GOG.com Coming to New, Mystery Operating System

[Fanghawk]

GOG.com Coming to New, Mystery Operating System

CD Projekt's classic PC gaming library won't be exclusive to PC for much longer.

There once was a time when being a PC gamer meant you probably played on a Windows operating system. Today, this is increasingly not the case. Gaming alternatives such as OSX and Linux are more popular than ever, and receive mainstream attention through <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/99227-Valve-Hopes-for-Thriving-Mac-Game-Community>Valve's cross-platform Steamplay service and <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/119793-Humble-Indie-Bundle-6-Gets-Less-Humility-More-Games>the Humble Indie Bundles. Even the classics of GOG.com might not be restricted to Windows as this trend continues. On October 18th, the developer, publisher, and distributor will run a livestream to announce several important initiatives, the most significant of which is that a new operating system will be added to GOG.com's impressive games library.

The two-hour livestream, to be hosted via Facebook and GOG.com, will reveal various projects that CD Projekt and CD Projekt RED have been working on since the release of The Witcher 2. Outside of GOG.com's operating system announcement, the team will reveal the official name of <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/117529-CD-Projekt-Red-Reveals-Cyberpunk>its new Cyberpunk-inspired game, several upcoming GOG.com releases, and information regarding the OSX version of The Witcher 2. The fact that CD Projekt's own series is coming to Mac does make an Apple-friendly GOG.com more likely than say, Linux or Android, but we'll have to wait until October 18th for confirmation.

The question now is how many of GOG.com's games will be made available on other platforms. The service has always aimed to make its games accessible on a variety of Windows operating systems, but translating its entire classic games library to non-Windows platforms always seemed impractical and daunting at best. At the very least, we should see a selection of recent releases gain this multi-platform support, while older titles may have the support added as it becomes available.

Source: Joystiq

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[Zombie_Moogle]

Windows 8 has many challenges to face, indeed

 

[Waaghpowa]

I'll use my psychic powers to say that it's going to be mac.

 

[LavaLampBamboo]

I may be looking into this too much but is the fact it's hosted by Facebook a reference at all? Do many companies use Facebook for streaming these days?

It's just that Facebook have been trying to move into gaming for a while now, and perhaps they are forming a partnership with GOG.

I dunno. Maybe not. On retrospect, this sounds dumb.

It's probably just Mac right?

 

[UnderGlass]

Yeah my bet's on Mac. They'll want to sell their ports of the Witcher series directly plus a lot of their games have official mac ports already (some better than others). This makes the potential library for Mac games fairly large. All they really need is a mac version for their downloader and maybe a GOG wrapper for the Mac app packages.

The issue will be striking deals with a whole different set of people, as many of the mac ports will have been developed and published by third parties. I don't foresee them being able to offer both Mac and Windows versions for one price like Steam does.

 

[Baby Tea]

I just want to say that, for Digital distribution, nobody can beat the selection of Steam, but NOBODY can beat the QUALITY of GOG.com. I mean, Steam is convenient, it's got achievements and aweseom, awesome sales, and easy installs with a great UI. I love Steam.

But GOG? I'll buy a game there first every single time. Zero DRM. No 'offline' mode. Just install, and play that sucker. Steam is great, but it's still, at it's core, DRM. The best DRM we have, no question, but DRM.

GOG is just games. And that's awesome.

And I hope they are bringing games to Linux. IF they say OSX, then at least Linux can't be too far behind. Android would also be sweet, but Linux would be sweeter. Gimme gimme gimme.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

The DOS games (which, as far as I know, make up the majority of the library) really ought to be platform independent. Dosbox is[footnote]well, not exactly, but the point is there are builds for pretty much any OS you could want, including weird stuff like Android, iOS, and the Wii Homebrew channel[/footnote], and that's the main service they provide, setting those old games up for Dosbox for people who don't want to bother to learn how.

 

[DustyDrB]

I hope it isn't Mac. Not because I hate Macs. In fact, I had been a Mac user for four years until last week when my MBP finally died after years of enduring my clumsiness and inability to keep coffee away from the keyboard. I used Wineskin to play GOG games. It was harder than it had to be. But now I'm back on Windows and can play my GOG games without all that hassle. So if you start providing service to Mac now, then there has to be some gaming deity out there just laughing maniacally at me.

 

[Fasckira]

Right, am I misreading this or something? Are they implying they plan to release to a new OS, or that they plan to release a new OS? Because releasing a whole new OS just to run GoG games sounds delightfully geeky if not a little overkill.

 

[Steve the Pocket]

If it's Mac, I suspect this will blow up in their faces even worse than it did for Steam, because CD Projekt does not know how to develop for Mac worth a shit. They released a Mac version of The Witcher, and it was more of an emulation than a port, and that's even compared to all those games that use Cider wrappers. It literally uses WINE and DirectX. At least Valve created actual native ports for their games. Then again, this would explain how they expect to be able to provide functioning Mac versions of all the games they sell; just throw everything into a WINEskin and be done with it!

Right, am I misreading this or something? Are they implying they plan to release to a new OS, or that they plan to release a new OS? Because releasing a whole new OS just to run GoG games sounds delightfully geeky if not a little overkill.

And yet there are people clamoring for Valve to do it for Steam.

...Valve fans worry me sometimes.

 

[Nalgas D. Lemur]

The question now is how many of GOG.com's games will be made available on other platforms. The service has always aimed to make its games accessible on a variety of Windows operating systems, but translating its entire classic games library to non-Windows platforms always seemed impractical and daunting at best. At the very least, we should see a selection of recent releases gain this multi-platform support, while older titles would may have the support added as it becomes available.

The DOS games (which, as far as I know, make up the majority of the library) really ought to be platform independent. Dosbox is, and that's the main service they provide, setting those old games up for Dosbox for people who don't want to bother to learn how.

Yeah, that was kind of why I figured the older ones would be some of the ones most likely to appear on whatever platform they announce support for. Anything that they already sell running in something like DOSBox or ScummVM or any other emulator or interpreter that's already been ported to every OS under the sun should be pretty trivial to support on additional platforms. If they want to additionally include other games running in Wine, it would probably make the most sense to start with older ones that have the highest compatibility and lowest requirements.

 

[Matthi205]

Mac? Probably not. That would require rewriting the source code of several dozens of games (As in:Macs have a system structure very different to Windows or even Linux, and there's still PowerPC Macs to account for). It's probably just going to be Linux, as most older Games should easily run through WINE with the proper configuration.

Let's just hope that it's not Mac... DX9 under WINE is already something I'm not a huge fan of, and that on a slow MacBook or iBook?

 

[Falseprophet]

I may be looking into this too much but is the fact it's hosted by Facebook a reference at all? Do many companies use Facebook for streaming these days?

It's probably not a big deal. Most of the top internet companies including Facebook, Google, and Amazon are also big providers of cloud storage [http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2012-05-27/news/31860969_1_instagram-largest-online-retailer-users]. Frankly, they already need the infrastructure to accommodate their massive storage needs, building some extra capacity and renting it out is probably easy profit. And it makes sense for a smaller company like GOG to rent cloud storage instead of having to build their own servers from scratch.

 

[Bagged Milk]

Oh man, I hope it's Chrome OS!

 

[headless Monkey Boy]

Its obviously Symbian.

 

[Lucem712]

I know it's probably mac, but that doesn't mean my heart doesn't long for Linux.

 

[Earthmonger]

Like Fasckira, my mind went larger than that. The text of the article says GoG will add a NEW OS, not another OS. So I'm hoping this is something out of left field, and not just a simple support announcement.

Hell with Linux, Mac, and Android; give me something fresh.

 

[praetor_alpha]

Wait, they are going to announce the name of their new cyberpunk game? I thought it was supposed to be named Cyberpunk. Glad to know that they dug up another name for it.