GOG is kicking its Steam competitor into open beta

After months of closed alpha testing, the folks at Gog.com have kicked their GOG Galaxy platform into open beta and opened it up for public use.

This is most interesting to game developers because it heralds the arrival of a fresh challenger to the PC game client arena, which already includes Steam, Origin, Ubisoft's uPlay client and Trion's Glyph. 

You may remember GOG Galaxy as the standalone PC game client Gog.com unveiled last summer. Like Steam, it allows users to do things like maintain friends lists and auto-update their games, as well as facilitate online matchmaking that can, for select multiplayer titles, incorporate players using Steam. 

However, unlike Steam, GOG Galaxy users are promised the power to roll their games back to earlier versions -- though that functionality is not yet present in the beta version of the client -- and download standalone DRM-free copies of their games.