an /optional/ client that adds more features like the Steam client has. I don't feel that this would make GOG "more like Steam" however. GOG and Steam are completely different business models and providing optional software that does useful things that some subset of your customers would find valuable is just good customer service. Whether Steam client does similar things or not would be irrelevant to GOG's business model of DRM-free gaming etc. and other stuff. How anyone could complain about some kind of optional software of this nature that there is no requirement to use is beyond me really.

There are a lot of people out there who are /potential/ customers that do use Steam, and who would find the lack of some Steam client and Steam website features to be detractors for GOG, but whom might find the service more valuable if GOG had such features.

Here is a list of some of the things that I find rather useful about the Steam client and website of which ultimately help me to have a better customer experience shopping or otherwise benefit me in some way.

1) The ability to establish social connections with friends/family and other gamers I meet online - all within the context of the service.

2) The ability to create a wishlist that can trivially be shared with friends/family to whom I've connected with in #1, or the general public at my discretion without having to use 3rd party websites or other 3rd party tools.

3) The ability to see what games other contacts of mine own at a glance if they've chosen to authorize me to see their game collection, and also to see their game wishlist enabling me to buy them presents whimsically for birthdays or other reasons if I see a good deal on something I know they're looking for. (Whether it is on the same service or some other sale elsewhere.)

4) The ability to see all of my owned games in a variety of different views which are easy to switch between and to categorize games using keywords or other mechanisms and only show a subset of games that I own such as "installed games" or "recently played" etc.

I own 217 GOG games at the moment and keeping track of all of that, which ones are installed or not is a bit of a nightmare. ;o) I can live with it, but I'd much prefer to have some program to organize it all for me in a useful manner that includes different display options, sorting options, filters, etc. I'd ultimately like a gaming library client that is something like what XBMC is for movies and TV shows - but for games. A game launcher. It need not be required by the service for everyone to use, but it would be a nice blessing if such a piece of software was available for those of us who would wish to use such a thing.

GOG is a growing business and has a diverse range of customers with quite varied interests and preferences. Providing new options for customers that do not take anything away from other customers is just a good business practice. I would have difficulty understanding why anyone out there would have a problem with a company creating something of benefit to their customers that nobody is required to use or care about personally.

You're not the only one...

I wonder, Is there any way for them to be 100% sure that a game fails to work no matter what they've tried? I can only hope that they've secured such ways before going public with this new policy.

All I can say is that It's a bold and generous move regarding customer service and "love" - here's to customers returning the love and playing fair.



I hope that huge backlogs are not one of the reason they felt confident enough to introduce the new policy ;-P

That's a damn good policy assuming people don't abuse it and GOG gets lazy with initial testing. Of course, the timing (to me) shows that it's silly to think GOG and Steam aren't in competition as TET said in an interview a few months back. They both sell games; of course there's going to be some form of competition.

While I still disagree with the necessity of some of the social features, in retrospect I was wrong to complain about the client. It could bring a lot of good.

My frustration had more to do with what GOG was spending their time on, given how we haven't seen more good old games from big-name publishers like Activision or Ubisoft in some time, nor seen evidence of a new publisher coming aboard, nor know what the future of the Fallout games is, etc.

Well, GOG already trusts customers to not pirate their games (offering or receiving) as the right way to do business, knowing that some people will pirate games anyway, but that's really irrespective of DRM as evidenced by every single DRM-encumbered game being pirated also. Logically if someone doesn't want to pay money for a GOG game they'd probably just go pirate it rather than go through hassles of buying it, hassling support for help fraudulently, and then saying they want their money back but keeping the game. They'd have to be stupid IMHO to go to that much trouble if they're not planning on buying it but too stupid to go find it via other means. Even if there were people who would be that dense, I'm sure GOG could identify them rather easily, such as people doing it repeatedly or similar and just stop offering that benefit to such people. I'm going to guess that it's something that the benefits far outweigh any cons though. Anyone who has no plans to pay for games at all period will already have a way to get them really, so this is just another way that GOG is recognizing the trust-your-customer way of doing business. I really hope it works out like I think it will too. Just another reason to buy from GOG! :)

It's not really a matter of necessity though. Video games themselves are not a necessity, nor are computers for that matter. It's about convenience and value proposition. A feature can be provided for convenience to people and some people may very well find it very convenient while others have no such use for that type of feature.

Take my 20 button Logitech mouse for example. Every time I mention it to someone in passing, or someone notices it and asks about it I get the same story usually "Why on earth do you need 20 buttons on a mouse?" Or another one is "Why do you need a 30 inch monitor? That's too big!" But I don't own these things because I /need/ them. I could simply use a 14" CRT that I bought with my first computer in 1994 with a maximum resolution of 1024x768 as it still works afterall. But I don't use it anymore because I upgraded to a 15 inch monitor because it gave me a little bit more room and the ability to use a higher resolution of 1280x960 which was nicer in some games and other applications. Then I upgraded to a 17" monitor a few years later, then a 19" much for the exact same reasons. These things gave me new conveniences that my existing hardware did not have and at a price that I found to be of value in the exchange, and resulting in me feeling after the fact that I had something more enjoyable and useful as a result. With the mouse, no - I don't need 20 buttons at all, I lived for almost 20 years with a 3 or 4 button mouse just fine - but again it isn't about having a need for it, it is about these features providing value through additional optional functionality that is there should one find a useful way to make use of such features. So I can surf the web just fine with a 3 button mouse without complaint, but having most of the browser oriented functions assigned to all those buttons all the time is a tremendous convenience to me personally all day every day and worth the $50 price I paid for it. The same benefit is found for me in numerous games and other software. So the value received for the price paid was worth it for me, while someone else might not have any desire for such functionality and be completely content with what they have already.

The same is true for GOG. Some people would be happy for GOG to stay as it is forever and just keep adding new games. If that happens, I'll still be here and have no problem with that as GOG is great as it is, but at the same time it can always become better too by making improvements to be even more user friendly and provide many other things that are conveniences for the customer base. Different people see things differently of course and so not every person is automatically going to find value in certain features. For example, I would love to be able to have some minimal features like friend/contact lists on GOG.com such as with people in the forums here, and be able on-site to click a setting that says "Allow friends to see my game collection" and "Allow friends to see my wishlist", and me to be able to see theirs if they allow it. This would add value to me because I now use the gogwiki for that which is nice, but it is not on-site or cleanly integrated to GOG.com to give the best experience possible, and requires manual synchronization by hand using a browser plugin. That's nice for now but ultimately having that built into GOG would be superior for people like me who want such functionality. But such a thing doesn't have to be turned on by default nor used by anyone who simply doesn't care about it. They just have to "not use it" if they don't care about it, while people like me who do care have the opportunity to use it.

There are a lot of times where games have went on sale and I would have bought them for a friend but I don't know if they already own the game or not and by the time I was able to get them to return a phonecall the sale ended. If I could see their wishlist and it was 100% up to date right on-site, I'd have probably spent $50 to $100 or more buying gifts for people on GOG.com in the last year. Multiply that by n thousand customers who would use such a feature and you're talking about big bucks. In terms of growing the business to be more profitable, features like this would be a good way to increase cashflow while simultaneously providing a valuable service to customers.

There will always be naysayers and haters out there who oppose any form of change whatsoever, or who would compare GOG to Steam in a negative fashion should they do something like this, but such people will always be out there and can never be pleased. The more features the business offers, the more customers they'll acquire and that's just good for business. The more customers they get the more legitimate they're seen by the industry and the more titles they'll be able to bring on.

There's zero harm in GOG creating an optional Steam-like gaming client for users that want such a thing. If any existing customer would leave the service because of them releasing something like this, they should perhaps see their doctor and inquire about medication. :) Seriously. :)

They will abuse it, you can be sure of that. It's up to GOG to minimize the abuse. And considering that Steam has started adding more and more classic games, there is definitely some competition going on.

I don't think that's so much Steam going after classic games as it is publishers (Night Dive, Squeenix, Topware) adding their classics to earn an extra buck via Steam. GOG still has lots of classics not available on Steam.

Steam also has classic games that GOG doesn't have. And in some cases, like Duke Nukem Megaton, the Steam version is superior. And if I recall correctly, again in the case of Duke Nukem Megaton, Devolver Digital has no plans of bringing the game to GOG. There is definitely some competition going on. How much, it is open to speculation.

The links to the articles are dead. It seems that either the information wasn't correct or GOG wants to keep it secret, before they oficially announce it.

Here's another:
http://brutalgamer.com/2013/12/04/gog-com-launches-money-back-promise-on-entire-catalog/

Thank you!

Edit: And another link gone...

Wow, I didn't know GOG had such censorship powers over the media. (-_^)

Anyway, new unrelated article:
PC Games N - December 6, 2013
http://www.pcgamesn.com/being-gog-preserving-medium-doesnt-want-be-preserved

That was an excellent read - thank you for posting.

"GOG’s managing director: Gamer resistance to DRM is stronger than ever"

via ArsTechnica

Lots of good stuff in there, such as:

Tuesday, 31 December 13, Wired.co.uk,





http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-12/31/gog-qa