What Might Come To GOG Connect Next?

So the guys over at Good Old Games seem to have come up with something everybody likes — linking accounts between Steam and GOG to bring select game licenses from the former to the latter. People are already wondering what games might be added to the service later and I wanted to do a bit of speculation on that front, looking at some of the factors probably affecting availability.

GOG Connect is really useful for people torn between Steam’s myriad features and GOG’s abstention from using digital rights management. I myself had already bought multiple games on both services to preserve ones I think I’d want to keep backed up somewhere forever. Maybe it will convince some Steam users to come over to GOG if there are already copies of games waiting for them. It might convince more people who were staunchly against DRM to buy games on Steam if they know they can get DRM-free copies. Come to think of it, I imagine a reason GOG and certain publishers even went through with this is because it’s basically the same thing the Humble Store has already been doing.

A large chunk of what’s sold on the Humble Store is bundled with both a DRM-free copy and a key for Steam or maybe some other service. This is an important factor because the publishers and developers most likely to connect their games on Steam and GOG are probably the ones already bundling Steam keys and DRM-free copies on Humble. I’m not gonna put off a whole list of games I think are likely to be on GOG Connect in the future based on that, but if there’s a game you’re interested in for the service, I’d suggest looking it up on Humble to see how it’s sold there.

I imagine though that the other Witcher games will eventually make it to GOG Connect. The first two actually already had a sort of precursor to GOG Connect going on. Also compare to the “reclaim your game” service. Everything GOG is doing seems very much about preservation.

Mostly what we’re probably going to get here are indie games. Outside of classics that’s pretty much what GOG sells and is pretty much what ends up DRM-free on Humble. I’d wager most of the games that are or will be on GOG Connect are games that are in fact already DRM-free on Steam. People forget that there are games sold on Steam that can boot up without Steam.

Off the top of my head two big publishers I’m hopeful but doubtful will put their games through GOG Connect are Square Enix and Ubisoft. Both have lots of important legacy games on Steam and GOG like Ghost Recon, Thief, and Deus Ex, but neither bundles DRM-free copies with keys on Humble. Ubisoft in particular has a few notable recent games on GOG like Far Cry 2, Rayman Origins, and the original Assassin’s Creed. At least the former two are DRM-free on Steam.

Hopefully GOG Connect keeps going and who knows, maybe it’ll keep alive the message that DRM-free games and preservation are important.