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General discussionGOG 2022 update #2: our commitment to DRM-free gaming(543 posts)(543 posts)
(543 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted March 17, 2022
Thanks for all the feedback you gave us after the previous update. You’re awesome and it shows the GOG insights piques your interest. Today’s article is about a topic that we know is very important to you – our commitment to DRM-free gaming and what it exactly means.

GOG was built on trust, which is at the very core of our identity. It is evidenced by our 30-day refund policy or releasing games DRM-free, among other things. At the same time, we understand DRM-free might mean different things to different people, especially when modern games blend offline and online experiences.

When GOG first launched, the gaming market looked very different from what it is now – retail was the main place to buy games, and digital distribution was just taking baby steps. DRM, the copy protection software created to protect licenses against unauthorized disc copying, was a huge source of annoyance for gamers often restricting how they can access their content. From the beginning, part of GOG’s mission was to provide gamers with a simple way to access and play games, without the need to fiddle with files or deal with any DRM. Making sure you can play games purchased on GOG offline, make backup copies, and install them as many times as you need is even more relevant now, as things like game preservation become an important topic for the whole industry.

Today, while some of the most infamous DRMs of the past are thankfully long gone, it doesn’t mean the constraints are fully gone. They just have a different, more complex face.

Games are evolving and many titles offer features beyond single-player offline gameplay, like multiplayer, achievements, vanities, rewards. Many such games are already on GOG and will continue to join our catalog. But it also raises the question: is this a new frontier for DRM?

And this is the crux of the matter. Some think it is, some don’t. Some hate it, some don’t mind it. And to be fair, we didn’t comment on it ourselves for quite some time and feel this is the time to do so:

We believe you should have freedom of choice and the right to decide how you use, enjoy, and keep the games you bought. It manifests in three points:
1. The single-player mode has to be accessible offline.

2. Games you bought and downloaded can never be taken from you or altered against your will.

3. The GOG GALAXY client is and will remain optional for accessing single-player offline mode.


We fully commit to all those points. Aside from this, we reaffirm our continuous effort to make games compatible with future OSs and available for you for years to come.

As for multiplayer, achievements, and all that jazz – games with those features belong on GOG. Having said that, we believe that you have the right to make an informed choice about the content that you choose to enjoy and we won’t tell you how and where you can access or store your games. To make it easier to discover titles that include features like multiplayer, unlockable cosmetics, timed events, or user-generated content, we’re adding information about such functionalities on product pages. In short, you’ll always know.

We always took a lot of pride in the freedom we provide gamers. While we know DRM-free may have a different meaning to everyone, we believe you have the right to decide how you use, enjoy, and keep the titles you get on GOG. With games evolving towards adding more online features, we want you to understand our DRM-free approach and what it means to us. It is an important topic – let us know what you think.
Posted March 18, 2022
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elcook: We're continuing to improve GOG and its services (I could mention here the last couple of updates about the new catalogue or the new promo pages as examples), and I can assure you there are more updates to come.
One thing I'd like to add here however, for more context, is that while some of the requests we receive might seem simple, they all require development work, while our Team is focused on delivering other features, at least equally as important.
Will there be more important updates on Galaxy? If we look at the various updates over the last few years, they have honestly been quite disappointing in terms of content.
Posted March 18, 2022
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TomNuke: "I love DRM".
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mqstout: We're better off without such people here. There are dozens of other places on the Internet for people who prefer stores devoid of scruples and filled with anti-consumer behaviors.
Hilarious, bro. Do you think your sub-group is enough to pay the bills? Again, you're living in a fantasy.
Posted March 18, 2022
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chandra: As for offline / GOG GALAXY installers having different versions - there are additional beta builds in the client in a separate in-development branch, which is available only for those titles that developers decide to share unstable builds with users (more info here). As they are not release candidate builds, as such they are not the Stable Version (version checked by the developer and our QA and Product Teams with their confirmation everything works as intended). The discrepancies in build versions refer to separate beta branches only. Any other cases are most likely due to human error or our automation system failing to generate the notice and deliver it to our Team - like it was with the mentioned Afterparty. I’ve already informed our Technical Support Team in that regard (they are on it!). I do want to highlight that it’s not by any means our ill intent that, occasionally, build versions differ, but by unfortunate omission.
Is there some way for us to differentiate between the two cases (beta builds vs. human error) so that we can notify you about the latter and not the former? Obviously, without using galaxy.
Posted March 18, 2022
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It's great to see GOG re-affirm their commitment to DRM-free games going forward. It's not so great to see that in-game cosmetics are apparently not counted when assessing whether a game is DRM-free or not. I can't wrap my head around the idea that the CP2077 cosmetics "do not affect the single-player gameplay"; quite obviously they do, since they're available in single-player mode, and are being used as an incentive for people to install Galaxy! I've made this point before, but if GOG can just arbitrarily change their definition of 'DRM-free' to exclude certain things as 'not part of gameplay', what's to stop them from extending that to other in-game content in the future?

I do appreciate GOG making more of an effort to communicate with their user base over the past few months. Unfortunately, this latest statement doesn't really address any of the concerns I've had with the store recently.
Posted March 18, 2022
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joppo: One thing I wanna point out however is that actions speak louder than words. If they want to make that message of commitment to DRM-free undeniably clear they could release the Cyberpunk2077 "My Rewards" items DRM-free in a free DLC not bound to Galaxy.
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MarkoH01: Thank you for explaining how GOG sees the whole DRM situation. One point however is not mentioned or has been left out intentionally: additional cosmetic content linked (without any technical reason!) to Galaxy only. I would love to get some explanation on this as well. Thank you.
I 100% agree with above. Some people seem stuck on the fake argument "It's OK to now start gating single-player content online if I personally deem it unimportant / cosmetic", when the real argument has always been "Why only now with post 2018 GOG releases here are we seeing 'moving the goalposts' arguments of the fake and arbitrary 'need' to gate any single player content (cosmetic or not) online, when there are plenty of examples of 2008-2018 games (including major AAA titles) here on GOG that simply included similar optional "But it's only cosmetic (tm)" content in the base installers for everyone, bullsh*t-free and without any resulting community divisions"? Examples:-

QUBE 2 - "But it's only cosmetic" QUBE1 glove skin was made into a "Q.U.B.E. 2: Classic Q.U.B.E. Glove Skin" offline installer:-
https://www.gogdb.org/product/1199381642/build/52707013356387846

Bioshock Infinite - "But it's only cosmetic" Comstock China Broom Shotgun / Bird's Eye skinned weapons are included in the game with all other pre-order bonuses.

Dishonored - "But it's only cosmetic" pre-order bonuses added some books in-game. Reading them (or not) makes zero difference to gameplay but they are included in the game with all other Void Walker's Arsenal pre-order bonuses.

The Talos Principle - "But it's only cosmetic" optional Serious Sam voice that replaces Elohim's is entirely optional and doesn't affect gameplay. That too is simply included in the game along with Road to Gehenna.

^ If they can do it, so too can every game simply by putting the content in question into the same folders they get "unlocked" to before doing their GOG build instead of sitting there trying to come up with fake "reward" reasons of why they should be arbitrarily separated in the first place vs giving the same content to the same people who are ultimately paying the same money for. The only games that genuinely have online dependency issues are those like Diablo 3. The rest is BS excuse making.

Likewise, a wise man once said - "We believe gamers would prefer to buy their products legitimately than pirate them. They just need a good reason to buy those games and we give them those reasons by selling games at low prices, optimized to run on modern operating systems and adding great bonus materials." Surely I can't be the only one here to see the common sense fail in GOG 'rewarding' pirates who illegally download "repacked" Galaxy versions with more content than actual paying non-Galaxy customers get?...

This stuff isn't a "reward", it's just a poorly thought out combination of over-marketing the 'need' for a client for those who just don't want it, and an exercise in lowering single player DRM-Free threshold into "DRM-Free sort of" in order to try too hard in all the wrong areas to get a few extra games here then pass the buck to the developers when the backlash occurs. I'd rather GOG refocus on getting new Indies that don't resort to trashy online-only gimmicks as well as bringing more of the (many) missing classics here that never suffered from online-only-itus in the first place...
Posted March 18, 2022
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elcook: In this scenario, if three people want to play a game, all three people should have their own version of it in their GOG library ;)
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Magnitus: What if it is your spouse or underage children?
Still no, sorry! It's for personal use only. However, the other example you gave are something else (games played on one screen with several controllers), and anything game-specific should be considered as such.

In other words, if two people are playing one game on two devices, that is not oaky.

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chandra: (quote)
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mrkgnao: Is there some way for us to differentiate between the two cases (beta builds vs. human error) so that we can notify you about the latter and not the former? Obviously, without using galaxy.
Beta builds are visible only on the beta branch, so it should be pretty clear then that it's not the Stable Version accessible only on the main branch.
Tl;dr if it's on the main branch and there is still disparity, then you could ping our Team in regards to it.
Post edited March 18, 2022 by chandra
Posted March 18, 2022
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lolplatypus: I'd like to point to a question I had in this thread earlier which might have been lost in the shuffle:
What happens, if a game in my library has functionality along those lines added in an update, especially given that changelogs are handled by the developers and often enough don't exist? Are there any plans to handle that eventuality aside from Galaxy's rollback feature?
Sorry to pester, but I think this is a fairly important point.
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elcook: No need to apologize, thank you for bringing this up again, it did indeed escape our attention (sorry!)
The rollback feature is available only on the GOG GALAXY client and we don't currently have any plans to develop it further. We also don't plan to have additional offline builds if features like multiplayer, rewards, etc. are added to a game that didn't have it in previous builds. That being said, we'll be sure to inform you if that changes.
As an FYI, our Team is in the process of developing automated changelogs, so hopefully that will help in the future. We still leave the decision whether to include the changelog or not to the developer.
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Hustlefan: Here's the problem. I've created support tickets which weren't answered in months and are still pending. That's why I mentioned Afterparty in this thread. If there is no chance to notice you about such issues, what else can I do to make you aware?
I also created a support ticket for a lot of games where the activity feed isn't working, but didn't get any answer. I even wrote some PMs to SmollestLight about this, but again - no answer. So please tell me, what should I do? I really want to help but you don't let me do it.
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elcook: I hear you. While the official recommendation from our Product Team is to contact our Technical Support, I am well aware of the overwhelming backlog they're currently facing and, as a result, extended delays in replies.
Contacting support is still the main channel to use for this type of inquiries. However, pinging someone 'blue' like SmollestLight or our Community Moderators could result in us noticing it faster than Support. You can also try to ping me or Chandra, but I will admit our day to day focus is elsewhere and as such we may miss it. We will try our best not to, though!
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Djaron: so basically, if i were to install my gog game on my 3 computers at home and propose to play some lan mp game to a coiuple of friends who would spend some holidays at my place, what would be the official stance ?
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elcook: In this scenario, if three people want to play a game, all three people should have their own version of it in their GOG library ;)
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phaolo: Thank you for this post about DRM-free.
But, please, keep improving the site and service, because there are still a lot of problems.
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elcook: We're continuing to improve GOG and its services (I could mention here the last couple of updates about the new catalogue or the new promo pages as examples), and I can assure you there are more updates to come.
One thing I'd like to add here however, for more context, is that while some of the requests we receive might seem simple, they all require development work, while our Team is focused on delivering other features, at least equally as important.
So, if content is added to the galaxy version of a game after that game is realesed, the offline instalers won´t get that new content?
Posted March 18, 2022
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*thumbs up*

Keep up the good work!
Posted March 18, 2022
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Magnitus: I hate to put you on the spot, but this is certainly not how some of those games are marketed and it goes against common-sense concerning how family (as in, immediate we live together family) dynamics work. Bonkies is near-useless as a solo game and if you tell your kid that he can't play your game on your computer because the law says so, he'll look at you funny.
Copyright law have nothing to do with "common-sense", if you invite one friend to watch a movie you purchased on Blu-ray technically you are violating the copyrights as it can be considered as a public viewing. Same thing for games, you are purchasing a personal license and if anybody else than you wants to play the game they need to purchase another one unless the right owner explicitly gives you the right to share it.

Of course there is the "law" and there is, as you said, "common-sense", nobody is going to sue you if your children are playing a game you purchased for yourself, and even if they did I doubt any judge will took it seriously, but technically it is possible.
Posted March 18, 2022
Probably way too late to the "party" for one more comment along these lines to matter, but I'll just say that the part about "cosmetics" being restricted even in singleplayer is where this last remaining value of GOG crumbles as well, this time as a clear, official, statement, after having done so in practice for years now.
I fully agree that GOG's DRM-free promise always only referred to singleplayer, so if MP is DRM-ed in any way it can't really be said that it goes against this sole remaining pillar, and things like public achievements or leaderboards or so on require a connection by definition, but restricting any sort of actual singleplayer content in any way, shape or form, regardless of how it's argued that according to someone's definition it has no direct impact on the actual gameplay can never be acceptable if the fully DRM-free singleplayer mark is supposed to be maintained.
And GOG has shown time and time and time again that once it starts on a slippery slope, it'll keep going down it. This is the last one left...

PS: As to the offline vs. Galaxy installers version debate, it should be clearly specified if the latest Galaxy build is an unstable one or if it contains updated that are only relevant to Galaxy, and of course version numbers shouldn't differ between Galaxy and offline if the actual content is the same, in order to avoid any misunderstandings here.
But older versions should also be available as offline, at least on a case by case basis, for those games where newer ones introduce bugs or incompatibilities. Those aren't many, but they are notable, so it should solve a fair amount of problems without that much of an added resource use, right?
Post edited March 18, 2022 by Cavalary
Posted March 18, 2022
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BartsBlue: I am fairly annoyed by the fact that I cannot download older versions of offline installers via webpage (not sure if it can be done via Galaxy). Some others have mentioned patches that are game-breaking. I will also add that I don't really like the current trend of everything constantly changing and some game updates are not to my liking. Examples:

* someone mentioned Chuchel, I understand why the changes were made and don't really care, but not being able to access the original version to compare bothers me (disclaimer: I do not own Chuchel on GOG);

* my beloved Darkest Dungeon has evolved a lot over the years, but I have preferred one of the earlier versions. I fortunately had it backed up, but if I hadn't had, I would have been very angry about not being able to redownload it after updates;

* World of Horror - an excellent retro-game, being able to see how it grew over time from one version to another is very educational. However, I can't access earlier builds from before I bought it and it annoys me quite a bit.

As it is now, I don't think that the point 2 is fully realised by GOG. Yes, if one had downloaded offline installer of version X, they can access it. But if they hadn't or if they lost it (my case, too), there is no way of going back to the favourite build / version.

Sorry for the long rant. I certainly hope someone from GOG will read the above and - hopefully - it will be heard. I understand I may be a niche client in what essentially is a niche shop and therefore my "wants" will never be realised. I would also be very grateful if someone could inform me that I am wrong and these older versions can indeed be accessed in some way I have missed - I'll be very glad to admit that I was wrong. However, whilst I generally agree with and support the principles listed by GOG, I feel they are not realised in 100% as of now.
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nightcraw1er.488: Rollback an update is a galaxy only feature. I have long gone on about this, and changelogs. Too busy adding sorting options to main page unfortunately:
https://www.gog.com/forum/general/provide_a_full_and_complete_changelogged_download_system
There is a pretty big problem with gaming when "updates" can remove or edit your game against your wishes.
Gog should have a couple of versions of the game or the original discs for the good old games it has.




16:30
Post edited March 18, 2022 by §pec†re
Posted March 18, 2022
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elcook: We're continuing to improve GOG and its services (I could mention here the last couple of updates about the new catalogue or the new promo pages as examples), and I can assure you there are more updates to come.
One thing I'd like to add here however, for more context, is that while some of the requests we receive might seem simple, they all require development work, while our Team is focused on delivering other features, at least equally as important.
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Alexim: Will there be more important updates on Galaxy? If we look at the various updates over the last few years, they have honestly been quite disappointing in terms of content.
Yes, we're working on improving your experience with GOG GALAXY as well. We have mentioned this also in GOG 2022 update #1 saying "Our approach right now focuses on making the main view in GOG GALAXY more dynamic and live". Expect some information about this in the near future.
Posted March 18, 2022
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chandra: Apart from the core definition of DRM-free, many of you mention the additional cosmetics for Cyberpunk 2077, accessible after one-time login to GOG GALAXY client (or the REDlauncher for those that purchased the title on other storefronts). We’ve mentioned before in this thread but let me repeat that for good measure - we believe each developer has the right to decide whether they want to give additional incentives, like cosmetics, that do not impact the single-player gameplay. The fact CDPR and GOG are a part of the same group does not change the fact they are the creators of the game, and we are a digital storefront.
So you're openly admitting to not giving a damn about keeping content DRM free then?

Absolutely fed up with this 'it's just cosmetic' excuse, first of all the CP2077 content isn't just cosmetic, you forget there's a really good unique weapon in there or do you just choose to omit that to help justify the hypocrisy? Honestly, to come in here and tell us that this type of content in a game full of customization 'doesn't affect the gameplay experience' is insulting.

How do you not see that locking off any single player content for completely arbitrary reasons like this is a gross betrayal of what GOG used to be? Why should it matter what the content is? It's the god damned principle of the thing. The sheer temerity to come in here and defend it. Does no one working here have any scruples anymore?

Richlind said it best: Optionality without parity is deception. All you really want is for us and the forum to go away and for everyone else to give in and just start using your awful client. GOG does not care that there is no parity with those that don't want to use it.
Post edited March 18, 2022 by ReynardFox
Posted March 18, 2022
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mrkgnao: Is there some way for us to differentiate between the two cases (beta builds vs. human error) so that we can notify you about the latter and not the former? Obviously, without using galaxy.
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chandra: Beta builds are visible only on the beta branch, so it should be pretty clear then that it's not the Stable Version accessible only on the main branch.
Tl;dr if it's on the main branch and there is still disparity, then you could ping our Team in regards to it.
You're talking about looking at the branches in galaxy, I believe. I was asking about differentiating between the two cases without using galaxy.
Posted March 18, 2022
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chandra: Beta builds are visible only on the beta branch, so it should be pretty clear then that it's not the Stable Version accessible only on the main branch.
Tl;dr if it's on the main branch and there is still disparity, then you could ping our Team in regards to it.
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mrkgnao: You're talking about looking at the branches in galaxy, I believe. I was asking about differentiating between the two cases without using galaxy.
Beta branch is available only in GOG GALAXY.
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Community
General discussionGOG 2022 update #2: our commitment to DRM-free gaming(543 posts)(543 posts)
(543 posts)