For those of you who do not yet know, GOG's Galaxy is akin to Valve's Steam, with a few differences.
Moving on, this is what Destro had to say when answering what Galaxy's launch date is.
Encouraging? Or not so much? What this means to me is that there is still plenty of time to vote for GOG to make Galaxy open source! Make it so, folks!
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Moving on, this is what Destro had to say when answering what Galaxy's launch date is.
DestoThere is no such thing as release date for Galaxy because Galaxy is not a single feature that we can just release and say "done" but an ecosystem of features. That's also why the date is so vague. Other reason would be that we prefer to underpromise than underdeliver :)
Coming back to your question - I'd break it down into few parts
First, some of the Galaxy features were available in closed multiplayer beta of The Witcher Adventure Game (networking & backend, matchmaking, lobbies, in-game chat). FYI, we've sent over 150.000 beta keys as of today and while we will be soon concluding this beta, there will be many more Galaxy-powered games like that coming, one of them in the very coming weeks ramping up into many more in the months after (way over 40 devs have access to our SDK but here we're depending on developer release schedule).
Then there is also a Galaxy Client - some parts of it, like auto-updating, were already available in mentioned The Witcher Adventure Game, and the full app supporting entire library is also coming but keep in mind this is not a small task - all our games are being rebuild to offer installation and updating via Client while also keeping their standalone installers, which creation we'd like to automate as well rather than making the whole pipeline an overkill. Then, many other features - like achievements for example - also depend on having Galaxy powered game that supports them in the first place. And as you'd expect different games then require different features.
Finally - many other features which will be later needed to power other stuff are actually already released on GOG - good example here are Galaxy accounts system, which all of you are now using... maybe some of you noticed this when we've launched new login and signup forums. It sounds like no big deal but there are many dependencies here - friends system is just one example which is also linked to achievements somewhat, which might require some overlay which in turn depends on a Client.
Encouraging? Or not so much? What this means to me is that there is still plenty of time to vote for GOG to make Galaxy open source! Make it so, folks!
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competition is always needed.
Monopoly is never good!
DRM-free?
I never saw DRM-free as selling point. I had a lot games in CD-s which was DRM-free as they do not ask CD-key. By now I have lent (and never got back :(), lost or broke most of them so I do not see any point in CD-s or DVD-s now. And I do not see any point in DRM-free digital games never have problems with steam even when my Internet connection went down I could play most of them. I only hate heavy DRM which directly annoys me. I myself could care less about hidden DRM-s if they are not directly affecting me.
Competition is always good.
Steam monopoly scares me.
without competition there is monopoly
nothing forces to improve or innovate if theres no competition
And a lot of Linux users see it as a selling point and never buy games with DRM or use DRMed services. And GOG is targeted for such users.
Competition to Steam is needed double fold, because they tend to promote lock-in, and many developers fall prey to this when they make Steamworks mandatory to run their games (not for the DRM sake, but for example because they use some network features from it). Lock-in is very bad, and the only way to reduce it is stronger competition.
Maybe some people need this feature but I do not see DRM-free is main selling point to many people (btw I do not hate drm-free services). Thats why I do not see how this could even a little make steam less monopoly. If I would see a game on steam and on galaxy I would buy it in steam because I trust steam. And I don't think that many people will choose galaxy over steam because it is DRM-free. Galaxy will need to do more.
Only good point of galaxy which I see for now is that it will contain much less (if any) crappy games.
I, for one, do dislike DRM. The only of my hobbies I accept DRM actually is gaming and the only drm-platform I allow is Steam as I never had a single complaint with it.
Still I buy my games on GOG and in the Humble Shop as well and in Desura and if Galaxy launches I will try it out.
I've never been a loyal customer, and why should I? I earn my money hard!
Stan, please don't call people out as being wrong without at least explaining why you feel that way; otherwise you're not really contributing to the conversation. I'm actually quite interested in why you don't seem to like competition. As long as it's fair, I think competition is really good for consumers. It means that they have a choice, and that services like Steam have to keep improving if they want to keep their customers from migrating to pastures new. After all, that's why I left Windows for Linux in the first place :)
Well, Steam's monopoly isn't bad (now). Valve cares about gamers and especially linux gamers should be thankful. You know, for the propagating linux as gaming platform.
Another thing is using mesh organization structure (no bosses nor hierarchy), so I it less prone to becoming evil.
Although the Steam is basically sort of DRM, it is at least working DRM which doesn't harm paying customers (unlike Uplay).
On the other side, Steam isn't perfect either. It won't let you download standalone installer and sometimes it's slow.
I'm actually looking forward for GOG Galaxy. Competition is good in most cases and let's hope it will be it and both services and customers will gain from it.
Do you mean these games?
http://www.gog.com/game/dungeon_keeper
http://www.gog.com/game/dungeon_keeper_2
http://www.gog.com/game/thief_gold
http://www.gog.com/game/thief_2_the_metal_age
http://www.gog.com/game/thief_3
http://www.defectivebydesign.org/faq
"If I can still run my game, it doesn't matter." Well, it mattered to me, and others. It may only be a matter of time until it happens to you. And if Steam suddenly goes away, where will your games be? At least I can get a hard copy from GOG to save for however long I wish, no authentication needed to play it.
Well, yes, but for Linux :P
DRM-free products advocates freedom, and it's brilliant. I always buy games at Humble Bundle or GOG, even if they cheaper on Steam, even as a student. GOG <3
well we were talking about steam and the like. Not about your personal programs that you really want to improve for yourself. but if there is no similar tool around you, you might even not come up to some innovations for it.
i can put it in a different wording (sry english is not my native)
from the user standpoint competition is forcing to improve and innovate. i dont see whats wrong with that.
your tool to make your life better doesnt really apply for this kind of business