Hey, just wanted to post a reminder that the mass effect trilogy has over 17,000 up-votes on GOG's community wish list. Since Dragon Age: Origins is now available on GOG I wanted to say I would love to see the Mass Effect trilogy there as well.
I am NOT an employee of EA...so what I say here is personal opinion.
I seriously doubt you will ever see ME3 on GOG. The reason for this is it is an Origin exclusive game on PC, meaning you have to have Origin to play it. DAO is an older Bioware/EA game and has been brought into Origin, but wasn't designed originally to support it or require it, and was also available on Disk, and Steam platforms. While I could see ME1 or ME2 making their way to GOG, because they both were originally outside Origin, I would be shocked if they put ME3 out to GOG. I also don't think GOG would be happy having a game that needed another client to play as that is against their DRM free business model, and I don't think EA/Bioware is going to put in the effort to remove the ME3 Origin component as it also doubles as multiplayer matchmaking and monitoring. So you MAY get ME1 and ME2 on there, but I doubt you will ever see ME3, DAI, MEA or any game newer than ME3 on GOG. I personally wouldn't hold my breath on any of them, but you may get lucky and get only the early ones....
Fallout 3 required Games for Windows Live at launch and eventually became literally unplayable before the DRM was totally removed by GOG. In addition Crysis 1 (an EA game) included secuROM, a DRM so draconian it makes Origin and even Denuvo look invisible by comparison. GOG was not only able to release the game, but also to completely remove all online activation requirements from it. As we can see, GOG has dealt with DRM that was far more integrated into the game than ME3, and has not only been able to release these games, but also to successfully remove DRM from them. You stated that it would take "effort" to remove Origin integration from the game, but I can guarantee you that EA is in possession of a DRM free build of the game, so it would only be a matter of handing the binarys over to GOG.
I think the online systems of ME3 are embedded in Origin, so that may be an issue.
I think the problem with Mass Effect 2 is that the only way to get the DLC nowadays is through the Origin client, which I'm not sure GOG allows. They could do it like Dragon Age where every single piece of DLC is included, but EA is still charging quite a bit for ME2's DLC and may not want to do that.
I see no reason why Mass Effect 1 couldn't come to GOG, however.
@TheRoosterLord schrieb:
Fallout 3 required Games for Windows Live at launch and eventually became literally unplayable before the DRM was totally removed by GOG. In addition Crysis 1 (an EA game) included secuROM, a DRM so draconian it makes Origin and even Denuvo look invisible by comparison. GOG was not only able to release the game, but also to completely remove all online activation requirements from it. As we can see, GOG has dealt with DRM that was far more integrated into the game than ME3, and has not only been able to release these games, but also to successfully remove DRM from them. You stated that it would take "effort" to remove Origin integration from the game, but I can guarantee you that EA is in possession of a DRM free build of the game, so it would only be a matter of handing the binarys over to GOG.
Make no mistake here, the developer removed secuROM or other DRM measures from the games for their GOG versions.
Furthermore, that secuROM seems more draconian then other DRM measures don't says anything about the technical effort necessary to remove it.
Compared to the effort to make ME3 online features work on a different client, it was easy to remove secuROM from other games.
If EA decides to make a ultimate edition of ME2 and ME3, with all the DLCs included, then there is a chance that the game will come to GOG, but I don't see that coming in the near future.
Everyone is making great points. I'd like to add that GOG has dealt with embedded online features before. Let's go back to Fallout 3. The game had a feature to connect to Games for Windows Live, a service that no longer exists. To deal with this, GOG made it so that clicking the button to access GFWL does nothing. The button still exists in the menu, but it has no function. Dragon Age: Origins also did something similar, where the option to connect an EA account exists, but doesn't add anything to the game. Something similar could be done for ME3, where the online component is disabled entirely. I don't think this is a difficult thing to do.
Of course it s technical doable, what matters is EA's will to do it.
Imho they have zero interest to do it in the moment, at least not for ME2 and 3. It is as @Fred_vdp said, EA still makes good money from the ME2 and ME3 DLCs on their own platform.
Why would they share the profit?
Please also remember, EA has spent a good bit of money creating Origin with the express intent of cutting out other online sales systems and having full control of the later released games. I have seen no argument given as to WHY they would turn around and work on REMOVING the one item they created specifically to sale and integrate DRM and multiplayer into their games. This to me is sorta like expecting to see Android phone products in an Apple store... EA wants the marketing, sales and distribution all under their control, heck I bet they would totally remove physical stores from their business plan(and are working hard to do it) today if they could, so I just don't see them turning around and adding in a distribution site NOT controlled by them and in some ways controlled by a competitor.....
Yeah, it may happen one day, but it would completely and totally surprise me if it happens on anything of the age ME3 games and newer....Maybe ME2 but...ehhh, I guess anything is possible, for those who like GOG and want this, I hope it happens, but I am just saying don't hold your breath.
At best, EA could bring DA2 and ME2 on GOG. But ME3 and DAI are using the Origin infrastructure for the MP side. And while they can cut those at some point, that time is not know. Both the DA:I and ME3 MP are still alive and kicking. And i did not have troubles getting into those at any given time, which is amazing, considering how old are those games.
@mcsupersport EA actually has a rather nice number of games on GOG. So it's not quite far-fetched to assume that they are happy cooperating with GOG. Yes, mostly are old games, but i will point towards a GOG exclusive: the only place where you will find legally and working a copy of Sim City 3000 is GOG. You do not offer exclusives, if you are not happy with that cooperation. GOG can bring life back into old games (they have a really good knowhow in the matter), EA can profit from selling old games again. It's also good for consumers, as GOG goes to incredible lengths to keep those old games playable.
What is puzzling, is why EA doesn't add those versions into Origin, as a lot of those games are present there and lack the updates brought by GOG (i have a few old EA games on Origin, but i have even more on GOG and i can tell the difference in the support for modern OS). One would think that EA would chose to have the superior versions on both platforms. Probably certain terms in the contract prevents them to use the improvements made by GOG to make the games to work on the modern OS.
GOG was able to restore MP content for certain games, but in the case of ME3 and DA:I, the online parts are deeply embedded with Origin. And the only possible way to deal with it, would probably be to cut that completely (which would be a real pain).
I am mildly optimistical when it comes to ME1, ME2 and DA2, though. Those could probably be brought on GOG, without many problems.
