I’ll be interested as well, but I don’t think that it is a bad thing so to speak. Both CD PROJEKT and Michal have high values when it comes to DRM-Free and open gaming. Gog is mostly supported by it’s backers and game revenue, I don’t think that will change. I don’t see the co-founder who created both the studio and the storefront performing a pump and dump on GoG. If anything we may end up seeing a more heavy push into DRM free areas now that it’s detached from the game studio. Additionally CD Projekt’s reason seems fully valid. It makes sense they would rather focus more on making games than distributing. Distributing games is no easy task, let alone maintaining an entire storefront that most of the corporate world dislikes due to the core principles of the storefront (I.E the push towards support and DRM-Free).
It could be bad but, I’m not going to be super concerned until actual evidence ends up on the ground for it.
The most benefit-of-the-doubt read on this that I’ve got is that, as a publicly traded company, the small margins GOG operates in might not be worth CDPR’s time when they can get higher margins for the same investment elsewhere. Adding some of my own hopium and conjecture, based on the “Why is Michał Kiciński doing this?” section of the FAQ, I hope this means a semi-near future of closing up the last few gaps in GOG’s DRM-free promise.
One of my biggest pet peeves with GOG is how it handles multiplayer. Some games add a warning when multiplayer is only available via LAN and direct IP connections. I need a warning when the opposite is true, because if it relies on GOG Galaxy or some other server, it’s just DRM by another name. To their credit, this warning is usually there, but I’ve come across a few games’ store pages that left it to the imagination, and I’d have to go to the forums link to find someone complaining about it to be sure. Other games, like Doom 2016, just omit multiplayer from the GOG version entirely, because they can’t even fathom how to make multiplayer work in a self-hosted way.
What I’d like to see (I’m a programmer, but I’m not deep in the world of gaming software engineering) is for GOG to provide a drop-in multiplayer server that can serve as a self-hosted version of GOG Galaxy’s multiplayer functionality, so that even if the developer doesn’t see it as financially viable to ensure their game’s multiplayer lives on, GOG can do that for them and make any online game LAN-able. If that’s possible. In my head, it sure seems possible.
I feel like a lot of understanding behind the financial decisions around online games could happen if we explained to the kids what GameSpy was. Online was never “free”. Before microtransactions and Steam footing the bill, there were ads. But we had self-hosting as a backup plan back then.
I’d love to see legislation that if a game requires servers to play any portion of it, and those servers get taken offline, the source code must be released. Like, they’re already demonstrating that the game doesn’t hold enough value for them by shutting down the servers, so let the community take over.
I would love this as well. I think we should start with must be able to self host servers or use p2p servers though. You can have server software without it being open sourced, and I think that licensing wise it will be easier to pass a p2p requirement than a full open source requirement.
And that likely stopped making financial sense once online multiplayer operated at larger scales. On PC, GameSpy servers came with ads. Even downloading patches for games meant going to an ad-supported third party web site.
GOG Galaxy only handles lobbies, matchmaking and relaying connections to the host. So even if they provide a way to self host it, if the game uses dedicated servers to host sessions it still wouldn’t work if the game devs don’t provide the server runtime binaries. Only games that can host a session on the client would work without the server runtime.
If they’re using GOG matchmaking to find dedicated servers, then those binaries are in our hands already, as far as I know. Feel free to provide a counter example if you know of one. The whole point of using the store’s infrastructure is that the developer doesn’t have to pay for it, and I’ve never heard of a store that offers hosting for bespoke dedicated servers for different games.
Matchmaking is nothing more than a user database query. That database sits on GOG’s servers and the only thing GOG does is put users into a lobby and then send that data back to the clients so the game can show it to the user. And then when the game starts GOG connects the clients to the host. So developers don’t have to setup their own lobby and relay server. That host can be another client, then the developers don’t have to pay for anything, or a dedicated server which the devs have to provide and pay for themselves. And in case a game only does multiplayer with dedicated servers then clients do not have the server binaries unless the devs provide it.
I know how it works. Do you know of a game on GOG with dedicated servers that the company is paying for that also uses GOG’s matchmaking to find those dedicated servers? Because at that point, they may as well run the matchmaking themselves and open up the possibility for cross play, and I can’t imagine what value they’d get from GOG’s services. For instance, I’m pretty sure I’m hitting GOG’s matchmaking servers for the likes of Star Wars Battlefront II, but all that’s doing is registering player-run servers that it then connects me to.
This does not include the multiplayer. I’m sure it wasn’t the selling point for most, but I hate how the multiplayer use case isn’t well taken care of on GOG. I don’t want Galaxy required; I just want developers to put a bit of work into putting LAN into their games again.
Also it opens up the ability to play network multiplayer regardless of the presence of someone else’s server on the other end. The lack of LAN or direct IP connections is just DRM by another name.
We really need a UT99 remake or something. I am just happy they finally allow it for a free download these days and oldunreal.com has been doing gods work for a long long time
@ampersandrew More annoying to my mind than the lack of MP is lack of SnapMap. Like you said, may not have been the selling point for most, but given Doom's legacy is as much courtesy of user created stuff as it is its technical contributions, it's a big loss to not have that.
Tempted to see if there's a way to hack SnapMap back in to a degree so people could still play backed up custom maps (which exist thanks to dedicated modders hacking & extending SnapMap functionality).
I never played the game, so I’m not sure what SnapMap is (Fandom says it’s a map editor), but there is a note in the “Details” that says SnapMap cosmetics are unlocked by default. Is that something else?
SnapMap is a built-in map editor. It lets you build simple maps made of prefab rooms. It’s clunky and very limited. Really nothing particularly interesting considering the history of OG Doom’s decades-old fan-made map scene.
Nobody did. It was one of this weird wave of interesting multiplayer setups that just didn't have the competitive cleanness of the established stuff and nobody ended up caring about.
It was midly interesting to try out once, but let's say there's a reason they didn't do a MP mode in the sequel and every reviewer praised that choice.
Wait, does it? Oh, man, it does! I actively remember the praise, where did I get so much Mandela effect from this? I didn't even think to look it up, I was so certain.
In any case, here's to being actively wrong and still having made your point. Eternal is the lesser game in general, and I have played it much less, but it's still telling I straight up forgot and invented an alternate scenario about it.
I don’t know; I only tried the game via the demo, which didn’t have any multiplayer. I thought it would basically be like the OG Doom’s deathmatch.
I have played Eternal’s multiplayer on PS+ because it’s in the catalogue. It was… Weird. Though I thought it sounded pretty cool that you can be a demon in it. It wasn’t actually that fun.
I don't think the setup for Doom 16 would be particularly doable over LAN without rebuilding the game or giving you the server code. Servers are doing a LOT of work in this.
I meant binaries. Open source would be great, but it’s a tough sell for some reason, even though Doom’s been open source for decades and still sells copies to this day.
Sure! I mean, why not? Hell, release the game DRM free in the first place on all platforms, huh? Why did we have to wait a decade and buy it twice before we could get the DRM version of any part of it, after all?
But you weren't complaining about it yesterday and you're way closer to the right outcome today. I would much rather have a DRM free version of some part of that game than not.
I remember the multiplayer almost killed this game. They had an early beta of the MP and it was a lukewarm reception. I personally tried it and thought it was ehhh. Then it released and everyone raved about the single player.
Man, I really appreciate GOG. They’re not perfect and, as with all corporations, one shouldn’t take them completely at face value but their approach to game preservation, DRM and stuff like this are the reasons why I keep them as my primary choice for purchases whenever possible.
Is it a relatively cheap PR stunt? Maybe. Probably. It’s still more than any other store did or said in regards to the recent events. Might as well grab some free publicity.
I mean, Valve’s silence isn’t really surprising to be honest. They generally tend to keep quiet and let things go away on their own whenever possible. I’d be more surprised if the came out in force on this issue.
They did respond to the recent claim by Mastercard about them not being responsible for this recent mess - that’s something, I guess? Here is a Kotaku article (don’t kill me, that’s the source I have for this) and here is the relevant part:
“Mastercard did not communicate with Valve directly, despite our request to do so,” Valve’s statement sent over email to Kotaku reads. “Mastercard communicated with payment processors and their acquiring banks. Payment processors communicated this with Valve, and we replied by outlining Steam’s policy since 2018 of attempting to distribute games that are legal for distribution. Payment processors rejected this, and specifically cited Mastercard’s Rule 5.12.7 and risk to the Mastercard brand.”
There’s a bit more in the linked article but that’s pretty much the gist of it.
Valve relies on Visa/Mastercard to process billions worth of transactions occur every year. They’re not going to rock the boat unless they want to risk the whole business.
Their (relative?) silence, to me, is indicative of just how bad this duopoly is, and that Valve sees no alternative worth publicly mentioning at this juncture.
Oh absolutely, that’s as much (if not more) of a reason for them keeping quiet. No big company will willingly jump into the pit against payment processors, there’s way too much to lose.
Steam is criminally understaffed and always caves in with no resistance when any actor wants to block access to thousands of games to millions of potential customers. This is just the latest chapter in a long history of them neglecting their users.
For example a large number of affected games in this case have already been blocked in Germany for a while because Steam refused to implement any type of age verification. They didn‘t even want a dialog with authorities and flat out region blocked affected games instead.
Now, I will say that this move by Germany was complete hypocrisy because it only affected unrated games and porn, when other 18+ games are still perfectly available because they „only“ contain massive amounts of violence. Somehow age verification isn‘t necessary here for some reason and gambling with cosmetic items is fine too? Good to know we have our priorities straight. /s
Whatever the case, the point is Steam always choses the path of least resistance. Germany has a system that lets users verify their age anonymously. Sony has implemented it for their store no problem but Steam doesn‘t even bother to have a single German speaker in their support team.
Sales of God of War on GOG might influence Ragnarok to come. It’d be great if Ragnarok gets ported to both Steam and GOG on release. I think Sony is very supportive, as I vaguely recall their only IP that didn’t do so well on PC was Sackboy, and it was because it didn’t hit their expected targets.
It’s got a controller semi-friendly interface, so it’s better for the Steam Deck, and it isn’t so much running compatibility scripts but just leveraging APIs inherent to each storefront to download and install the same way that GOG Galaxy does, more or less. It’s got achievement compatibility and beta cloud save support.
As a recent refugee from W10, I agree. Not shitting on Lutris since it did kind of worked, so it might have been a matter of playing with some settings, but heroic just worked.
Lutris on a fresh bazzite install: install GOG launcher and sign in. Crappy launcher to install the game (same as windows). Install Witcher 3, start playing. Find out the installer never reported success. Next time it launches it throws an error because the game was not installed. Default is to not cache the installer files. Multi-GB download starts again.
Heroic on the same setup (after the above): sign in to GOG. Get black and white icons for all games in the platform you own. Double click or right click (can’t remember which) to install. Game installs and the icon is in color now. Double click, it starts and works.
… and Amazon games. People who have or had prime accounts often have large amounts of free games on there from claiming them in the past (often via twitch).
I haven’t used heroic, how good is the wine integration? Is it as seamless as proton? I want to know if I should wait for the steam sale or buy some games from gog instead.
You boot up Heroic, you point it at your GOG account, then you go to the clearly labeled Wine Manager in the left panel. Choose the latest Proton-GE (Glorious Eggroll fork) or a version of your choosing. Then go to library and download the game you want. It will prompt you to choose a Wine version that you’ve already got installed, and it seems to detect the ones you have installed via Steam and via their Wine Manager; I recommend sticking to Proton-GE. The installation process for each game works much the same as any other launcher you use.
If you want to try the game on GOG first, they have a 30-day no questions asked refund policy, since they can’t exactly track how many hours you’ve played. It’s just kind of on the honors system that we’re not abusing it as customers, or maybe if you do it too much. Most games just work, but I have found the odd exception. For some games, like The Thaumaturge, I had to run Winetricks to download some VC++ runtimes to get it working (which I was only able to deduce based on the depots visible on steamdb.info). I nearly bought a copy of The Alters today, but early reports on ProtonDB are that it’s got some crashing issues, so between Valve and GloriousEggroll, I figure that problem will be solved in the next couple of months.
The refund policy on GOG is so good that you can just try it first and buy the Steam version instead if it doesn’t work out. The 10% referral code that benefits Heroic shows GOG how much of their customer base are on Linux, and it should enhance the Linux experience via funding at the same time.
Cart persistence and going through the actual checkout is not great. Plus even as a browser there’s no progress bar or sense of stuff still doing something so you’re sat waiting for things to progress
Not always, they only started to offer Linux support after Steam, and even then it’s just a very small part of their catalog and none of their own games/products, so I think it’s fair to say they don’t offer Linux support but sell some products that do.
I enjoyed nearly everything about this game but really disliked how bullet spongey the enemies are, especially on high difficulties. It kept me from enjoying the gameplay and bounced me from the whole series, honestly
Edit: After reading replies, I must have been playing on a lower difficulty. This has inspired me to return to the series and play on a higher setting - thanks to everyone that clarified
I played 2033 and Last Light on Ranger Hardcore and didn’t really feel the bullet sponge issue, at least in 2033 (haven’t played Exodus yet). There are some tanky enemies but I think they’re mostly meant to be avoided rather than fought.
Also I’m pretty sure on higher difficulties both you and the enemies deal more damage so while you die easier there are also fewer bullet sponges. If anything I think the bullet sponge phenomenon occurs on Easy, bizarrely enough. Someone correct me if I’m wrong.
Idk what you both mean with spongey, especially human enemies have a pretty good hitbox imo. And yeah, on high difficulties enemies are basically one(head)shot, and you are twoshot. So pretty realistic, and even easier than easy difficulty in that regard, if you know the game and can aim quickly. Or you just stealth 95% of the time.
spoilerYeah… Killing a Librarian is basically something you do once out of curiosity, and after you burn through two molos, a grenade and 60 bullets you reload your last save. And I don’t think there’s a single demon that’s actually killable. Only the initial/final one takes a certain amount of damage, scriptedly. And you have enough ammo spawning there anyway.
Uh, enemies are actually less bullet spongey on high difficulties, just like the player. Some humans have armor that you have to either spend bullets shooting off or shoot around by aiming at unarmored portions, but enemies typically go down really quick.
Alright, this is great, but also people need to start confirming GOG drops before the Steam launch. I check for GOG launches whenever I buy a game, but just this month there's been a couple of big games that got stealth GOG launches just after their Steam release and it's been extremely frustrating. I don't know if it's a publisher thing to work around pirates waiting for DRM free versions or Steam being dicks about it, but it's infuriating.
Yeah, I’ve had this experience, too. Kingdom Come: Deliverance II communicated ahead of launch that the GOG release would come only a few months later (I did get the sense this was a publisher decision). Great! I can wait a few months. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 made no such mention, and despite waiting several months to see how it would shake out, I bought it in the summer, and the GOG version came out right after I finished it. The developer behind Knights in Tight Spaces, when asked directly, said they were only focusing on the Steam release. Likewise, the GOG version came out shortly after I finished the game. From here on out, of the games on my radar, I’m playing the ones on GOG first, and maybe the other ones will get GOG releases in the meantime.
Yeah, it sucks for Silent Hill especially because a) it's super expensive, at 80 bucks on PC, and b) I was on the fence about getting it at launch and only jumped in a few days ago. I'm just out of the refund window and... hey, I like it so far, but I don't like it 160 bucks' worth.
Whoever is screwing with GOG screwed them out of my purchase and I'm starting to think that not buying anything on Steam at all if I can help it may be the way to go.
If anything, purely anecdotally with no data-based analysis, it looks as though GOG is getting more new releases than it used to. So I think as long as we show that DRM-free matters to us by buying there first, the situation will continue to improve.
It's come and gone a couple times. There was a period where a bunch of big games did simultaneous launches, then a big period of drought where a few large publishers withdrew entirely from new releases and recently a few isolated AA and AAA releases started popping back up. I wonder if it's driven by how much effort they can put into outreach or something like that.
My general guess: The delay is tied to Denuvo. Smart devs will launch with Denuvo so that pudding-headed pirates (my label for a certain small demographic among pirates) drooling over marketing will see the trailers, try to pirate, fail, be told by crackers to wait like 2-3 weeks for them to unlock it; but instead become impatient and buy the game full price.
But the time period to capture pudding heads is not constant, and is not perfectly predictable before release. So, the developer may not want to commit to a certain release schedule where they will release on GOG, dropping Denuvo at that same time. They might even want to reserve the possibility the game will go years without dropping DRM, if it’s somehow staying constantly popular, and constantly desired by pirates, and/or they can see that the hacking communities have failed to unlock it.
Yeah, it’s a pretty easy conclusion to come to from the outside looking in, but BG3 can launch on GOG day and date, and KC:D2 can communicate the GOG release ahead of time and still sell multiple millions of copies, so…it’s a practice I’d like to see change regardless.
That is a conclusion made in hindsight, the easiest place to make predictions. Not every studio has the same forms of public popularity and good will they can bank on.
Also, selling millions of copies is not an indicator of a studio’s upper bounds. Publishers - even indie-oriented ones - need the lightning in bottle releases to pay for games that didn’t do well. We can’t do an experiment where KC:D2 releases on two planet Earths, one with a DRM-free release and one with DRM, and say for certain that the second wouldn’t let them additionally fund another studio’s pet project.
Basically, given how many failed releases happen that we never hear about, it can be misrepresentative to point to some good games and say “See? Studios are able to pay their mortgage.” Denuvo is able to sell to studios, costing those studios money, in part by showing raw data (that we might not ever see) explaining how it promotes early sales.
No, I get that. But likewise, Denuvo doesn’t have access to a second Earth either, and their pitch meeting will never include data of customers you’ve convinced not to buy the game due to the presence of their product. At some point, I don’t think those pirated copies are moving the needle, and that it’s just a cost of doing business like some units of physical goods breaking during shipping. The games that are most pirated are the ones that also sell the best. The anti-piracy case for the consumer is made pretty well these days by being downloaded faster, getting bug fix patches instantly, and keeping cloud saves.
Irdeto’s been on a PR push lately. If they actually had robust studies backing their product, we would have seen them. Considering how they’ve got their hooks into the major Japanese PC port publishers (Sega, Capcom, and Square Enix), part of a segment of the industry that has long had specific stereotypes and prejudice surrounding PC gaming, I highly doubt the sales pitch for Denuvo amounts to much more than FUD and snake oil.
And while Steam doesn't typically sign exclusive stuff they are known to use store positioning as a bargaining chip for preferential treatment. You'd think Konami would be above needing that, but who knows.
Anyway, good game, whatever the reason for the delay. Someone who is on the fence about getting it on Steam go get it on GOG instead to make up for them tricking me.
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