Now you can play a game that's still in development on GOG.com, and return it within 14 days

[dkpope]

GOG.com has launched a Games in Development program to give gamers early access to games that aren’t quite finished yet. This is similar to Steam’s Early Access program, but GOG is taking a slightly more curated approach.

Right now, the five titles you have early access to are Starbound, Ashes of the Singularity, Project Zomboid, TerraTech, and The Curious Expedition. All of the five games are available on Steam’s Early Access program, too.

You can turn off auto-updates and go back to a previous version of the game you’re playing with GOG’s optional Galaxy launcher client. If you’re playing the early access games that are still in a state of flux, that’s a good option to have. Like everything GOG offers, one big area where they differ from Steam is the lack of digital rights management.

According to the announcement, GOG says that they will be picky with the early access games: “We're hand-picking only the games we can truly stand behind.” Their plan is to offer what they decide are the “most promising titles” as well as games people have requested on the Community Wishlist.

And if you try one of the games still in development and hate it, no worries – just return it within the first 14 days of purchase. It doesn’t matter if there were technical glitches or it wasn’t what you expected, the refund policy is no questions asked. So what are you waiting for?

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https://www.techspot.com/news/63638-now-you-can-play-game-development-gogcom-return.html

 

[NimbusTLD]

Wow, kudos to GOG for having so much faith in humanity. Without DRM, what will stop someone from purchasing the game, downloading the install files then requesting a refund? Will the lure of updates stop people from taking this path?

 

[psycros]

Wow, kudos to GOG for having so much faith in humanity. Without DRM, what will stop someone from purchasing the game, downloading the install files then requesting a refund? Will the lure of updates stop people from taking this path?

Its been proven pretty conclusively that those who want to have all the support, timely updates, online play, etc. that comes with buying software will do so regardless of protection schemes. Those who only want a free game would never had paid for it anyway. One could argue that on paper a company loses money to the pirates, but the reality is that most of them would never have bought it anyway, and its not like there are a finite number of copies possible. GoG understands this and has done just fine serving customers who value both their privacy and a lack of DRM-related headaches. DRM causes as many problems as it solves...in some cases more.

 

[JamesandBennie]

For those of you who prefer to wait for the final release, nothing will change. Once a game leaves active development, they will be making the announcement and giving the newest release proper exposure. Basically, business as usual.

 

[mrtraver]

Wow, kudos to GOG for having so much faith in humanity. Without DRM, what will stop someone from purchasing the game, downloading the install files then requesting a refund? Will the lure of updates stop people from taking this path?

Its been proven pretty conclusively that those who want to have all the support, timely updates, online play, etc. that comes with buying software will do so regardless of protection schemes. Those who only want a free game would never had paid for it anyway. One could argue that on paper a company loses money to the pirates, but the reality is that most of them would never have bought it anyway, and its not like there are a finite number of copies possible. GoG understands this and has done just fine serving customers who value both their privacy and a lack of DRM-related headaches. DRM causes as many problems as it solves...in some cases more.

Exactly.

GOG has offered a money-back guarantee for a while on regular games. If people returning games for refunds but continuing to play was an issue, they would have stopped doing this and/or publishers would have been pulling their games from GOG. I think a lot of GOG customers recognize and appreciate the work that GOG does to make older games playable on modern hardware and OS's, and want to support them for that.

DRM often causes problems for the legitimate paying customers. When physical discs were my primary media for games, I would not buy a game until a no-CD crack was available, so I could protect my original discs and not bother with the hassle of loading a disc for a game that was already fully installed on my PC. I have had games that for whatever reason would not install or play correctly with my legitimately purchased media, but worked fine with a cracked version found online. Publishers have even been known to use such 3rd party cracks to fix their own games. https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080718/1117121722.shtml

 

[robb213]

“We're hand-picking only the games we can truly stand behind.”

That's what I like to hear. I've been saying to myself that the amount of "early access" games on Steam is becoming a bit much. And then half of them never really come to fruition, aside from a good chunk seeming to be nothing more than cheap money grabs.

 

[Uncle Al]

Actually paying for a beta? Well, the marketing people have convinced us to pay $1 for a bottle of tap water than normally costs $13 per 1,000 gallons so why not. After all, Americans are considered some of the more gullible people on earth so I guess we are all just "keeping up with appearances" LOL