Just did a GOG survey that focused on the idea of a paid membership option on GOG. Seems they’re determining what people would be willing to pay extra for. Some of the options were
- a tool for backing up offline installers
- ability to install previous versions of a game
- extra insight into the preservation work they’re doing.
- voting rights on games to bring into the preservation program.
And others that I can’t remember.
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such a strange survey. it was all about “exclusive access” and “extra perks”. i just want to support game fixes so that everyone gets access, but that wasn’t part of it.
I mean, if you’re giving them money monthly for a “Preservation Members Tier” then isn’t that exactly what you’d be doing? You’re just getting some perks as well.
Well I’m already giving them money threough purchasing (200+) games through their store. I don’t need or want any cloud features or a “badge” for that. If their calculation does not fit giving me what they promised, tough. As an aside, I recently had to contact their support, and it was a good, competent experience. So the folks they have are good and should be supported, but not through a f* subscription, but through the regular earnings. That said, I’m completely happy with the Heroic launcher and rather donate there than to join a gog club.
if that was all then yes, but their suggested perks sounded like they were shutting people off from part of the preservation results.
Is GOG a popular store among gamers?
It’s my #1 shop for games. DRM free (my games, not just a licence) and I support preservation of retro games.
Among a subset of gamers who care about owning the things that they buy, yes
It’s my second store, but it’s still a distant second to steam.
Wait so currently you can’t install previous versions of games you only get the most up-to-date version. That’s daft to expect people to pay for, that’s a free feature on Steam.
That is absolutely not a free feature on Steam. Some publishers like Paradox leave old versions as ‘beta’ branches to allow us to reinstall them, but Steam as a whole is very against you playing anything but the latest version.
You cannot instruct Steam to not update a game. When you launch a game, Steam will update regardless, unless you have gone offline, or you launch it in a way that bypasses the Steam client. If you ever forget to go offline before launching a game, Steam will forcibly update it
I honestly thought this was an option, but I can’t see it in the client, and the offline installers only offer all patches and the latest version. Not the original version.
I agree that’s daft, and hope that feature doesn’t get paywalled. The more people who do the survey and stress these points, the better.
That’s not an official/proper feature on steam, there’s nothing in the interface to select an older version, right? Just the beta system that lets developers have multiple branches available, which is often used to keep a limited number of previous versions available.
I thought it was a command that you could launch steam with that would give you access to older versions. I’m sure I have done that when trying to mod GTA and it needed a particular version.
Ah, seems you’re partially correct - steam has a command for downloading a specific depot version. You need to know the specific ID to download, and notably games can use multiple depots to form the game files, but I thought you needed to use something like SteamCMD or DepotDownloader for that.
I’m still upholding the fact that it’s not a “proper” feature, while I appreciate having those kind of utilities put in the user’s control, this isn’t something most people could figure out themselves.
I’ll support them once they support Linux. Until then I’ll pirate if I need a DRM free game
How about GOG Galaxy on Linux?
Hahahaha. After cyberpunk was shit and still now Linux support?! Yeah fuck them. If I need DRM free games I’ll pirate. They’re just a leech
I think if they need an extra income stream, it should be physical manuals, discs/disks, boxes, and feelies. Say that GOG has System Shock, Ultima VII, Thief Gold, and TIE Fighter planned for a limited edition boxed edition, but needs pre-orders. Plonk down $20-40, get those things when the funding goal is reached.
I just wanna be able to filter games by what goodies they have, man. I want my waw paypaws.
This is how enshitification begins, don’t enable this shit.
yup, shit that we already have will start being gated behind the fee of the subscription
I was seriously just finally starting to become interested in using them a lot more for gaming since I got some success getting it to work on my Linux install. This would make me do a full 180 though…
Once they added every modern Lego game to their preservation program I knew the thing was bunk. Harry Potter Lego game = worth preserving, Lego Island = never heard of it. Total BS
Yeah, I found that one weird as well. Lego Island wasn’t just the first Lego game. It was one of the first open world games. Well worth preserving. Much more so than the Lego games that got added.
I think LEGO Island would be hard to license because Mindscape is long gone. Also the source code was lost as I recall. MattKC on YouTube has created lots of patches to get the game running on modern systems. He’s working on decompiling it actually.
Yeah, I’m actually a member of his channel on YouTube.
I hope they’re not seriously considering locking option 2 behind a paywall. IMO that should be a required feature for all platforms, and should be free. If I buy a game at a specific version, I should always be able to play that version.
here’s the survey if anyone wants to answer: https://www.smartsurvey.co.uk/s/MURG4B
I did it. I made sure to beg them for Galaxy on Linux.
I have supported GoG for quite some years. I don’t understand why they keep pivoting different things to do.
This may be an unpopular opinion, but I would support paying for the initial game as well as every major patch when a new OS came out. Say, they do something to make a game work on Win 11. One year later we have Win 12 so I don’t mind paying a little for the patch. Then one year later we have Win 13 and I’m willing to pay again if I still play the game.
I would also support paying for online servers for games that have multiplayer components. That takes money to maintain.
As others mentioned, GoG should stop wasting time on a launcher. Hell, even the installer. Just ZIP the whole thing for me to download.
I would also support paying for online servers for games that have multiplayer components. That takes money to maintain.
If the developers were interested in allowing people to keep the servers running, they’d just give us the server code like they used to. If I was in charge of a GOG that was a little more flush with capital, I might fund an easy drop-in replacement library for Steam’s multiplayer APIs so that developers can easily port their games to GOG and be playable, in multiplayer, offline.
I filled the survey as well. It’s mostly focused on “games preservation”. I’m not up to pay subscription for anything they’re willing to offer and even made sure to tell them that I’m willing to pay a premium for whatever useful content (games) end up exclusive to subscribers
