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That's like asking whether modern humans (from all over the planet) prefer vegetarian/vegan food and the answers would be nearly the same and not worth a lot since it's way too generalized.

The real question is:
Do GOG customers still care about DRM-free or has 90% of this particular customer base already been replaced?


We had a customer base here that has a life and also other hobbies so one that can just as well live without gaming if they are not treated right but that was also ready to part with a lot of money just for supporting something.
Now I mostly see the same audience like on Steam: Video game junkies who'd do anything to get their shot.

Those "junkies" also don't care whether their purchase is gone tomorrow as long as it is here today.

If you think about it, that's what happened with every form of art as soon as it was industrialized, it became a short term stimulus and not something to gather and appreciate and the gaming industry is bigger than Hollywood by now when it comes to profit, so having stuff that lasts and is always accessible isn't considered to be a good thing anyway since you have to keep the money machine running.
Most millennials have been bred with the fitting mindset of dumb customers that can't look past today.
Post edited May 28, 2017 by Klumpen0815
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Klumpen0815: The real question is:
Do GOG customers still care about DRM-free or has 90% of this particular customer base already been replaced?
I mean, not to put down GOG or anything, but for real, why else would you buy here?
If you don't care about DRM-free gaming, you'd just go to Steam for everything but GWENT. I would say old games, but Steam is keeping up with that pretty good these days.
Post edited May 28, 2017 by zeogold
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Klumpen0815: The real question is:
Do GOG customers still care about DRM-free or has 90% of this particular customer base already been replaced?
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zeogold: I mean, not to put down GOG or anything, but for real, why else would you buy here?
The Witcher/CDPR Franchise(s)

CDP is trying to limit it to around here for a reason.
You won't see GWENT or Cyberpunk 2077 on Steam/Origin/UPlay/Blizzapp.

Also remnants of the hipster reputation GOG gathered when it was truly different.
Post edited May 28, 2017 by Klumpen0815
I care about DRM as much as I did about CD checks and "what's word x on page y of manual" checks. They are annoying and I'd rather buy games without them, but I don't have and never did a strict no-DRM policy for my games. Whether I buy a DRM-ed game depends on the type.
(This is for single player only; I don't care about multiplayer DRM)

From mildest to most restrictive:

_ NO DRM (I'll buy this type if available, even if it's cheaper elswhere.)
_ CD Key activation during installtion. (The good old type-key-from-back-of-manual. I save those, so there is no danger of losing them, and even if I did there are tons available on the itnernet).
_ One time online activation.
_ One time online activation + having to create an account on some stupid site. (Having to create an account is a pain, but if it's a one time thing, I can waste those 5 minutes).
_ "Word x, page y" manual checks. (Annoying to have to enter every time, manual could be lost but nowdays with the internet, these things are not an issue).
_ CD-checks. (On one occasion my CD was not identified as original; an official patch fixed that but it was a pain. Plus CDs get scratched/damaged from constantly using them.)

============NO BUY LINE======================

_ Always online. (I can't guarantee I'll always have an internet connetion, so this type of DRM is a no-buy for me. Unless it was a multiplayer only game, for which you had to be online anyway).
_ Limited activations, checked based on hardware. (Nope. I change my PCs often, so I don't want to be locked out because the game was activated on x PCs already. This is a definite no-buy).
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Klumpen0815: You won't see GWENT or Cyberpunk 2077 on Steam/Origin/UPlay/Blizzapp.
GWENT, no, but I think Cyberpunk 2077 might.
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Klumpen0815: Also remnants of the hipster reputation GOG gathered when it was truly different.
I don't think that's enough to even keep the store alive, much less enough to motivate them to keep it going.
Post edited May 28, 2017 by zeogold
Even among my friends, those who still play games at all don't give a crap about it. The most avid gamer of the bunch actually openly treats my anti-DRM stance as tin-foil hat madness. And those are all people who have been gaming since early/mid nineties. So I really doubt the younger gamers, who grew up with the internet connected directly up their asses, tweeting their lives 24/7 would care. I mean there surely are some among them that do, but that's a minority so small you could fit them all on one bike.
I'm 20 now. Back in 2015 when I was 18, my internet got ruined for a solid 5 months and so were my Steam games. It was then that I moved full-force to GOG (thank you for that free Torchlight!) after the internet got back. It was also during this period that I was trying helplessly to obtain cracks of my games. This is all thanks to the 'convenience' Steam is supposed to have after all. The convenience of easily losing your ability to play games sure must be a good thing.

If it wasn't for losing this ability it would've been because the client is an unoptimized and buggy piece of crap that would often crash no matter what the specs were (for the crowd who were like "upgraed yo pc", I went through an Intel Celeron D with a built-in GPU, wasn't pleasant, to a Intel G2020 with AMD Radeon 5450HD and now to this Intel Core i7 with a Nvidia GTX840m laptop and yet in all circumstances it crashes and lags and hangs. Clearly I need a NASA PC to run Steam properly), or it would've been because the games refused to be run by a direct double click like I always want them to be.

The idea of a client to be a mandatory man in the middle itself is, excuse the wording, retarded. All it does is add an extra step, an extra obstacle, to getting straight to playing the game without trouble. And while people may claim Steam provides that, I claim that since it has to exist in the middle and it has to be opened, I don't give a damn how long it takes to launch itself then the game directly. It still is a middle-man that I have to go through.

I don't care about achievements (sometimes I go out of my way to complete one, but if I don't have achievements, what's the problem?) nor auto cloud saves or whatever. I know what I'm doing and would rather do it the way I want to rather than the way Steam wants to. While I still have to bear with Steam, I minimized it to just downloading my games on a virtual machine thanks to SmartSteamEmulator which lets me play any game without the hassle and trouble that Steam loves.

Whether the rest of the population cares about DRM or not, they ought to care about DRM starting from now rather than wait until they are bitten by it. They can do damage control if they start caring about it from now.
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Breja: Even among my friends, those who still play games at all don't give a crap about it. The most avid gamer of the bunch actually openly treats my anti-DRM stance as tin-foil hat madness.
Some people I talked to felt that way before. That I'm just a tin-foil hat conspiracy theorist who assumes the worst of the world to come out and bite him. But I've been living for so long now without having to open Steam to first play a game. I gotta say I'm doing pretty well assuming the worst of the world.

It's just that I don't want to end up in a future where the only option to get a better product is through piracy. I am already receptive and accepting of piracy, so if what I can buy is only DRM'd games in the future, the publishers ought not to ask why more games are getting pirated. The world can call me a tinfoil conspiracy theorist all they want, but I'm not spending money on a product that I do not own. At least admit upright it is a rental and charge 'rental prices' for the product, not 'ownership prices'.
Post edited May 28, 2017 by PookaMustard
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wolfsite: This has been something I have been thinking about wit the new and up and coming people into gaming either casual or hardcore.... do they care about DRM-free?
Everyone you're asking on GOG is not a modern gamer. They're not esports gamers or social media ones (farmville, clash of clans, etc.). All you'll get is conjecture on it, the same type you'll get about Beliebers and other things non-millenials hate.
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PookaMustard: my internet got ruined for a solid 5 months
That's the thing, though:
This is almost literally the only thing which would get people to care. If you have a rock-solid internet connection, you'll probably never even notice the DRM in things. And the increasing majority of people (or at least gamers, anyway) have a connection that works just fine. Even if you have one that works, say, 90% of the time, the trade-off of having achievements, in-game chatting, and a whole host of other features is worth it for the 10% of the time where your internet is down (for an average person like me, usually never more than half an hour at a time).
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MaximumBunny: Everyone you're asking on GOG is not a modern gamer.
For the most part you're right, but there's a few of us on here who've seen both sides of the coin.
Post edited May 28, 2017 by zeogold
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zeogold: That's the thing, though:
This is almost literally the only thing which would get people to care. If you have a rock-solid internet connection, you'll probably never even notice the DRM in things. And the increasing majority of people (or at least gamers, anyway) have a connection that works just fine. Even if you have one that works, say, 90% of the time, the trade-off of having achievements, in-game chatting, and a whole host of other features is worth it for the 10% of the time where your internet is down (for an average person like me, usually never more than half an hour at a time).
Read this
If it wasn't for losing this ability it would've been because the client is an unoptimized and buggy piece of crap that would often crash no matter what the specs were, or it would've been because the games refused to be run by a direct double click like I always want them to be.
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Klumpen0815: You won't see GWENT or Cyberpunk 2077 on Steam/Origin/UPlay/Blizzapp.
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zeogold: GWENT, no, but I think Cyberpunk 2077 might.
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Klumpen0815: Also remnants of the hipster reputation GOG gathered when it was truly different.
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zeogold: I don't think that's enough to even keep the store alive, much less enough to motivate them to keep it going.
It's not certain that they don't currently drive the shop against the wall and that it might still be alive in a few years.
I don't see a future for GOG when trying to compete with Steam on the same ground.
It'd become just another Blizzard-App just for Witcher/Cyberpunk stuff instead of Starcraft/Diablo/Overwatch.
Post edited May 28, 2017 by Klumpen0815
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Breja: Even among my friends, those who still play games at all don't give a crap about it. The most avid gamer of the bunch actually openly treats my anti-DRM stance as tin-foil hat madness.
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PookaMustard: Some people I talked to felt that way before. That I'm just a tin-foil hat conspiracy theorist
Maybe, it's not because of what you preach, but of how you do it?
See, from my experience in real life, the tin foil hat nick is usually given to those who keep bringing up a topic with a condescending holier-than-thou attitude and feel they're morally superior to others. Regardless of what the actual topic is.

I knew a Linux user, in whose presence it was impossible to have a conversation even remotely connected to computers for longer than 5 minutes before the Eeeeeeevil M$$$$ vs Linux topic came up. And don't get me started on vegans. I would say having an anti-DRM friend with the same attitude would be just as annoying.
Post edited May 28, 2017 by ZFR
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PookaMustard: Some people I talked to felt that way before. That I'm just a tin-foil hat conspiracy theorist
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ZFR: Maybe, it's not because of what you preach, but of how you do it?
See, from my experience in real life, the tin foil hat nick is usually given to those who keep bringing up a topic with a condescending holier-than-thou attitude and feel they're morally superior to others. Regardless of what the actual topic is.
Not the case in my experience. At least as far as one can speak objectively of his own attitude at least. In my case it only comes up when either I have some steam keys from some humble bundles and since I don't use steam I offer them to friends who do (which I think is a decent proof of not trying to preach to people against using it), or when asked whether I have played some game I respond that I haven't since there is no DRM-free release. Some people react to it by shaking their head at my refusal to use Steam or Origin or whatever, as the very idea of denying myself some new AAA release for such a reason is just mind-boggling to them.
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Ricky_Bobby: I'd also say that a good chunk of GOG's current users are gamers with bad and/or very expensive internet options. I wonder how many of them would still be around had they access to better and cheaper internet access, which I think is just a matter of time.
Really? I guess I belong to that minority then because for me preferring DRM-free has nothing (or at least very little) to do with my internet connection. I think my internet connection is speedy enough for now (10Mbps) and it is "free", as it is included to the housing costs (ie. I would have to pay for it even if I didn't use it; same for all apartments here). I could upgrade it to 100Mbps for a fee, but I haven't felt a strong push to do that yet.

Of course, IF I had a very shitty connection, I guess I would like the ability to have offline installers even more (e.g. if I could download my games at my work or friend's speedy internet and then install and play at home)... but Steam also offers the option to backup your games, so you don't necessarily have to redownload them every time you want to replay them, so this would be the option even with DRM'ed Steam games. You just need to validate the games online again, which doesn't need a speedy internet (and sometimes you don't even have to do that necessarily).

No idea how important multiplayer is to most. I see them somewhat as different things, a bit like whether I want to watch a movie or go outside have a beer. Also specifically with multiplayer games, at least I need only one multiplayer game at a time. I've been playing Team Fortress 2 for a long time now, and it takes all my "multiplayer gaming time". I see no need to look for other mp-games, as long as TF2 fulfills my competitive online gaming needs.

Online multiplayer games fulfill my competitive needs. Single-player games I play more for story, music, exploration etc. Two different needs.
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Ricky_Bobby: I'd also say that a good chunk of GOG's current users are gamers with bad and/or very expensive internet options. I wonder how many of them would still be around had they access to better and cheaper internet access, which I think is just a matter of time.
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timppu: Really? I guess I belong to that minority then because for me preferring DRM-free has nothing (or at least very little) to do with my internet connection.
Same here. My connection is decent enough, and has nothing to do with the matter. I'm opposed to DRM and clients on principle. I want to own my stuff, I want to have control over what is mine and I want to avoid achievements, trading cards, and whatever else pointless shit they offer.