AwesomeOcelot Posted September 20, 2012 Share Posted September 20, 2012 I don't necessarily think this applies to the Kickstarter, because it's funding a project not buying a product. I also don't want to be overly critical because Obsidian (also previously Black Isle, Troika, Interplay) does a heck of a lot out of goodwill for free. I do believe that it's not good form to charge people for the same content. I think it's right that people that buy the game on Steam also have access to the DRM-free version. If made to choose I'll always go for DRM-free (I picked up all the infinity engine games on GOG last year, have Fallout 1/2 on GOG, Steam, and CD) but I like Steam as a service (e.g. auto updates/file integrity check), and as long as the offline mode works (which it seems to be in recent months), there's no downsides for me. The same goes for different platforms, sure it costs money to port things, and you don't have to be like Valve and let people play on other platforms for free, but I don't think it's right to pay the full price if you want to switch platforms (e.g. from Windows to Linux). Soundtracks that are included in the game, why pay for the content that's just in another format? Some work is sometimes done additionally to these but sometimes they're more expensive that the actual game, it's a bit ridiculous. It would be great if when the game is released that it's released like a Humble Indie Bundle release, you get steam keys, other platforms if available, and FLAC soundtrack. Steam supports 3rd party serials that could be used on another website (i.e. GOG). Some musicians throw up their album up on a bittorrent tracker because it's not like it won't be on one anyway, the Humble Indie Bundle guys have a tracker. Am I crazy? Am I an entitled gamer? Is this naive/impracticable? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nikolokolus Posted September 20, 2012 Share Posted September 20, 2012 My main problem is that I'm not really sure what you're talking about ... If you donated to the kickstarter you can pick one of the DRM free bundles and get your key from GOG.com. If you pick the steam bundle, or boxed game then that's also a choice, nobody is being forced to use the Steam version. The best Obsidian can do is offer choice and they've done that, it's up the consumer to pick the choice that they like best, but you shouldn't have access to multiple game keys unless you pay for it. 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AwesomeOcelot Posted September 20, 2012 Author Share Posted September 20, 2012 My main problem is that I'm not really sure what you're talking about... ...believe that it's not good form to charge people for the same content. The best Obsidian can do is offer choice and they've done that, What's stopping them from offering both? ...but you shouldn't have access to multiple game keys unless you pay for it Why is that? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Infinitron Posted September 20, 2012 Share Posted September 20, 2012 (edited) Unrealistic expectations. This isn't some indie bundle, it's a game from a major studio. Fact is, you have no idea what kind of deal Obsidian needed to cut with Steam and GOG to offer these games to the pledgers. Combining the two like that is almost certainly contractually impossible. Edited September 20, 2012 by Infinitron Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kai Posted September 20, 2012 Share Posted September 20, 2012 One thing I'm curious about is this. If I've understood it correctly, if you buy a game from GOG and then get a new comp, you can install the game again on that comp, no need to pay for it again. Does this work if you switch from, say a Windows PC to a Mac as well? Haven't had the need to use GOG yet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarthAdamRG Posted September 20, 2012 Share Posted September 20, 2012 My main problem is that I'm not really sure what you're talking about ... If you donated to the kickstarter you can pick one of the DRM free bundles and get your key from GOG.com. If you pick the steam bundle, or boxed game then that's also a choice, nobody is being forced to use the Steam version. The best Obsidian can do is offer choice and they've done that, it's up the consumer to pick the choice that they like best, but you shouldn't have access to multiple game keys unless you pay for it. This sums it up pretty well for me, you have quite a few options to take. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pseudonymous Posted September 20, 2012 Share Posted September 20, 2012 Unrealistic expectations. This isn't some indie bundle, it's a game from a major studio. What's unrealistic about having access to the game through both Steam and gog.com? Technically Obsidian is self publishing and could do this if they wanted. Fact is, you have no idea what kind of deal Obsidian needed to cut with Steam and GOG to offer these games to the pledgers. Combining the two like that is almost certainly contractually impossible. I may be wrong about this but I am fairly certain Valve and gog.com don't send out leg-breakers if you allow concurrent distribution through other channels. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
metiman Posted September 20, 2012 Share Posted September 20, 2012 What would be the point of the Steam version if you already have the GOG one? JoshSawyer: Listening to feedback from the fans has helped us realize that people can be pretty polarized on what they want, even among a group of people ostensibly united by a love of the same games. For us, that means prioritizing options is important. If people don’t like a certain aspect of how skill checks are presented or how combat works, we should give them the ability to turn that off, resources permitting. . . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
axisAdamWest Posted September 20, 2012 Share Posted September 20, 2012 (edited) - Edited October 2, 2017 by axisAdamWest Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Palmtuna Posted September 20, 2012 Share Posted September 20, 2012 (edited) I honestly don't see a problem with buying a game once and being given access to it on several platforms. The developers have to make a buck, granted so I suppose it's all up to their generosity. I'm not expecting anything like this from Obsidian/ Project Eternity since I did was help fund it and not actually buy the game. I think one of the only times where I would really expect to be given access to games on multiple platforms would be if you were able to play and share the same save file throughout all of them. Kind of like PS3/psp style without having to buy the psp version One thing I'm curious about is this. If I've understood it correctly, if you buy a game from GOG and then get a new comp, you can install the game again on that comp, no need to pay for it again. Does this work if you switch from, say a Windows PC to a Mac as well? Haven't had the need to use GOG yet. No, gog titles are windows only now. But a lot of them are for older versions of windows or dos. So you can just use a virtual machine or a dos emulator on your mac for that since all the original game files are there intact, all the games on gog work under their native os I think. That reminds me. I got PS:T from GOG the other day and the playing screen is significantly smaller than my actual screen. Is it because I'm running an old game on windows 7? Edited September 20, 2012 by Palmtuna Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kai Posted September 20, 2012 Share Posted September 20, 2012 One thing I'm curious about is this. If I've understood it correctly, if you buy a game from GOG and then get a new comp, you can install the game again on that comp, no need to pay for it again. Does this work if you switch from, say a Windows PC to a Mac as well? Haven't had the need to use GOG yet. No, gog titles are windows only now. But a lot of them are for older versions of windows or dos. So you can just use a virtual machine or a dos emulator on your mac for that since all the original game files are there intact, all the games on gog work under their native os I think. I see. Well what I'm curious about is the P:E is released, I'd guess GOG will have it for Mac and Linux as well. And if so, the possibility to download it for different systems. But it's pretty hard to know right now then. One of the reasons why I spent too much time (and money) playing WoW was the ease that I could switch from PC and Mac. I originally played WoW on PC, then started playing mainly on Mac, and only occasionally on the PC. All of Blizzards versions of WoW were compatible with both systems which made the transition PC->Mac very easy. While there will be a few differences between P:E and WoW (it makes a ton of sense for WoW as they make most of their money from subscriptions), having both boxed and digital versions compatible with all systems would be pretty awesome. And it might be what the OP was asking about, not entirely sure to be honest. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Infinitron Posted September 20, 2012 Share Posted September 20, 2012 (edited) I may be wrong about this but I am fairly certain Valve and gog.com don't send out leg-breakers if you allow concurrent distribution through other channels. This isn't just "distribution". It's FREE distribution. If you pledge, Valve or GOG are giving you this game for free. They don't get a cut. As such there are almost certainly limitations here that we aren't aware of. Edited September 20, 2012 by Infinitron Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
teknoman2 Posted September 20, 2012 Share Posted September 20, 2012 (edited) look steam policy is: if you buy a game you can download it anytime anywhere on any pc as long as you can connect to your account properly. and if there is a mac version of the game, you can download it on any mac for no aditional fees. just as a retail copy of a game made for both platforms can be installed on both from the same disk gog so far only has games that work on windows. they are drm free and you can use the installer you download to install them anywhere you want, but you get no mac version from them. if they add a mac version it will probably be like steam: if you own the game you can download either version at will so the choice for now is simple: if you want it for mac you get it from steam or retail Edited September 20, 2012 by teknoman2 The words freedom and liberty, are diminishing the true meaning of the abstract concept they try to explain. The true nature of freedom is such, that the human mind is unable to comprehend it, so we make a cage and name it freedom in order to give a tangible meaning to what we dont understand, just as our ancestors made gods like Thor or Zeus to explain thunder. -Teknoman2- What? You thought it was a quote from some well known wise guy from the past? Stupidity leads to willful ignorance - willful ignorance leads to hope - hope leads to sex - and that is how a new generation of fools is born! We are hardcore role players... When we go to bed with a girl, we roll a D20 to see if we hit the target and a D6 to see how much penetration damage we did. Modern democracy is: the sheep voting for which dog will be the shepherd's right hand. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tagaziel Posted September 20, 2012 Share Posted September 20, 2012 Why is that? Do you really fail to understand that Obsidian would be essentially giving out two games for the price of one? It's very bad business, since nothing would prevent anyone from giving their spare serial out for free to another person. HMIC for: [ The Wasteland Wiki ] [ Pillars of Eternity Wiki ] [ Tyranny Wiki ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Astanas Posted September 20, 2012 Share Posted September 20, 2012 The thread title is misleading. I believe "Paying once to get something twice" would be more accurate as that is what OP wants. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
teknoman2 Posted September 20, 2012 Share Posted September 20, 2012 The thread title is misleading. I believe "Paying once to get something twice" would be more accurate as that is what OP wants. or better "i pay once i get as many copies as i want" 1 The words freedom and liberty, are diminishing the true meaning of the abstract concept they try to explain. The true nature of freedom is such, that the human mind is unable to comprehend it, so we make a cage and name it freedom in order to give a tangible meaning to what we dont understand, just as our ancestors made gods like Thor or Zeus to explain thunder. -Teknoman2- What? You thought it was a quote from some well known wise guy from the past? Stupidity leads to willful ignorance - willful ignorance leads to hope - hope leads to sex - and that is how a new generation of fools is born! We are hardcore role players... When we go to bed with a girl, we roll a D20 to see if we hit the target and a D6 to see how much penetration damage we did. Modern democracy is: the sheep voting for which dog will be the shepherd's right hand. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pseudonymous Posted September 20, 2012 Share Posted September 20, 2012 This isn't just "distribution". It's FREE distribution. If you pledge, Valve or GOG are giving you this game for free. They don't get a cut. sorry to be that guy, but citation needed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Infinitron Posted September 20, 2012 Share Posted September 20, 2012 (edited) This isn't just "distribution". It's FREE distribution. If you pledge, Valve or GOG are giving you this game for free. They don't get a cut. sorry to be that guy, but citation needed. There is none, but it's pretty obvious that Obsidian are not taking 25-30% (commonly cited percentage of a game's price that goes to Valve when you buy a game on Steam) of your pledge money and giving it to a digital distributor. They may or may not be paying some fee to Valve/GOG, but it's got to be much smaller than what Valve/GOG would get from a standard purchase after the game's release. In any case, this is counting our chickens before they've hatched. Edited September 20, 2012 by Infinitron Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shadowless Posted September 20, 2012 Share Posted September 20, 2012 You give me 20$, then I'll buy the game for 40$, then I'll give you the free copy! Great idea to hurt sales immensely and cause the creators to go bankrupt! Honestly I don't know why you would post a question like this when the answer should be fairly obvious. Even if only 20% of the people end up doing that it's costing the creators to lose out on quite a bit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BSoda Posted September 20, 2012 Share Posted September 20, 2012 Why is that? Do you really fail to understand that Obsidian would be essentially giving out two games for the price of one? It's very bad business, since nothing would prevent anyone from giving their spare serial out for free to another person. This. Having the same game on Steam and GOG might count as just one game for you, but Obsidian has to provide (and "pay for") two copies. I don't think that's reasonable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pedroantonio Posted September 20, 2012 Share Posted September 20, 2012 (edited) One thing I'm curious about is this. If I've understood it correctly, if you buy a game from GOG and then get a new comp, you can install the game again on that comp, no need to pay for it again. Does this work if you switch from, say a Windows PC to a Mac as well? Haven't had the need to use GOG yet. What GOG gives you after you buy the game is a download for an installer made by them (a single file). If a game is old, the installer install the needed emulator (dos emulator for example) automatically; sometimes old games are patched by them to work in newer system. The installer contains the whole game (no need to download anything more) and you can download it anytime you want, and install it in any computer you want; it's TOTALLY drm-free, it doesn't activate from the internet, you can burn it to a cd and it's no different to having a physical copy. The thing with mac is, if the game has a mac version, they maybe have to make an installer for mac (a single dmg probably), and maybe they don't have experience in doing that kind of installation, but it probably is possible if they collaborate with the developer. As GOG never have sold mac games, nobody knows if they will allow you to download a windows version and a mac version; in steam you can do this, they have "steam play" (you pay once, you can donwload windows version or mac version) And about the OP request, I don't think they should give you two serial keys but instead one serial key should allow you to download wichever version you want. I think that, if you are buying a license to use a software, you should be able to use that software in all the OS for wich the software is compatible.Blizzard entertainment, for example, has done this for years with their games (and many other kinds of commercial software sold trough Internet works the same way), and if Project Eternity releases in steam and is compatible with Windows and Mac, you will not have to pay for it twice, because it will be a "steamplay" title. Edited September 20, 2012 by pedroantonio Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
O.DOGG Posted September 20, 2012 Share Posted September 20, 2012 I keep thinking that P:E and the Humble Store would be a match made in heaven. It lets you download the game DRM-free for Windows, Mac or Linux and also gives you a code you can redeem on Steam if you want to. Legend of Grimrock and the recently-released FTL (both great games) were both released that way. 2 Peace... piece... of mind Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AwesomeOcelot Posted September 20, 2012 Author Share Posted September 20, 2012 (edited) Unrealistic expectations. This isn't some indie bundle, it's a game from a major studio. Fact is, you have no idea what kind of deal Obsidian needed to cut with Steam and GOG to offer these games to the pledgers. Combining the two like that is almost certainly contractually impossible. I don't know whether you have any idea. Source? What would be the point of the Steam version if you already have the GOG one? As I said in my post, Steam has nice features, such as auto update/file integrity check. Why is that? Do you really fail to understand that Obsidian would be essentially giving out two games for the price of one? It's very bad business, since nothing would prevent anyone from giving their spare serial out for free to another person. Copyright infringement happens anyway, even with DRM, this will happen anyway. If someone gets the game on GOG they can give the installer they download to as many people as they want. They're not two games for the price of one, if I want to play a game on steam but also on my laptop with linux, that's not getting two games for me. Also it's the same it's the same content, if I buy the game for double the price on two platforms I'm not gaining an extra game. Why is that? Do you really fail to understand that Obsidian would be essentially giving out two games for the price of one? It's very bad business, since nothing would prevent anyone from giving their spare serial out for free to another person. This. Having the same game on Steam and GOG might count as just one game for you, but Obsidian has to provide (and "pay for") two copies. I don't think that's reasonable. They don't have to pay for two copies. And about the OP request, I don't think they should give you two serial keys but instead one serial key should allow you to download wichever version you want.I think that, if you are buying a license to use a software, you should be able to use that software in all the OS for wich the software is compatible.Blizzard entertainment, for example, has done this for years with their games (and many other kinds of commercial software sold trough Internet works the same way), and if Project Eternity releases in steam and is compatible with Windows and Mac, you will not have to pay for it twice, because it will be a "steamplay" title. This solution would be OK, it would be better if a DRM-free version was made accessible, but that's a decision for the developer to make. Edited September 20, 2012 by AwesomeOcelot Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alanschu Posted September 21, 2012 Share Posted September 21, 2012 They don't have to pay for two copies. You don't think so? Maybe the question should be looked at differently: Why should CDProjekt and GOG provide you a copy of the game just because you have access to it via Steam? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tale Posted September 21, 2012 Share Posted September 21, 2012 Why is that? Because you're buying from two different people. Steam and GOG.com are different stores. You can't expect Target to honor your purchases at Wal-Mart. "Show me a man who "plays fair" and I'll show you a very talented cheater." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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