Introducing GOG Galaxy, DRM Free Heaven.

[Dicehunter]

DRM Be Gone

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So my fellow gamers the time has come to throw away the heavy shackles of DRM insanity and finally have some freedom when it comes to enjoying the content we purchase.

Introducing *cue drum roll*-

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GOG have always been a company with the mindset of "Let the user play without putting obstacles in their way" and have mainly focused on older games and updating them to work with newer operating systems, Cult classics such as the original Syndicate, System Shock etc... The list is too massive to put here so if you want to find more golden oldies GOG have quite an extensive catalogue Here


Being a subsidiary company of CD Projekt Red who have produced the highly acclaimed Witcher series which not only came with graphical assets in the 2nd instalment that would make Crytek drool but also free DLC and most importantly, No DRM.


The new platform was unveiled at CD Projekt Red's summer press conference,


Introducing GOG Galaxy -

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As you can see from the short introductory video it is all about giving the end user choice, Very loosely reminiscent of Steam in it's form but without the limiting factor of the always online restriction that some games now force on to you be it through Steam, Origin or the fairly new to the party Uplay client.


The GOG Vice President Guillaume Rambourg stated that - “The game is yours, You should have the power to do with it what you want.”


Both executives Rambourg and Iwinski introduced the presentation -

The summer conference can also be watched here, Best get that big OC3D mug out, It's a long one

http://www.gog.com/news/cd_projekt_red_gogcom_summer_conference

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This new platform will give us freedom of choice to be online, Offline, An online socialite or even an internet hermit if that's your type of thing.


An important part of this release will be the ability to play your purchased game without having the client even load up, Uninstall it if you like, CD Projekt stated that Galaxy is 100% optional and won’t require any online connection with the exception of 1 game, The Witcher Adventure Game which is an online card based board game akin to Blizzards Hearthstone and is currently in closed beta -

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You can apply for the games beta at - http://www.gog.com/galaxy


All the usual features of a game client are present i.e game purchasing, Optional automatic game and client updates, Friends lists etc... but one of the most innovative features announced is the ability to cross play and branch out between the various game clients.

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For example half your friends are on Steam and the other half on GOG Galaxy, Not a problem, Cross play allows cross platform interactions weather it be playing or simply chatting.


Co-founder Marcin Iwinski states -

"Let’s say you bought the game on Steam and I bought it on GOG, We are friends, so we should be able to play together. That’s where GOG Galaxy comes into play. It will connect players whether they are on the same platform or not.”

While it is still too early to give exact details as to its total feature set this is looking very promising and the likes of Steam, Origin and Uplay will finally have some real competition on their hands in the form of giving the user base real control over their purchased content which can only benefit us in the long term.


GOG Galaxy is scheduled to release on PC, Mac and Linux sometime in Q4 of this year but you can sign up for the clients beta on the site linked below when it becomes available.


It will not be in open beta at first as is standard in the industry but should convert over to an open beta in later stages for everyone to try out - http://www.gog.com/galaxy


Hope you enjoyed this crumb of good news and I shall update as and when I find more out.

 

[WYP]

Excellent news post!

As far as DRM goes, I am only against it in certain forms, for example the always-ON DRMs like in AC2.

Steams form of DRM, I have no problems with, Steam Offline mode has never served me wrong.

I had my Rig working on Offline mode for almost a year, when I was in university accommodation and they banned gaming ports.

I don't know if this will win over many developers though.

 

[Dicehunter]

Excellent news post!

As far as DRM goes, I am only against it in certain forms, for example the always-ON DRMs like in AC2.

Steams form of DRM, I have no problems with, Steam Offline mode has never served me wrong.

I had my Rig working on Offline mode for almost a year, when I was in university accommodation and they banned gaming ports.

I don't know if this will win over many developers though.

Thank you

I'm just not that into DRM, CD Projekt Red have the right idea, They released all their witcher games with zero amount of DRM and they sold very well.

DRM in my opinion is not needed and it's just an annoyance which we really don't need.

DRM is mainly put into place by the old geezers at the top who are very out of touch and think it's a good way of stopping piracy when in actual fact it does nothing but hurt or annoy the buyers.

Really looking forward to this though

 

[WYP]

Thank you

I'm just not that into DRM, CD Projekt Red have the right idea, They released all their witcher games with zero amount of DRM and they sold very well.

DRM in my opinion is not needed and it's just an annoyance which we really don't need.

DRM is mainly put into place by the old geezers at the top who are very out of touch and think it's a good way of stopping piracy when in actual fact it does nothing but hurt or annoy the buyers.

Really looking forward to this though

Here is a statement I can agree with, but sadly companies like their DRM.

Good examples of how DRM has ruined some PC games is large, with games like Assassin's Creed 2 and Sim City being good examples of how overboard DRM has ruined PC titles.

One reason why steam is so good is that their DRM isn't that intrusive and the fact it has DRM does stop a lot of people pirating it. Even though, from what I understand anyway, steam's DRM is easy to crack but even so it is enough to prevent me and most others from going to that amount of extra effort to pirate.