Techland, the publisher of such franchises as Dying Light and Call of Juarez, has launched a brand-new online store for digital games. Called Gemly, the service offers Techland’s own titles and a selection of games from its publisher and developer partners. It will focus on legitimately sourced keys, as well as exclusive content for Techland’s published games.
As much as Steam is the reigning king of digital distribution on the PC, there are a few alternatives out there. GOG has a solid presence and offers something a little different with its regional cashback system and lack of DRM, while platforms like Origin and UPlay are required for their respective owners’ games to run. Gemly is looking to slot itself somewhere between the lot of them, but, unlike the others, it’s doing so without a local client.
Gemly’s library of available games is certainly larger than the restricted list of EA’s and Ubisoft’s services, but it is far smaller than that of GOG or Steam, because its focus is on Techland’s own titles and a few games from its friends. At the time of this writing, there are 89 games and pieces of downloadable content available, including Total War: Warhammer, The Witcher III: Wild Hunt, Alien Isolation, Company of Heroes, Mount and Blade: Warband, Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, and more.
While Techland plans to use the platform to release its own Gemly-only updates for games — like the newly announced Reinforcements DLC for Dying Light — it seems hard to imagine many other publishers forgoing the publicity of a Steam release.
It’s possible that instead of trying to compete with Steam and GOG, Techland is targeting the third-party game key market that has sprouted over the past few years. Gemly’s pledge is to “support the industry’s good standards in digital distribution,” through the sale of games that “come from legit sources, directly from […] partnered game developers and publishers.”
Gemly also claims not to store any payment details of customers, thereby helping to keep them secure. Other, more standard features include user wish lists and reviews, though the platform does not currently have the functionality to allow game gifting.
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