Good evening *big hug*
Well it's the usual argument that the piracy increased once DRM-free copies of games exist...but as you said steam exclusive games are also pirated - it's just easier with DRM-free because you don't need cracks.
Also Steam has steamworks and developers can also break their games without any interference....uhm....release patches....

I don't get it either :-\ ... Polonophobia maybe? *more shrugs*

Well it's often the same for Humble so it' not just an anti-Polish sentiment...

Wasn't the copy of The Wticher 2 and possibly The Wticher 3 that was around on torrent sites the Steam version and not the GOG version? And the latest Banner Saga game was on torrent sites within 30 minutes, so clearly DRM is not that hard to circumvent or crack for the most part. I can understand big AAA companies, they have board of directors that don't use logic, but smaller and customer backed companies should know better and have more respect for their customers and backers.

They hate Polonians? Those evil bigots. :-)

*big silly hug*

What's weird is that it happened the second time I tried to play it as well :-p

Oh yeah, I forgot... The majority of the game is pretty horrifying, yes. Nevermind! What about a couple other freebies? Treasure Adventure Game? Fallout?

Well i don't know about the Witcher games - sounds probable though.
They just claimed that the piracy increased after they released the GOG version....i'm curious on how this situation turn out in the end because apparently they promised a DRM-free version in the kickstarter campaign....which means they lied. They could get into legal trouble because of that....

Treasure Adventure game is quite fun. Thank you for reminding me, I still need to finish it :-)
*big hug*

Maybe they only looked at piracy once they released the GOG version?

But regardless, they made promises to backers, to investors, people who helped bring their first game to life and wanted to support them again. As you said, they are liars, jerks. And these kind of developers are becoming more common. They deserve to fail if they are going to behave like that to people who put their support and trust in them. Hopefully they will at least lose some customers out of all this, even if it is not enough for it to really effect them.

Maybe. Which would raise the question why they bothered to release the game on GOG in the first place. Did they want to prove something? If so they failed as evidenced by the pirated version of the second game.

Well that's at least what i heard. Haven't checked it but as you said it's becoming more and more common which is a real pity.

I think we got the first game for the same reason we get many scraps from developers: the sales dried up on Steam and the game is relegated to bundles and GOG. That seems to be how many developers and publishers treat GOG these days.

Reading the thread about it I can believe it all. For some reason more and more developers are just getting underhanded and greedy, treating their customers like dirty and just taking the lazy approach. It used to be AAA developers and publishers who did this, but now more and more indies are like that as well.

That sounds very likely - which is not great at all....

Yep. Me too. Well i guess opening the floodgates on Steam in combination with Early Access and crowd-funding certainly helped in establishing that attitude...

I wonder where all the AAA games are that we were told about when regional pricing was introduced? :-)

We got a few "AAA" publishers, but they only gave us scrap. Bioshock, for example. It is DRM-Free on Humble, but the publisher so far has not brought it here (unless GOG turned it down, but why would they when it is a well known title?). We get old games, which is still great, but we don't really get any newer AAA titles from the last 5 years or so. But again, I understand big companies doing this, their directors are old men who are out of touch, but indies are supposed to be more in-touch, they are supposed to be gamers themselves and not following corporate AAA style greed, lies, and manipulation.

Hm...well i guess Dying Light, the Saints Row and Metro games might count as AAA. I suppose we haven't seen everything from 2K yet....i assume / hope it was only a start..but generally there is a lack of AAA games indeed...not that this has to be bad thing though ;)

I would rather not have those few AAA games and go back to no regional pricing. :-)

But where are the newer Warner Bros. titles, the newish Bethesda titles, Disney, EA, Square Enix, etc. We seem to get next to no newer AAA titles, so what was the point of regional pricing?

Anyway, I think I am being too cynical so I will stop now. I think my bad head is making me a little too grumpy. :-)

On a more regular topic: How are you this evening?

You're not the only one thinking that way :)

But then the question is if we actually want their generally bland AAA games?

I'm doing good - bit tired now. How are you doing?