Grumpy Over Gamestore
GOG.com has always been a store that I would love to support. It has more classic games than I've seen in any other store which I am very interested in (there are almost no modern games that interest me), and they have recently launched a nice update to their game launcher (“Galaxy”) that allows you to run games you own from other storefronts, as well as having a nice place to organize your GOG games. Over the years, GOG has given away quite a few games to me, either directly or from their “Connect” service, which gives you free GOG copies of games you already own on Steam.
But I can't support them, nor can I really take advantage of all they offer, for two reasons: their Galaxy client doesn't support GNU/Linux despite a long-standing promise that it will; and I do not use credit/debit cards.
The original Galaxy client has been available for quite some time, and for many years they have promised to bring it over to GNU/Linux after they began supporting GNU/Linux game releases on their store. Years later and a major update (in limited beta, but still) later, and we are no closer to getting any version of that client for GNU/Linux. In truth, such a thing isn't an absolute requirement, as downloading your games from their site is easy enough, but Galaxy does add some convenience and an all-in-one place to run games, so it certainly would be a nice thing to have, and yet despite promises, we still are no closer to having a client.
But even without a GNU/Linux client, I'd still support them, if not for one thing: I don't use credit or debit cards (for many reasons I won't get into here), and their store requires the use of cards in the USA. There are a couple of payment options on their site that one can take advantage of if one is in Europe, but for the USA, the options are credit/debit or nothing, and I don't have that option.
If GOG would find some international prepaid solution or do like Steam and create its own (Steam's prepaid cards are absolutely everywhere and allow me to buy anything and everything in Steam without a credit card), I could absolutely support GOG. In fact, there's a sale going on right now that I could easily throw a good bit of money at, but GOG apparently doesn't want my money enough to support me.
I mean, I realize I'm sort of in the minority here, but cards aren't just good to crediphobic people like me — imagine the money that would flow into GOG if people were allowed to get these cards and give them as gifts, or for people who want to manage their money spent on games, or for kids too young to have credit cards, and so on. There are so many advantages, and the only disadvantage would be to create, distribute, and set up support for these cards, something that can't be that complex given how many companies, large and small, have cards hanging all over the gift card wall/display at every single store I visit.
GOG apparently wants to have a major presence in the ever-expanding game store market, one that now has Epic, EA (Origin), Bethesda, Uplay, and others, and giving GNU/Linux users access and selling retail cards would go a long way towards putting them out in front of lesser options.