The death of retail is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Publishers have been making retail games progressively more worthless and it has now reached the point where all you get is a DVD case, a Steam key and a worthless disc you can use for indoors frisbee. Then they point at sales data and go "see, no one is buying retail games anymore". What did you expect would happen? That's like letting a library rot down to a rat-infested mess, throwing out the books and then claiming that no one visits the library anymore.

CD Projekt did make people make a GOG account. You don't technically need it to play the game as it is on the disc, but all the patches are on GOG (and there is a ton of them), so practically speaking you do need it. I'm just waiting for the Enhanced Edition with the expansions and all patches, then I don't have to deal with this BS anymore.

A great deal of the internet... if you consider the internet in the 90s being some animated hamster gifs and a free account for setting up a geocities website.

Does it matter when you still need Steam client to play it? I guess dic-released pc games will become just collectible items. So don't expect to see full installers.

Agree.
Yes because screw environmental awareness and reduction of costs.

Oh god, now I'm REALLY looking forward to downloading a cracked, fully off-line copy of Fallout 4 when it will be out.

Thanks, Bethesda: I was wondering if your game was worth buying, and you gave me the best answer you could...

no, the answer is not playing. Your answer leads to the escalation of more intrusive DRM. It is people like you the rest of us can thank for having online DRM and other horrible schemes. So thank you very much for your contribution to the DRM free movement.

my point exactly, if disc is not a full asset that gives me access offline its feels hollow and the new generation of console does have day one patch, the new halo 5 requires 9gb patch, so the disc is not a complete game

Turns out that DD may not be all that eco either

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wuu86dh78Io

Same here. I am very lucky if I can dl with more than 250...for example last thursday I dl Agarest Zero (GOG)
and .... over 5 hours later it was done....cost € 6.
Most big games I only buy for console and wait till the GOTY are ready (because even console games now need first day patches).
Oh, and yes, there is a workaround for installing those games from disk (Steam).

I stopped trying to convince people not to pirate DRM'ed games long ago, because the thought occurred to me that if we were somehow successful in convincing pirates to stop pirating DRM'ed games then the publishers involved would probably just view that as the DRM being effective.

Better to instead save the effort for dissuading pirates from pirating DRM-free games, or try to convince them to at least buy DRM-free games they like.

You are wrong on two accounts.

1) Some people are FORCED to seek a cracked version of a game they initially bought legit, because it malfunctions and doesn't even run, especially so if it is packed full of DRM and login/account service. Like that GTA IV i discussed before; full of DRM plus that Rockstar Club you needed to log in (and i think it even had GFWL somewhere on top of it all). I bought it legit and couldn't even run it; i managed to play it at a later date, ONLY with cracked files from torrent.

Just curious about "what is YOUR opinion, on games you buy legit and they won't run, unless they get pirated..."?

2) Pirates actually BUY drm-free games and generally like to OWN FULLY whatever it is they spent money on. People who spent money on getting a LICENSE to use something instead of getting to OWN it, are content with that and even preach its merits as a good system, lead to the escalation of more intrusive DRM. Because suits see sales numbers skyrocket, as usual.

I had been a pirate before. Things happened and by choice, i decided to retire. I simply won't pirate anymore. My tight program schedule as of late, allows me the luxury to happily miss DRM-crammed little poopies altogether, instead of pirating and beating once, then deleting forever.

I have no comments regarding day one patches as I haven't met one yet on the PS Vita. However, even with such day one patches if they are required as you say, discs are quite flexible in how I can deal with it; more so than digital copies.

No one is forced to use cracked versions. So long as you brought the product legitimately and have the receipt then you should be protected by consumer rights to return the product and ask for a refund.

I do agree drm is terrible and have had it with GTA4 which was my first big burn. I keep it though, on the shelf to remind me. To be honest the pc market to me is dying, yes lots coming out, but it all feels similar, covered in business decisions like drm, nothing physical, client requirements etc. Such that I have stopped buying foe pc (other than a Lego lotr recently which I regret, not a bad game, but then had to get rid of securom afterwards). To me the hey day was getting a big box, cloth map, large manual, and appreciated it, yes piracy was about, but you appreciated what you paid for, something physical. With it all being digital their is no appreciation, as there is nothing but a file on a computer. Yes you can have a digital shelf, how great is that (not). That is probably the biggest thing I see to this mass piracy, a.lack of appreciation. This combined with corporate greed and consumer abuse has killed all markets, everything is cheap and worhless.

I'm not sure. I only ever really install through the autoplay screen. Sometimes it uses the disc, other times it starts out using the disc, then slows to nothing, forcing me to abort and just download the thing because that's actually quicker, and other times it just installs just fine from the disc and only adds updates after. There doesn't seem to be any method to the madness from what I've seen.