GOG.com has been gaining a growing stream of fans and users over time, as they continue to provide good prices for their customers, and fantastic support for classic games (as we noted earlier, several classic games were on GOG.com long before they came to Steam). Despite the fact that they boast “no DRM or intrusive copy protection“, one thing that caused some to hesitate to purchase games from GOG is the lack of a gaming infrastructure (read Steam-like system). That’s about to change as GOG is now introducing Galaxy, “a fully optional client to install, play, and update your games. It also offers online multiplayer, achievements, chat, game-time tracking and more – but it’s up to you which features you want to use.” As they are rolling out the program incrementally, you can sign up on their site for the beta program for the chance to kick the tires before it goes fully live for the general public.
What are some of the intriguing features of Galaxy? Easy back-up to an external hard drive (it’s a pain to reinstall everything after a system crash or an major upgrade). Updates causing problems? They are going to implement a feature to revert to previous updates with a single click. Don’t like achievements or chat? You can turn just about any of the features off. Concerned about being able to play with your friends who buy games on Steam? They’ve enable cross-play, “because where you buy your games shouldn’t prevent you from playing with friends.”
I’ve been a fan of GOG.com for a while, but will Galaxy replace Steam for me? Nope. Steam still is king for PC, but you can bet your sweet little bippy that I’m signing up for the beta, and I certainly will buy through Galaxy on a regular basis.
