Every major online distribution of games has a client – Steam from Valve, Origin from Electronic Arts, Uplay at Ubisoft. Against the background of the service alone was GOG.com by CD Projekt, which seem almost proud of the fact that to run their games, no additional software is not required.
Initially created as GOG.com as simple as possible, friendly and unobtrusive service for the dissemination of classic toys of yesteryear: went to the site, bought the game, got the download link, download and play. No protection, no additional clients shells, social functions, etc. The range GOG.com in this case was entirely legendary classics like Ultima, Beneath A Steel Sky, Dungeon Keeper, Blood, etc. Actually, the abbreviation GOG originally stands for Good Old Games («good old game»).
However, this selectivity in the selection of games did not last long – fairly quickly began to appear in the GOG.com is much more fresh products, and if not news, so now GOG.com, at first glance, not much different from other online distribution services (except classics are still very much indie – less than the competition and a large number of high-profile projects, whose publishers exclusively co-operate with other services, not at all).
And in CD Projekt decided to abandon Another feature – the lack of their own client. He called GOG Galaxy and yet available in the status of the open beta, which anyone can download from this link (available for Windows and Mac OS X, Linux version will be available later).
After the start-up and login to your account the user sees the main screen GOG Galaxy, which is the section “Recommended” online store service. With the menu item “Shop” You can switch to the full catalog of games (of which there are already more than a thousand), or to get to the section “Community” (a list of all forums as the general orientation and specific games, links to discussion, which you participated, popular searches on completion of service GOG.com accounts in social networks). “Support” section contains articles to help users in the event of a problem with any game (download, installation, start-up, video modes, etc.) and the ability to send a request to the developer if the available data did not help.
And the last section of the menu “store” – a Galaxy, which, in essence, is a full copy of the customer’s information page on the official website.
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The menu “Library” contains two sections – “My Games” and “Wish List.” The list of games can be displayed in the form of tiles, and the list can be sorted by language, genre, mode, and tags. The “Wish List” from the games shown their present value and the discount, if any – it allows you to conveniently monitor the reduction in the price of a project that you would like to buy, but decided to wait for sales.
Buy the game It can be like using a credit card or through Paypal; The purchase can be made into a gift – it is necessary to specify e-mail addresses (you can also send along with a gift and a text message).
The game is set in a shared folder GOG Games, the location of which can be changed in the settings dialog. On the page of the game in the menu “Library”, the user can download a variety of additional materials (such as desktop wallpaper, music, manual), check the integrity of the installation, go to the support page, etc. Depending on the game, it also can be run level editor, network mode, a separate utility graphics settings, and so on. Run the game can be installed as a client of the GOG Galaxy, and using a shortcut from the desktop (if the application configuration has enabled this option – then create a shortcut from the client will not work), in the second case, the running GOG Galaxy is not necessary.
When you hover over user’s nickname, a menu appears where you can see the answers to all your posts on the forum, see a list of friends to call and chat to customize your profile. Unfortunately, the possibility of adding friends here is very limited – direct search friend does not add people to your list, you can only see their names on the forums, in the Community list or a review of the game.
In the profile settings, in addition to the usual in such cases, the information (picture, country, date of birth, email, etc.), have a history of orders, privacy settings , subscriptions to newsletters, manage tags (which can be assigned to their games in the library – such as “passed”, “next in line”, etc.).
Client settings (invoked by clicking on the gear wheel at the bottom screen) minimum: language selection, start-up screen (can be store, the library, or the previous session), create a shortcut on the desktop for installing games and selecting a folder in which to install the game. According to the available but is disabled options in the future, the developer plans to add a system of advances, auto-update installed games, chat with friends, track time spent in the game, and so on.
In general, the functionality of the customer base yet: there is no synchronization saves through the cloud, the ability to add friends by name or e-mail, setting boot pause, screenshots and even a mass of other possibilities. However, its development is still in its infancy, so there is every reason to hope that all this will be for the foreseeable future.
It is difficult to predict in which direction will develop GOG Galaxy in the future, and to what extent he will be able to increase the popularity of this distribution system games. While the client looks like a simpler and somewhat more convenient version of the web interface GOG.com – social functions are in their infancy, but the process of selecting the game, its purchase and installation performed very well. Separately pleases unobtrusive client – optional user to run it every time he wants to play in the GOG.com bought the game (thanks to the lack of DRM). Of course, the “kill Steam» GOG Galaxy is unable – to do it to the developer is required to make efforts in a very different direction, namely in the expansion of its catalog and inclusion of a AAA-projects that go exclusively to Steam and other platforms. However, to make your still fairly niche, service more convenient and friendly to users – they are quite capable.
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