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Why Doesn't Paradox bring their games to GOG?

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Markopolo said:
I appreciate that the MP for recent PI games is based on steam code and it has been better for it, but maybe a move for diversification can be considered in the long term?
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Anything I write below is my own PERSONAL opinion and does NOT reflect the opinion or statements of Paradox Interactive and PDS

A while ago until last year we had a Gamersgate version for CK2 and games before (basically steam-free), however it turned out that it was very difficult to maintain and support both a steam-free and steam version of the game both for the developers and tech support. It was then decided to integrate steamworks into CK2 and the multiplayer META servers were disabled due to a lot of technical issues and resources it needed to run. Especially the multiplayer side of the games has improved heavily since the integration with Steamworks.

Therefore I think that it'll be unlikely in the near future at least that there will be provided a steam free version of the game.

Steam itself is no DRM, as Andrew explained above it does provide DRM solutions for the developers that want to make use of it. Aside the multiplayer, activation and update aspects, you can play the game perfectly (singleplayer only) without Steam by just moving a copy of the game out of the Steam folder. Multiplayer obviously won't work then but you can access singleplayer just fine.
 
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IcratoX said:
Anything I write below is my own PERSONAL opinion and does NOT reflect the opinion or statements of Paradox Interactive and PDS

A while ago until last year we had a Gamersgate version for CK2 and games before (basically steam-free), however it turned out that it was very difficult to maintain and support both a steam-free and steam version of the game both for the developers and tech support. It was then decided to integrate steamworks into CK2 and the multiplayer META servers were disabled due to a lot of technical issues and resources it needed to run. Especially the multiplayer side of the games has improved heavily since the integration with Steamworks.

Therefore I think that it'll be unlikely in the near future at least that there will be provided a steam free version of the game.

Steam itself is no DRM, as Andrew explained above it does provide DRM solutions for the developers that want to make use of it. Aside the multiplayer, activation and update aspects, you can play the game perfectly (singleplayer only) without Steam by just moving a copy of the game out of the Steam folder. Multiplayer obviously won't work then but you can access singleplayer just fine.
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At least in EU4 there have been bugs where the AI ended up sleeping when steam wasn't running though; don't know if it has been fixed.
 
Wagonlitz said:
At least in EU4 there have been bugs where the AI ended up sleeping when steam wasn't running though; don't know if it has been fixed.
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It has.
 
Nickjbor said:
This is an odd joke; Steam is not DRM.

At least I hope it was a joke, otherwise it's borderline trolling.
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It is unfortunately serious. GOG considers Steam to be DRM.
 
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Nickjbor said:
GOG is free to manipulate the facts for business purposes.
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Meh. I understand why GOG classifies Steam as DRM even though it's technically not. GOG wants the games they sell to be initially downloaded directly from GOG (aka, they want nothing between the vendor and the consumer), and after that the files to be completely under the user's control. Steam allows the second part if DRM isn't enabled, but the Steam versions of even non-DRM-enabled games must initially go through Steam. It's not strictly speaking DRM, but it's a form of third-party interference that GOG won't abide by.
 
Ingratus said:
It did, but as for now released not a big part of game catalog. Still it is good to see that Paradox is not going to support monopolize of steam.
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Looks like so far they have most of the pre-Clausewitz games plus Rome. Also a few Paradox-published ones. Since they have Rome I'd expect eventually they'll have all the PDS games prior to the Steam-only era (e.g. EU3/Vic2/HoI3). That doesn't necessarily mean they'll ever release non-Steam versions of newer games though.
 
jdrou said:
Looks like so far they have most of the pre-Clausewitz games plus Rome. Also a few Paradox-published ones. Since they have Rome I'd expect eventually they'll have all the PDS games prior to the Steam-only era (e.g. EU3/Vic2/HoI3). That doesn't necessarily mean they'll ever release non-Steam versions of newer games though.
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It's possible they might do it after a lot of time where new DLC is no longer being made and the servers are closed.
 
I would REALLY appreciate CKII on GOG, now that they have launched a public BETA of Galaxy, which also includes cross-play with Steam players. Check here.

I haven't found the exact figures, but GOG is more successful than GamersGate (which I found out only after searching for a non-Steam PDI game, compared with 2-3 years of knowledge of GOG). An Indie game has made 8.5 of it's sales through GOG two years ago (from which it has only gotten bigger since), compared to 58.6 through Steam (a 1:7 ratio), while over four years ago GOG's own Witcher 2 had 15 percent of it's sales through GOG (compared to 81 percent trough Steam).

I think it would be a logical step to believe that GOG has been expanding and even now with the near release of The Witcher 3, even more popular. I understand that Paradox stopped developing a non-Steam version in GamersGate due to financial considerations, which is the most important thing in a Studio's health and well-being; however, I do believe that there is a larger market for Grand Strategy Games in GOG than GamersGate, so they are not entirely the same thing.

A Galaxy port of CKII would be of great value to both GOG and Paradox as not only would it show commitment to a neglected fanbase through Paradox's part, but also GOG's continual expansion. Once again I do understand that resource-effectiveness is something to give consideration, but even if Paradox chooses to not sell CKII through GOG. Would it take too much to port games no longer in development? I'm sure Victoria II would experience a surge in sales if a GOG port becomes available and so would EUIII, which is -- to the best of my knowledge -- a game no longer in development.

Of course, Paradox Interactive also has Pillars of Eternity at GOG, and as publisher can already gauge the percentage of sales coming from GOG; nevertheless, this is not my personal cup of tea, and am sure of others as well who might not purchase Pillars of Eternity, but would indeed buy relatively older Paradox games.*

*Relative as in newer than the ones in the store, yet older than those in development.
 
Rencini said:
I would REALLY appreciate CKII on GOG, now that they have launched a public BETA of Galaxy, which also includes cross-play with Steam players. Check here.

I haven't found the exact figures, but GOG is more successful than GamersGate (which I found out only after searching for a non-Steam PDI game, compared with 2-3 years of knowledge of GOG). An Indie game has made 8.5 of it's sales through GOG two years ago (from which it has only gotten bigger since), compared to 58.6 through Steam (a 1:7 ratio), while over four years ago GOG's own Witcher 2 had 15 percent of it's sales through GOG (compared to 81 percent trough Steam).

I think it would be a logical step to believe that GOG has been expanding and even now with the near release of The Witcher 3, even more popular. I understand that Paradox stopped developing a non-Steam version in GamersGate due to financial considerations, which is the most important thing in a Studio's health and well-being; however, I do believe that there is a larger market for Grand Strategy Games in GOG than GamersGate, so they are not entirely the same thing.

A Galaxy port of CKII would be of great value to both GOG and Paradox as not only would it show commitment to a neglected fanbase through Paradox's part, but also GOG's continual expansion. Once again I do understand that resource-effectiveness is something to give consideration, but even if Paradox chooses to not sell CKII through GOG. Would it take too much to port games no longer in development? I'm sure Victoria II would experience a surge in sales if a GOG port becomes available and so would EUIII, which is -- to the best of my knowledge -- a game no longer in development.

Of course, Paradox Interactive also has Pillars of Eternity at GOG, and as publisher can already gauge the percentage of sales coming from GOG; nevertheless, this is not my personal cup of tea, and am sure of others as well who might not purchase Pillars of Eternity, but would indeed buy relatively older Paradox games.*

*Relative as in newer than the ones in the store, yet older than those in development.
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I would say that the newest Paradox game that could be put on GOG would be victoria 2. Crusader Kings 2 and Europa Universals 4 have multiplayer directly integrated into Steamworks.
 
magritte2 said:
GoG claims that GoG galaxy will enable you to play multiplayer games with people who bought their games through other services like Steam, though.
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But the thing is, games that are directly integrated into Steamworks aren't on GOG. So when they say you can play multiplayer games with people who bought the game on other services, they mean games like Guacamelee, not Counter-Strike.
 
Rencini said:
I would REALLY appreciate CKII on GOG, now that they have launched a public BETA of Galaxy, which also includes cross-play with Steam players. Check here.

I haven't found the exact figures, but GOG is more successful than GamersGate (which I found out only after searching for a non-Steam PDI game, compared with 2-3 years of knowledge of GOG). An Indie game has made 8.5 of it's sales through GOG two years ago (from which it has only gotten bigger since), compared to 58.6 through Steam (a 1:7 ratio), while over four years ago GOG's own Witcher 2 had 15 percent of it's sales through GOG (compared to 81 percent trough Steam).

I think it would be a logical step to believe that GOG has been expanding and even now with the near release of The Witcher 3, even more popular. I understand that Paradox stopped developing a non-Steam version in GamersGate due to financial considerations, which is the most important thing in a Studio's health and well-being; however, I do believe that there is a larger market for Grand Strategy Games in GOG than GamersGate, so they are not entirely the same thing.

A Galaxy port of CKII would be of great value to both GOG and Paradox as not only would it show commitment to a neglected fanbase through Paradox's part, but also GOG's continual expansion. Once again I do understand that resource-effectiveness is something to give consideration, but even if Paradox chooses to not sell CKII through GOG. Would it take too much to port games no longer in development? I'm sure Victoria II would experience a surge in sales if a GOG port becomes available and so would EUIII, which is -- to the best of my knowledge -- a game no longer in development.

Of course, Paradox Interactive also has Pillars of Eternity at GOG, and as publisher can already gauge the percentage of sales coming from GOG; nevertheless, this is not my personal cup of tea, and am sure of others as well who might not purchase Pillars of Eternity, but would indeed buy relatively older Paradox games.*

*Relative as in newer than the ones in the store, yet older than those in development.
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This still would mean paradox has to work on two different versions of the game. One for steam and one for gog. This would way to much work.
 
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I have a hard time seeing Paradox's use of Steam as not being a form of Digital Rights Management, sure they don't use more extensive copy protection, but traditional CD keys is considered a basic form of DRM so why wouldn't steam keys be as well? And Steam goes beyond that with the way it controls how and where the content can be accessed/downloaded. Still, I'm not very bothered by it personally.

Of course, taking this argument to it's limit, anything beyond offering a freely available download link with a plead to please pay for the game first would be DRM including GoG and others, so you have to draw the line on this somewhere I suppose. Comes with the territory of widely available digital distribution, you need something to, well, manage it. But even with this rather strict definition of DRM, the old hardcopy Paradox games were still DRM free only restricted by the limits of physical distribution AFAICR.

You have to admit it was a pretty messy situation when you had to make sure wether the expansion you bought was the steam or non-steam version so you didn't get an incompatible one on sales and such. Steam has such a huge marketshare on PC that it basically forces medium sized companies like Paradox to use them exclusively with how their platform works and the paradox expansion policy.
 
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I'm not bothered about DRM I like steam but at the end of the day it is a dependency with no alternative and that does worry me. If steam ever goes out of business eu4 is completely dead.
 
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Pile_O_Gunz said:
I'm not bothered about DRM I like steam but at the end of the day it is a dependency with no alternative and that does worry me. If steam ever goes out of business eu4 is completely dead.
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I feel that if a giant like Valve goes out of business one would have greater worries than not being capable of updating(if you already downloaded) or downloading(if not) EU4.
 
Yeah. I remember when video rental giant Blockbuster went out of business and all the banks closed. There was panic in the streets. :D

If PDS is still around, I guess they would find a new way to distribute and update their games should something unforeseen happen to Valve.
 
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RELee said:
Yeah. I remember when video rental giant Blockbuster went out of business and all the banks closed. There was panic in the streets. :D

If PDS is still around, I guess they would find a new way to distribute and update their games should something unforeseen happen to Valve.
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GFWL did something similar. I can see this happening should Steam shut down.
 
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