The new owner of GOG discusses taking on Steam, the devil of DRM, and Nightdive
gamesindustry.bizI think Nightdive deserves a lot of praise, however they've been making some missteps lately. Heretic + Hexen was wonderful, but had some pretty basic bugs upon release. They also effectively made a gameplay mod the default. For Blood: Refreshed Supply, it was a re-release of a relatively recent re-release. The original re-release came out unfinished, and the re-re-release (ie, the latest Nightdive one) is also apparently something of an unfinished mess.
I really love what Nightdive is doing, so I hope they can bring the quality back up what they've shown they can do.
someone needs to keep steam honest. they generally do a good job but they're not flawless and lord knows what will happen when gaben dies...
plus their no-DRM approach is notable.
They still sell DRM games and steam has been the single most honest store available. If GoG was being honest they would see the steam client as a threat especially when it's the only one actually putting out outside of GoGs loaded key service.
Agreed, and the best possible scenario is that successful Steam competitors are healthy competitors; the kind of companies who you wouldn't mind seeing win the market, or at least shape the market. A lot of Steam's competitors (unlike Gog!) do not fit into that mold.
I love GOG and buy a lot of games through them, but at the same time one of the things Steam provides is very easy and simple online coop support. So if I ever intend to play with others I go with Steam. I don’t see an easy way around that.
I think this is cause most developers just end up using steam's APIs for these things and since steam will be most of their sales they don't bother. I have seen games using epic's solution in their steam distribution.
i do wonder how hard it would be to integrate multiple of these APIs so that the end user could invite anyone from any platform, though i imagine you'll still need some sort of middle man / lobby server...
Either way, I'm not a fan of having to generate lobby codes every time I want to play baldurs gate 3 with my friends who have it on steam
The API is pretty straightforward. It's mostly about resolving SteamIDs and talking to the matchmaking server. Last time I used it, once you have all the player and server data, you pretty much just send UPD packets through another Steam API call. Though I think you use SteamIDs instead of IP addresses.
Unless you've gone super deep into the Steam API, it shouldn't be too hard to plug in a different framework.
We need someone to write a compatibility layer for those APIs, so it can be used across various "multiplayer-providers" and distribution platforms. Call it Sroton. Or maybe someone could email Gabe and ask if he could just straight up open source it and let others implement it too.
Steam, like Origin, is one of the few that refuses to support 3rd party launchers due to DRM. epic and gog both work in heroic launcher. Steam games are no longer usable in systems less than 4GB memory.
Steam has removed all its 32-bit wine compatibility, minimal launcher, and is now no different than any other chromium bloatware. they chose the easiest path and are still struggling to make it work.
>Steam, like Origin, is one of the few that refuses to support 3rd party launchers due to DRM
What exactly do you mean? 3rd party launcher like playnite and lutris work just fine with both of them. Steam DRM is also optional and enabled by the game developer.
The client can be pretty rough but no alternative offers even half of there features.
Steam DRM is not optional. Thats why launchers dont support it.
> Steam, like Origin, is one of the few that refuses to support 3rd party launchers due to DRM.
I think Ubisoft games would like a word. I can't finish AssCreed Brotherhood because the Ubisoft launcher wants me to use a 2FA key which I don't have any more.
I used GOG only because that was the way to get Fallout London running, but from what I know of their mission, I like it. I hope they become a worthy competitor to Steam.
GOG's anti-DRM stance makes it the #1 store in my book. Yeah, Galaxy not being available is a bit meh, but between being able to just download the installers and back them up as well as Heroic having first-class support, I have no problems playing my games.