Posted April 29, 2014
But hey - so long as it's completely optional then I suppose I don't really care unless it DOES shift things, that are separate from the client, toward a more Steam-like experience.
I understand the appeal but I'm an old-school gamer from the DOS days of boot disks, but from modern-day experience I also understand that streamlining this stuff can end up being more messy than just doing it with the tools already present within the OS.
As for keeping things simple, taking the original game code right from the developers and shipping it to customers untouched with no DOSbox or ScummVM, no tweaks to make the games work at all would be "keeping it simple". But we buy games from GOG for many reasons, one of which is that GOG packages the games and makes them much easier to deal with than having to download and install and configure DOSbox and ScummVM or other compatibility measures on our own. There is no reason why they shouldn't continue to provide additional conveniences such as an optional client if there is enough demand for it and it would make many people happy and even draw more users to the platform. Perhaps even drawing people from Steam to GOG who use Steam just because it has an easy to use client front end.
Having an optional client doesn't make anything more complex for you or I or anyone else. People who don't want it for any reason whatsoever simply choose to not use it and their life is neither more complex nor simple, it just goes on. People who want to have a client can go ahead and choose to use if if they desire and at least have the option to do so, and to have what they personally consider to be a "better experience" for themselves. In doing so, their enjoyment and usage of a client has no impact on people who choose not to use it. On the GOG side of things, writing a client like this would be very simple to do and they are pretty successful with running a company and keeping things as simple or complex as they need to do in order to be profitable. I'm sure that their engineering and management teams would know better than anyone in the community (including me) whether creating a client is in their future or not and why or why not, and whether it is worth allocating resources towards for a perceived positive gain in some manner or another.
Personally, I don't think it is really a matter of if though, but more "when". GOG almost certainly will make a gaming client at some point in time or another because there are likely more gamers out there who expect such modern conveniences than those who don't, and if they have one available then both sets of gamers are able to choose the way they would like to enjoy their games. This steadfast "a client is evil, nobody should have one because I don't like them" way of thinking is selfish thinking from the people who feel that way and only allows one group's mindset to have things the way they want for themselves. I really don't get the logic in opposing other people's desires in a way that has no effect on anyone else.
The number of people in the world who feel strongly in opposition against an optional piece of software like this is almost certainly dwarved by the combination of people who definitely want it, plus those who are totally neutral and don't care either way. That alone practically ensures it will happen in time, and with a careful review of the qualifications of the various job postings that flash up on the CD Projekt/GOG job board in an ongoing basis, I wont be surprised at all if we see some kind of client show up before the end of the year or sometime next year. I for one greatly look forward to it.
There are just too many negative minded people out there who want to ruin things for everyone else, it's sad really, especially when something like this has no impact on the people who don't want it. It's like saying "I hate cars, and I'll never drive a car, therefore nobody else should ever be able to buy a car either."
