Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Early access for GOG

I don't like steam. Is there any way that GOG customers can play early access and give feedback?

Early Access is AFAIK only confirmed to become available on Steam and Stadia. GOG has very consumer-friendly practices regarding EA as customers can get refunds up to 2 weeks after purchase, which naturally makes it less lucrative for publishers.

They have a GOG page, so I bloody hope it will come out there as well. If not, then it is definitely a wait for me.

Fingers crossed. Otherwise it's going to be a long wait . . .

What's the difference?

I prefer GOG for couple reasons. Couple rational ones, but in this case the most relevant one is the irrational one - all my cRPGs, old and new, are on my GOG account.

Most of my stuff is on GoG. But I'd rather have bought EE trilogy on Steam since it has achievements.
But for BG3 I don't think it'll play any different if you launch from Steam or GoG.

huh. It's odd that they didn't enable achievements on GOG. Not that I care.

As I said - irrational.

Still, I assume it will come to GOG. It has GOG page, and D:OS2 EA was on GOG as well I believe.

If the game can be modded I'll purchase on Steam; if not I'll purchase on GOG.

The difference for me is DRM free and I'm able to disconnect from the social network. I don't care about achievements. With GOG I can play on an air gaped computer and I can contribute to the discussion when I want and not be surprised when some game event automatically upload to a server somewhere.

Also, the steam forums are troll infested. I don't mind some mild trolling when and if the trolls are clever but the quality of the trolling on steam is pretty poor.

As much as I'm loath to engage in negative commentary about other forums, I have almost invariably found them to be quite problematic: they seem to be overrun with the sort of people whose only contribution is unhelpful remarks.

I'd rather buy on GOG because there is no bad surprise with the DRM. I'm paying all my games, and I don't want to be the host of a Denuvo protection system.
Another reason is I don't like the Steam client very much. It's heavier and bloated with many features I don't use, it's also checking updates all the time and you have little control over that.

But, from comments one can see in GOG's forums, they update later than Steam, and I'm a bit concerned that if I choose GOG for this beta, I will be penalized. Is there any advice from Larian or somebody who has information on this? It's not clear whether it's a delay on GOG's side or on the developer's.

If that's a few days I don't care, but it appears that for games like UBOAT or Plane Mechanic Simulator, for instance, those delays may be much longer.

Never did EA on GOG, but updates/releases tend to be right on time. I don't know if there is anything infrastructure wise, that makes it slower for developers to update.

Larian games have been DRM free since Divinity 2 Developer's Cut, a DRM free patch was released for the earlier Divinity 2 Dragon Knight Saga release and some Beyond Divinity retail releases, and the digital releases of Divine Divinity and Beyond Divinity are DRM free (the last retail Divine Divinity update removed the DRM, though the game still requires the disk to play a couple of cutscene videos).

Updates through Galaxy are generally available at the same time as Steam. GOG's patches and updates to the full installers are usually ready within one or two business days.
The timing of Galaxy updates are dependent on the developer; GOG handles the patches and full installers.

Thanks for the reply, that clarifies everything I need to know to make a choice (and hopefully for other people posting here too).

I'm not bothered by most DRM, only by a few ones that are too aggressive, but I certainly appreciate the companies proposing DRM-free options to their customers!

@vometia -- Right. When a question is asked on steam it's almost inevitable that someone will reply "do you want us to play the game for you . . ." and such.

@Redglyph -- Exactly! This forum needs a 'like' button.

@Raze -- do you know if early access will be available on GoG? If not, would you ask the powers that be?

Currently, on PC Early Access has only been announced on Steam.

I will take it as yes... I will also take it as no.

I worder if GOG DRM free policy might be a problem. Larian could be worried that disgruntled players would pirate the game and “provide feedback” without actually showing interest in it (financially). I could understand that. Or perhaps they want to keep feedback to one platform. Or GOG has much weaker infrastructure on developers end. Or they hate free market and consumer friendly business practices and have sold whatever is left of their souls to Gaben.

All are equally possible and most likely the true answer is something I didn’t think of.

Typically there is a primary target platform, which will be Steam because of it's market size. Everything else I would expect to be secondary; how much attention is paid to those platforms is likely driven by their market size and how much they diverge from the primary platform.

GOG, although a much smaller market, is very similar to Steam, in that the base game is on the same OS and graphics API, with MP features either dropped or replaced with Galaxy, so it shouldn't take too long. Stadia, on the other hand, is Linux and Vulkan, so it will probably be a post-release port, unless Google is offering incentives.

i personally dont understand why every one seems to be liking to sell on steam. steam cuts arround 30% of the sell price and keeps it. so why paying so much, just to sell a game, when it can be done from a owned home page?

i rather would like to pay the full ammount to Larian instead

buying on GOG