GOG Brings Universal Cloud Saves To PC Games
GOG (which used to be called Good Old Games until they started selling a bunch of good new games) just announced that its proprietary game client, GOG Galaxy, is leaving beta with a bunch of fresh, user-friendly features like cloud-based saves for every game on the system—including older, less technically-advanced titles.
According to GOG, which is owned and operated by CD Projekt (the same company that develops and publishes the Witcher series), with the new client, "games like Planescape: Torment, Heroes of Might & Magic III, or Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines gain the benefits of saves syncing and cloud backup for the first time ever." This should make life a lot easier for users who spread their gaming across multiple PCs, upgrade their devices often, or just want the extra comfort of knowing that all of their hard-spent hours playing are safe from crashes and hard drive corruption.
Of course, if you don't want to use the cloud-based save system, you don't have to. GOG says that users will be able to download copies of their save files from the cloud at any time, and that the new and upgraded client will allow users to turn off select features, including cloud-based saving, if they so choose.
In addition to cloud-based saves, the GOG Galaxy update adds a number of additional features to the app, including a battery-friendly hibernate mode, bandwidth limiting and scheduling tools, a frame-per-second counter, screenshot capture capabilities, and achievement tracking.
You don't have to use GOG Galaxy if you don't want to, either. Unlike Steam, GOG's primary competitor, GOG offers DRM-free copies of every title on its service. If you prefer to download a copy of a purchased game directly from GOG's website, go ahead. It's right there.
Universal cloud saves are supported on both Sony's PlayStation Network and Microsoft's Xbox Live, and it's nice to see a PC service adopt that feature, too (Steam offers cloud-based saves as well, but only for select titles). Is this going to be the feature that drives the final nail into the coffin of console gaming? Probably not, but it's a nice convenience to have just the same.