2 out of the 4 games I have bought from GOG.com have not worked without significant tomfoolery/screwing around to get them to work. They are supposed to do this for me so I don't have to do it. If I wanted to have to screw around getting one of these games working then I would grab my old disc and fire up DosBox. I was pretty underwelmed already but pulling this crap has completely swung them out of favor. Way to go.
2 out of the 4 games I have bought from GOG.com have not worked without significant tomfoolery/screwing around to get them to work. They are supposed to do this for me so I don't have to do it. If I wanted to have to screw around getting one of these games working then I would grab my old disc and fire up DosBox. I was pretty underwelmed already but pulling this crap has completely swung them out of favor. Way to go.
Honestly, I really haven't seen anything to indicate that GOG puts a lot effort into getting the games to run. Like with Steam, that is the publisher's responsiblility. Steam and GOG are the storefronts. I never understood why people complain about Steam when a problem like the functionality of these old games is not their problem. Most of the GOG games that I have bought use DosBox or ScummVM which is no different from the old games I got off of Steam. In fact, I'm pretty sure that even the King's Quest release that they have is nothing more than the Vivendi rerelease that was done a few years ago which is a DosBox loader. The included manuals and soundtracks are a nice touch though.
Wow, their site is getting hammered right now. Trying to buy Baldur's Gate and I simply can't get through the checkout process.
Interesting.
They said they had quadrupled their sites capacity for the re-launch.
To be getting hammered that bad indicates their PR stunt worked.
It is pretty simple. They bought it from Steam, they paid Valve for the game through Steam. As such it is Valve's responsibility to make sure the game actually works, or they will lose customers.
It is the same as going to a B&M store, and buying a product that doesn't work. You would likely return it, and you would be less likely to go back to that store since you know they sell products of questionable quality (even though they are not the manufacturer)
The same goes with GoG. The difference seems to be that GoG will actually try to make their customers happy after a mistake, while Valve seems to completely ignore any problems you have. Valves lack of customer service is the biggest obstacle to them becoming a complete monopoly on digital distribution. I do hope that they get better in this area.
Flawed logic, your comparison even shows it. If I go to a clothing store and buy a shitty brand of jeans that end up sucking, I don't write off the entire store, I write off the brand. That's just intelligence.
If I buy a bad brand of frozen pizzas from Shaws, I don't turn around and blacklist all of Shaws. Do you realize how stupid that sounds?
The same is true with Steam.
And the official policy of many retail stores is not to allow the return of opened software. Sure, you can argue with the store clerk and manager just as you can try your luck with Valve customer service.
Flawed logic, your comparison even shows it. If I go to a clothing store and buy a shitty brand of jeans that end up sucking, I don't write off the entire store, I write off the brand. That's just intelligence.
If I buy a bad brand of frozen pizzas from Shaws, I don't turn around and blacklist all of Shaws. Do you realize how stupid that sounds?
The same is true with Steam.
So you buy a toaster that doesn't toast from Meijer (I have no idea what Shaws is), and you wouldn't take it back? Also, since the product didn't work, wouldn't you think twice about buying unknown products from that store the next time you go? (Since the last unknown product didn't even work at all)
I know that I would think twice about going back there. I was already burned there once, so I subconsciencely mark that place as bad, and try to avoid the place. (I know I do this with Restaurants when I get a bad product, even if it was only 1 mistake in 100 times. I just don't feel like going back for some reason. Same with other stores. You couldn't pay me to go to Bell Tire for instance)
You example of jeans isn't all that great, since you are going to get some use out of them before they tear apart. A better example is something like a TV or Toaster, where it either works or it doesn't. Also, if you bought it from the store, they are required to take if back if it does not work as advertised. People expect the same service from Steam (and likely could get it if they used litigation)
People are more irritated with that if you buy a game on Steam, there's almost no support from Valve for it. And patches for the Steam version may lag the retail version by weeks. Valve often takes the cheapest route too, Bloodlines for example. They just dumped the game's data with a CD crack into the Steam service that you get to DL. It still has all the same bugs and flaws, still won't work under a 64 bit OS with 4GB+ of RAM, etc. Does Valve even acknowledge the problems? Nope.
At least GoG tries.
Last week I called Best Buy and asked them why Bloodlines won't run on my computer. They didn't give a shit either.
Valve = Digital Best Buy
Valve != Universal Developer Support
GoG may try, but if they were anywhere near as big as Steam they wouldn't be able to pull it off. This is why GoG is incredibly niche.
The assumption here is that there are products on Steam that just flat out don't work. And maybe they are, and maybe it's only for certain people. But I am willing to bet most of the products work /in some fashion/ which makes something like the jeans or other comparisons completely valid.
But the point is that I am not going to blame ID for developing a game that worked on the platform it was designed for.
Uhhhhh. Ok here is the flaw in your argument. You SHOULD blame Id. They are the company that decided to LIST Hexen 2 on Steam. Valve isn't doing hostile software takeovers. If Id Software wants to list Hexen 2 as a game, Valve has let them. And I'm pretty sure Hexen 2 works for me - which makes it YOUR ISSUE.
People are more irritated with that if you buy a game on Steam, there's almost no support from Valve for it. And patches for the Steam version may lag the retail version by weeks. Valve often takes the cheapest route too, Bloodlines for example. They just dumped the game's data with a CD crack into the Steam service that you get to DL. It still has all the same bugs and flaws, still won't work under a 64 bit OS with 4GB+ of RAM, etc. Does Valve even acknowledge the problems? Nope.
At least GoG tries.
What is the point of this argument anyway?