I'll have you know ore farming is a well known and respected profession, that only the knowledgeable can truly master :P. It's not all just sleight of hand and sturdy pickaxes.

I have the brown withered thumb of decay... Anything even remotely related to farming fails when I'm present, and that includes WoW...

Blessed be the DRM-free.
The gap was caused by me kicking myself for not proofreading (when I make my living as an author and editor!)

Hmm, not sure the distinction is really as clear as you present it.

The game is mostly software running on the customers home computer and on the server computer. The service part could be seen as only consisting of providing the external hardware. In principle this hardware could exist independent (i.e. with the possibility to setup your own server). Especially in the modern cloud computing age, this should be no problem for everyone to get access to external compatible hardware. For massively multiplayer servers this might still be a bit inconvenient and some servers might indeed require maintenance and there are concerns regarding things like leader boards, match making or cheating, but they are not regarded as total road block. Especially for MP games with a low number of players per game (say less than 10), where you know the other players, there is no fundamental need for DRM in MP games. For these games GOG could actually do something but mostly doesn't and isn't better than Steam.

So, it all hinges on this little detail: The software running the servers is not a service but just a software. Not selling it and calling it a service, doesn't really make it so or at least the distinction becomes much less clear. Keeping the server under their own control is effectively a measure to check on the validity of the customer, how can that not be DRM?

What I would love is if for every but the most massively multiplayer games there are official servers that you can connect to but there are also unofficial servers too. Only this would be fully in the spirit of DRM free. DRM free means trusting the customer. If there is no such trust, DRM free doesn't really makes sense and if there is, DRM doesn't make sense, even for multiplayer games.

That's not how IPv4 works.

But it would be nice if the server SW was freely available for all my GOGgy multiplayer games.
Then I might someday get to play them as such.
Currently, I simply don't have time for anything multiplayer, other than the occasional Minecraft of Xbox game with my son.

Can you please tell me what I've missed in 20 years of running servers, coding network applications as well as gaming on LAN & Internet?

IPv4 doesn't give a fuck. There's a route or there is no route. Switch, hub, or router -- none of it matters to the application, as long as there is a route. Routing is handled by your OS and the routers in turn.

How many people are really involved in these "controversies" though, one wonders. There are quite a few loud members of the forum upset by these things, but I bet overall Galaxy and profiles were highly requested features by GOG users.

As long as both sides has the same protocol it really doesn't matter how or where... Maybe you're thinking of NAT? That's mostly because of the shortcomings of having only 32b addresses.

But yeah, LAN, MAN, WAN, CAN what ever etc really just doesn't matter, and I've always hated the fact that tests and schools are still maintaining the archaic notion that such things are important...

I mean, a bridge is a bridge, doesn't matter for the cars and trucks, no matter where it is, only that both sides agrees on the construction plans and type of material.

I have games that I do not really have as the bloody misbehaving copy protection is hindering me from playing them. Not going to pay for those again.

I don't know how many people were really upset. It seems like the support of the Galaxy and the like is not as high as GOG would like it to be (otherwise they wouldn't have tried to sneak it in the installers). Regional prices are probably regarded as a good thing if you live in Russia and as a bad thing if you live in other regions. My impression was that all these things were received with mixed feelings, much more than the idea of DRM free which still most of the customers of GOG seem to identify with. Therefore the labeling "controversy". Some like it, others not.

Yes.
But how is the game supposed to establish that route over the internet in any reliable fashion?
Hole punching?

If you've already enabled the requisite port forwarding and/or set up a VPN, then sure.
But then you've got the LAN (alike) thing up and running, and wasn't that what you felt was a "silly artificial restriction", or did I misunderstand?

Then, if you can set up your own VPN, you're not the typical customer type you can really expect game companies to focus their efforts on supporting. They will always go for the solution that works for the masses: Internet servers.

I just wish all games still included a LAN option, so this was even a possibility.
Alternatively, GOG open sourcing Galaxy, so we could build our own Galaxy clients and multiplayer servers!

We have hit the point where the difficulty of updating games is no longer a viable excuse for developers to not update their GOG builds, all thanks to GOG's devportal. GOG has been steadily working to provide every little feature to tempt developers to see us in the same light as Steam but DRM-free (just slow if anything).

As for the DRM-free filter on Steam, they obviously don't want it. For one, it would tell everyone what games don't need their client to run. If it isn't evident by Valve's products having the name "Steam" slapped onto it as if it's some sort of brand, their ultimate goal is to tie you into their own ecosystem. Saying that a game is purely DRM-free means that you can detach from the ecosystem and still play the game. A no-no to them.

I'd say that if there's something we should change, it's the mentality of developers. Rather than target one solution from the start-up, the targeting instead arrives much later where it becomes easier to target several solutions and then some.

Yes, I know that thread and I have been following it but unfortunately developers still use that excuse. Despite there being a devportal from GOG, they say either say that GOG has yet to tell them about the devportal or that they have been misinformed about it, in general: https://www.gog.com/forum/general/gog_is_it_truly_more_difficult_for_developers_to_update_their_games_on_gog/post142

They still make excuses or maybe they really got no answer from GOG: https://steamcommunity.com/games/322680/announcements/detail/548708052673393561

Yes I think you misunderstand. It is quite common for games to try and prevent you from playing online with the "LAN" option. Either they don't let you specify a host IP address at all (they rely on discovering hosts on the same switched/hubbed network) or they refuse to connect to an address outside some specific private IP ranges. That's "LAN" mode with artificial restrictions, and it is common now. They really want to force you to go through accounts and all the tracking to play online at all.

What I want is what most old games, and some new games provide: "connect to ip." It does not matter what the route to that address is. That is none of the game's business. If there is no end to end connectivity, that is between me and whoever I'm trying to play with. We can sort it out. Please don't try to prevent me.

If they *also* want to provide optional services for hole punching or relaying connections via servers to cross multiple NATs, sure, by all means. Tie it to an account if you will. Just don't force me to use it; the "LAN" mode can already make a direct connection under the hood, se please let me use that functionality if I so prefer.

Setting up a reliable, cross-platform VPN is way more involved (and potentially more risky) than configuring NAT or just using the public IP addresses me and most of my friends have, so I don't agree with making me jump through such hoops when the game could just let me specify the darn host :(