Epic Games integrates into GoG, and Tim Sweeney advocates for universal game ownership across all platforms

[Doobeedoo]

Yeah exactly that, if you bought a game once wherever you should be able to load it from any store that it offers it. Stores can compete in feature sets etc. 

[JZStudios]

Steam and GOG already had a select few titles that periodically under publishers consent would allow you to take games from Steam and also unlock them in GOG. So if you bought a game, say... Alan Wake, from Steam, then during a period of time with Remedy's blessing you could unlock it and have it added to your GOG account as well. Then you have it on Steam and GOG. I don't think Steam has ever done the reverse, because good guy Valve might lose out on a buck or two.

 

So if Epic is willing to do that, that means GOG might get some more DRM free games, or it might be the same deal where they require the publishers consent, and only for games already on GOG. In either case, from snatching a bunch of the free Epic games a fair amount of them are actually DRM free.

7 hours ago, Sauron said:

Great, let's make DRM illegal.

 

Oh wait, that's not what Sweeney wants, is it? Hypocrite...

No, it means you can launch your DRM ridden EGS games from the GoG launcher.

^ A bunch of EGS games are DRM free. Not all, but a bunch. They don't have their own bullshit DRM like Good Guy Valve, so it's more up to the publishers to use something like Denuvo, but Epic sure isn't forcing them. I keep hearing rumors of games on Steam not having DRM, but then they all have Steam DRM or are shitty free things anyways.

Also, technically universal ownership wouldn't necessarily cut out DRM. You'd just tie the DRM to the hardware that you do have and it would function just as it does now.

[JZStudios]

6 hours ago, Thaldor said:

I'm really baffled why did GoG make this thing this big thing with announcements and all. The real changes were quite small (they did require quite a lot of work, from Epic because EGS didn't have any kind of API-platform before) and didn't really do much on the surface. But I guess when there really isn't much news, even the most insignificant news grow bigger.

Changes in Galaxy have been pretty slow, and they don't seem super open to discuss what they're working on.

[Zando_]

So can I run games from the EGS without needing that shit software actually installed on my computer, by using GOG Galaxy. Or is it the same as the Steam integrations and such, where it basically redirects to the respective launcher to open games. 

[Kisai]

12 hours ago, NZgamer said:

So, would this mean I would be able to play the PS3 and PS4 games that I own on my PC (if a PC version/port of the game existed), or did I misunderstand? I'm all for this.

Kind-of.

 

For all intents a Steam, EGS, Origin, Ubistore, itch.io, humblebundle, GOG version of a title are the exact same game, the only difference is their integration/DRM into the store they're on, with GOG not actually having any. Hence if you buy a game on Steam or EGS and then migrate the licence to GOG, the GOG version will not have the DRM.

 

However many publishers (particularly those distributing games with DOSBOX or SCUMMVM) have stripped the original game installers, or lossy-compressed redbook audio tracks to make the games pointlessly smaller. So in some cases acquiring a repackaged Steam version may have the original untampered files, using an older version of DOSBOX rather than a newer package with only SCUMMVM.

 

Steam already/previously had integration with Playstation. This was to enable something involving Valve's games. Epic also clearly has some kind of integration for their own crossplay, and then there is Microsoft for Minecraft.

 

The mechanisms already exist.

 

What might get some developers up in arms is if there is a sale on one store in one region and it proliferates the sale into all regions via the other stores. Eg buy a game for $1.00 in the US Steam store, and the licence is proliferated to EGS and GOG, in a non-US region. So instead of potentially making sales from all regions at different prices, they're made at the cheapest store price, even if that store is subsidizing it, and people only end up with one licence rather than two or more licences. I can't tell you how many copies of some games I own because repackaging for different stores. One of the reasons I've been hesitant to buy anything on Nintendo Switch is because I would have to re-buy everything I've already bought twice between the Wii and WiiU. Sure the WiiU was only a 1$ upgrade, but the game fundamentally didn't change between consoles.

 

[Delicieuxz]

Some people are commenting that "universal ownership" only means that people can launch their, say, Steam or EGS games through the launcher of GoG, but that the game still must be downloaded and running through the Steam or EGS client. But it appears to me that Tim is advocating for something more than that, a situation where all games are hosted by all platforms and owning a game on one platform enables it to be downloaded from any platform.

 

He says:

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Thaldor]

20 minutes ago, Delicieuxz said:

Some people are commenting that "universal ownership" only means that people can launch their, say Steam or EGS games through the launcher of GoG, but that the game still must be downloaded and running through the Steam or EGS client. But it appears to me that Tim is advocating for something more than there, a situation where all games are hosted by all platforms and owning a game on one platform enables it to be downloaded from any platform.

 

He says:

At least I got that from the beginning. The point I was trying to make is that even while Sweeney is talking about a much bigger thing, Epic couldn't even make the first move towards it, even when they had perfect chance for that. So, it's just another opinion piece from Sweeney to collect some internet points from looking like a good guy while, well, it's just his personal opinion and even his company doesn't stand behind him on that one.

[williamcll]

Yeah but when will GoG has Linux support?

[SpaceGhostC2C]

58 minutes ago, Delicieuxz said:

Some people are commenting that "universal ownership" only means that people can launch their, say, Steam or EGS games through the launcher of GoG, but that the game still must be downloaded and running through the Steam or EGS client. But it appears to me that Tim is advocating for something more than that, a situation where all games are hosted by all platforms and owning a game on one platform enables it to be downloaded from any platform.

 

Advocating? Maybe, yes. But doing...?

I think that's what people are saying: the announcement right now is one thing, the big talk (cheap talk?) is another thing.

[RejZoR]

42 minutes ago, Thaldor said:

At least I got that from the beginning. The point I was trying to make is that even while Sweeney is talking about a much bigger thing, Epic couldn't even make the first move towards it, even when they had perfect chance for that. So, it's just another opinion piece from Sweeney to collect some internet points from looking like a good guy while, well, it's just his personal opinion and even his company doesn't stand behind him on that one.

So far, only Steam and GOG showed commitment in that direction. Steam allows activation of retail games or games bought elsewhere and GOG has GOG Connect program. Hell, even EA Origin allows that for most games so you can tie retail or bought elsewhere to your Origin account. Epic has yet to show they actually mean it and not just promise empty things...

[GravityHurts]

What I would like to see, and what I think is more realistic, would be something like gog galaxy but with deeper integration. Even though I have gog galaxy I find myself launching games through their respective stores because it is easier. If galaxy was more integrated with different stores it wouldn't matter as much where you bought a game from because you could easily just launch it from there. It could also have integration with the stores themselves so you could see different prices for the same game all in one place and choose where to buy it from. 

[FeIIex]

10 hours ago, hollyh88 said:

I think it's a negative though. For cdpr to work together with someone as anti  consumer as epic. Since they are so pro consumer. I wish they would focus more on the integration with steam. Since that is more buggy than working properly. It's just not good in my opinion. Why work together with someone that wants to take choice away from consumers? 

Never thought about it that way, that's a good point

[Thaldor]

1 hour ago, RejZoR said:

So far, only Steam and GOG showed commitment in that direction. Steam allows activation of retail games or games bought elsewhere and GOG has GOG Connect program. Hell, even EA Origin allows that for most games so you can tie retail or bought elsewhere to your Origin account. Epic has yet to show they actually mean it and not just promise empty things...

The "retail" keys are kind of different thing especially on Steam. While yes, they are free and all income devs gain from selling them is theirs to keep, the dev documentation does  have words "we ask that partners use the service judiciously" when talking about them. As much as I can say, there was and has been some friction between devs generating massive amounts of keys to give away for charity (like Humble) and Valve because Valve really has the retail keys for the AAA-firms and doesn't expect indies and other small companies to generate them because they really don't have chances in the retail business. Also the whole key thing in Steam is really build to streamline Steam as development platform, in which it's actually excellent but often overlooked because Unity and Unreal have their own cloud based distribution services (you can share unfinished projects and their files over, have synced project folders, differentiate who gets to see what, have multiple development branches and just amazing package for remote sharing and it's basicly free as long as you agree to release the game on Steam, it's just not openly advertised as such), and the retail keys are more like a thing that was already done in the beginning so why not keep it.

EA, Ubisoft and others with their own "platforms" are a completely different story because they are their own platforms and no one or nearly no one else is on them.

 

More or less only GoG has proved they are open for the idea of connected storefronts(/platforms/launchers) and sharing libraries between storefronts and even that with help of few studios and Valve in some point been bit more open company and making the SteamAPIs to the point where people can actually build services around them.

[demonix00]

Universal ownership isn't going to happen considering that most game publishers would add DRM to their games and GoG is a DRM free platform meaning that those games wouldn't see the light of day there.

[Sauron]

4 hours ago, JZStudios said:

^ A bunch of EGS games are DRM free. Not all, but a bunch.

Whatever, the point is the DRM status of EGS games doesn't change with this move.

4 hours ago, JZStudios said:

it's more up to the publishers to use something like Denuvo, but Epic sure isn't forcing them.

I don't care, if they actually care about this they should be lobbying to make it illegal and not use it in their own games, which last I checked they do.

[Monkey Dust]

It will be like the olden days. No matter where you bought your CD/DVD PC game they could all live in the same, precarious, pile on your desk.

[Kisai]

2 hours ago, Sauron said:

Whatever, the point is the DRM status of EGS games doesn't change with this move.

I don't care, if they actually care about this they should be lobbying to make it illegal and not use it in their own games, which last I checked they do.

 

The more likely thing to happen is that once a game has been exclusively on a platform for 5 years they will require the DRM to be removed before federated licencing tracking can be done. Because otherwise you run into problems (I pointed this out in another thread where I went and ran all the "exe" files for games that had been installed not by steam) where the game expects to be installed a certain way, eg by online activation and is no longer able to.

 

You can move the Steam Library around. You can not move the EGS library around, and you can work-around it, one title at a time, and forget it, it's just too much of a hassle. I haven't used GOG Galaxy and refuse to install yet another bloated game launcher EGS and Steam are enough.

[Brooksie359]

19 hours ago, TheTechWizardThatNeedsHelp said:

Yes. That is the concept of a buiesnes. 

I mean another concept of business is make a better product and more people will want to use it. Unfortunately Epic does not seem to understand that concept. 

[Helpful Tech Witch]

8 minutes ago, Brooksie359 said:

I mean another concept of business is make a better product and more people will want to use it. Unfortunately Epic does not seem to understand that concept. 

I mean updating your flagship game also makes you money, but that's not Epic's style, either. (Seriously, Fortnite might've gotten it's last downloaded update until season4)

[Aimi]

The irony of a man that buys exclusivity rights advocating for universal ownership. Tim can fuck off.

[JZStudios]

5 hours ago, Sauron said:

Whatever, the point is the DRM status of EGS games doesn't change with this move.

I don't care, if they actually care about this they should be lobbying to make it illegal and not use it in their own games, which last I checked they do.

I'm confused. There's no reason DRM would need to go away, and even less reason for it to be illegal, outside the fact that we hate it.

[thorhammerz]

20 hours ago, Taf the Ghost said:

The server-side of things is where a lot of Steam's power really comes from.

Ironically enough, perhaps also the aspect consumers take for granted the most.

[aliasdred]

20 hours ago, Sauron said:

No, it means you can launch your DRM ridden EGS games from the GoG launcher.

So I can get rid of the awful Epic Launcher and use GOG instead?

[Brooksie359]

5 hours ago, TheTechWizardThatNeedsHelp said:

I mean updating your flagship game also makes you money, but that's not Epic's style, either. (Seriously, Fortnite might've gotten it's last downloaded update until season4)

I just think their tactic for getting people to use their store is not smart. If they made a genuinely better platform to use than steam then people might use it but the way it is now it is strictly inferior to steam in basically every way. 

[Sauron]

1 hour ago, aliasdred said:

So I can get rid of the awful Epic Launcher and use GOG instead?

I doubt it but I guess we'll see