I'm saying that GOG has historically held themselves to a higher standard, and are no longer doing so. No one expects something from Steam that Steam doesn't claim to have. In the end I will buy it on Steam because Steam has the larger MP ecosystem, and the better client. Had GOG maintained their DRM-Free stance, I would have bought it from GOG. I'm sorry that your brain has been put to too little use to understand my complaint, but it does indeed make sense.

Not always true.
See?

Galaxy allows Crossplay aka play between gog and Steam. If that option is not activated then that is the decision of the developer not gog. Go bullshit Stardock then why they effectively killed multiplayer for Ashes of Singularity by limiting it to gog. As for lan that is also the decision of developer and using galaxy for multiplayer is developer's decision.

I read your post in Ashes of Singularity thread.

You can get burn wounds from ice. ;)

Yeah! The way I understood it, you were supposed to be able to engage Steam users with Galaxy's multiplayer capabilities, weren't you?

Well, not that I could've tested it myself, with there not being a Linux version of Galaxy yet and all... (not to mention my aversion to multiplayer, which seems to be not that uncommon around here :P)

I like co-op :P
Releasing a mp game that doesn't interact with the Steam version here will just kill the game though.

Still don't understand why the developers don't use crossplay. Its as if they are not aware of it as an option for conecting Steam and gog multiplayer reading through that thread.

I love how they're begging Stardock to take the game away from GOG. :)

GOG shouldn't be selling it, not the other way around. At the very least, they need to enforce a notice on the product page in the store, but again, this feels very underhanded and manipulative on their part.

So many arguments here.

Clearly GOG has taken the stance that DRM-Free = Single player DRM-free

There's ways to have the same stance for multiplayer which would mean games that do not require a client to play and or at least offer direct connect/LAN alternatives.

The latter are often argued that they are 'Developer's choice'. That's fine. But if that's the case, and that means multiplayer is only available through a client system, that's not really DRM-Free. Is it the best option? I think so.

But arguing it's DRM-Free when you have to play through a client which requires a login which verifies your license and otherwise you can not play? I find it very hard to argue that's DRM-Free.

"But the single player is DRM-Free" so it's ok is the common counter argument there. And I can see the point. "Multiplayer requires internet". Very true, but that doesn't mean it requires Galaxy. That was optional. Developers chose that.

If, on top of that they also choose not to have LAN/Direct Connect, then you have a game who's multiplayer is going to die out when GOG/Galaxy dies out. It's not future proof. Someone once described a true DRM-Free game is a game where you can sit in your nuclear bunker past D-Day, install your game and have the full game available to you to play, no strings attached. That's not the case anymore. With LAN/DC it would have been, without it's not.

Because of this I don't agree with the 'Developer's choice' argument. If it was really about DRM-Free, the choice would not be "Galaxy and maybe LAN/DC if you feel like it" but it would be "Galaxy and LAN/DC or we don't sell your game"

Now does that make sense as a business? Of course not. What they're doing is great for them. Finally they can allow multiplayer games on Steam. And slowly they're linking people to their client. It may not be "required", but slowly more and more of your library is going to require Galaxy to fully experience everything the game has to offer.

The argument, and a lot of GOG's recent changes, quite remind me of the boiling frog story

"The boiling frog is an anecdote describing a frog slowly being boiled alive. The premise is that if a frog is placed in boiling water, it will jump out, but if it is placed in cold water that is slowly heated, it will not perceive the danger and will be cooked to death. The story is often used as a metaphor for the inability or unwillingness of people to react to or be aware of threats that occur gradually."

Quite odd. If you want to believe Brad Galaxy is a closed multiplayer system that doesn't work with Steam and the problem is with GOG. That makes no sense when it should have crossplay?

If you're into multiplayer, play the fuckin' thing on Steam. Let me purchase my damned games on gog.

(You know, when it gets out of ea and I consider a purchase...)

EDIT: Not in response to you, Pheace, you got that one in before I could get mine in. :)

Well, there's those who are perfectly content with single player mode, and those who don't mind playing only against other GOG users. So why shouldn't they be able to buy a copy of the game here?

But GOG should place some warning about possible MP limitations on the game's page.

The argument about splitting multiplayer user base is crap. This isn't an online-only MMORPG. Steam customers are afraid of losing their monopoly due to a few people finally realizing that drm-free is actually preferable.