That's not quite correct on that basis.

If you need Galaxy to play a game using LAN but no Internet connection needed, would you consider that DRM?
Galaxy is just a frontend a facilitator, just like the one in a game called a Game Menu. Yes it is another layer, but that on its own doesn't qualify it as DRM.

Playing online is a different matter, but as I keep saying, to play online you have an online and account requirement no matter what you do. So Galaxy is just another layer. How onerous that is, I don't know, never used it. But you need something to connect you with others, and if the game maker doesn't provide that, then you need something like Galaxy.

I wish that all games that have MP had a simple LAN option. But that is down to the DEV/PUB and not really GOG.

If GOG has provided us with a DRM-Free single player, they have done their bit, the rest is down to the DEV/PUB.
And that's exactly what GOG have done for 99.99% of their games.
I'd rather have those games than not.

Yes, using the criteria I gave above, it would be DRM. Because it would be an unnecessary dependency that is under the sole control of a single entity. It would also render the game unpreserveable, in the same way as an external server requirement. Because, if one day GOG goes under or scraps Galaxy, then we won't be able to get hold of the Galaxy program, so games that depend on it would be unplayable.

I have no problem with Galaxy being an optional client, but if it ever becomes required to play a game, then that would be DRM and really not much different to what Steam is doing.

It boggles me that people think that DRM only mean if it's applied to Single Player part of a game .. nah man DRM is applied to to all parts of the game. Be it SP or MP. For as long as that features is not available for me to use in other form than login to a client ... there are so many MP games that don't require these stupid layers. You just press the multiplayer button and you have a a lobby full of matches etc. Look at Unreal Tournament, Knights and Merchants, Cossacks, etc. Or at least if they make it trough a login system they should offer alternatives to the MP part via a Lan Option, via a IP P2P mode or via a Server Hosting Client offered to the players. When the servers close and you can't match up with people buddy that's DRM and the essence of the game is lost ... just look at these Games as a Service games nowadays that most of them are getting shut down ... let's give an example Anthem that will soon close it's service. Who will preserve that ? All that work put in a game to be lost forever just because some greedy ass man says they should DRM it behind their server. There should be a law that obligates game devs to give people Server Clients to help preserve the game and the money invested in the game. So yeah GOG advertising they FCKDRM for years and having implementing DRM themselves is just evil. Whoever says it's the devs that implement it is wrong, dev's aren't implementing the galaxy server into their game cause the only reason they make a game use the gog server in the first place is they are cheap and lazy. They cba to make their own clients/servers. So the part where gog galaxy is needed for mp is up to the gog galaxy dev's api that gog refuses to make open source ... they could so easily make it require no auth. And let's face it there's no anti-cheat system implemented in these servers to even make it logical to require auth. So as of now FCKDRM movement that GOG promotes since the dawn of it's inception is a half ass promise ... the day they will make the client open source really really optional then i will believe them for going in the right FCKDRM direction. I don't know why you people chose to defend such practices when i'm just fighting for all our rights that benefit all of us and the history of games in general. Just stop defending anti-consumer practices. You paid for it you should be allowed to use it 100% without depending on any other 3rd party.

While I agree that not being able to source Galaxy, would be a problem, it wouldn't be if you had also preserved (archived) Galaxy. And if Galaxy doesn't run on a future Windows version, it could well mean your games from GOG wouldn't either.

In which case, you do the old 'use an old PC trick' or 'VM trick' if compatibility options don't work.

For me, DRM means out of your control, totally.

But I guess in some ways that's just semantics, and a matter of interpretation of what DRM actually is.

Can't fault that, I feel the same ... at least for single player.

P.S. I just see Galaxy as a tool, an unwanted tool in my case. I might feel differently if they offered a non-bloated cutback version without features I don't want or need, and of course wasn't a requirement still to run a SP game.

P.S.S. While I don't use Galaxy, I have archived it (a few versions) ... like I do with most of my downloads.

I haven't checked all replies here, but is anyone really disputing that? Ignoring the 'all parts' boggle nonsense. :P

Most posts that I have seen talk about the SP not being DRM, but sometimes the MP aspect is DRM.

I'm certainly not disputing that. If an online connection and login is required, it is DRM.

What I don't get is how a good number like to blame GOG for the MP DRM. Surely that is the fault of the DEV/PUB.

I also don't get how it would be preferable to not have a game here, just because its MP aspect is DRM. No-one is forcing or tricking anyone to buy anything.

It's not like GOG keep the fact of MP DRM a big secret, and so take unfair advantage of anyone.

And from what I have seen here, DRM for MP for some games goes way back. It's not a new phenomenon with GOG, as the OP infers.

Perhaps there are more games here now with MP DRM? I have no idea, as I rarely consider that aspect. I do wonder if the percentage has changed or whether it is just noticed more now because there is a lot more games here.

P.S. Maybe GOG should put a big sign up etc, saying - DRM-Free for single player, multiplayer sometimes excepted.

Store-locked clients get obsolete far faster for entirely artificial reasons than games naturally age. Eg, I can play Akalabeth (1979) on W10 after 42 years but GOG Galaxy (2014) doesn't work under XP SP3 (2008) after 6 years. In fact I can't think of a single 2001-2008 era game I own that doesn't work for non DRM reasons even the disc versions of games like Thief or Deus Ex that lack any GOG tweaks work as do abandoned stuff like No One Lives Forever. The only "hole" is 16-bit Windows 3.1x games that don't work on 64-bit W10 or DOSBox, but even then I've heard it's possible to run Win 3.1 under DosBox so even that still works, it just can't be sold by GOG as such. The fake OS version restrictions on store clients vs how well many games age though isn't even close. Nowhere is this more obvious than Linux games still working on Linux whilst with Galaxy for Linux, oh wait... ;-)

This is how I think it should be on GOG period:

1. All single-player content should work w/out the dependence of Galaxy and while offline - and yes, this is including Season Passes, Expansion Passes, DLC's, Expansion Packs, whatever they wanna name the extra content, etc etc. Period.

Side note: I'm looking at you here, No Man's Sky on GOG. All your single-player should work offline PERIOD.

2. All multiplayer content should work somehow - i.e. with LAN support, local MP, and/or peer-to-peer. Galaxy should be an EXTRA option, if wanted.

Example: See how Diablo 2's MP is handled, with options of LAN and whatnot.

3. All multiplayer content like skirmish modes w/ Deathmatch and things of that sort (think the COD games' Multiplayer; and even Doom 2016's Multiplayer) - these should also be re-worked to work offline and with bots. We had games like Battlefield 1942, Quake 3 Arena and UT that had offline skirmish single-player modes, so...why can't modern games do this?

While the COD's ain't here on GOG - yeah, it would be nice if modern COD's w/ their MP worked like this; even if SP leveling and MP leveling were treated different (i.e. like Diablo 2, your leveling was split; you had SP characters and MP characters, to try to stop online cheating).

It does. Hello Games has patched out the online dependency, after players contacted them directly. Contacting GOG didn't help. But Hello Games was more helpful and now NMS, to my knowledge, is completeley DRM-free for single-player again.

I heartily agree with your statements of how GOG should be. But NMS was the wrong example. Take Absolver. They have more single-player content locked behind an online DRM than NMS ever had and they show no intent of fixing that. And GOG shows no interest in forcing the dev to fix it.

Thanks for the update on No Man's Sky on GOG. Didn't realize or notice this got fixed, somehow. I appreciate that very much. And that's great to know, as it gives me more reason to look for it on GOG, when it hits a big sale.

About Absolver - yes, single-player shouldn't be locked behind launchers, online DRM, or any of that mess on a DRM-FREE place like GOG.

Random question to check one thing: Does Crysis multiplayer work without galaxy?

No clue.
While I still have Crysis (original), Crysis: Warhead, Crysis 2, Crysis 3 - yeah, I ain't played any of those in years.

It looks like a fun game to play multiplayer, but they're probably dead now, by the time. "Weirdly" (not completely, thinking about it more deeply, after all those are classics), Counter Strike 1.6 and Source are still active with MANY servers in Steam.

I need more knowledge in that matter, but aren't all Source games LAN and IP p2p connection based (Including Left 4 Dead 1 & 2, which are also really active after all those years), even if they are distributed through Steamworks? It's really weird that almost all games nowdays are launched only with "DRM'ed" ways to play with others.

Lauching a game with DRM'ed online multiplayer is a death sentence for game preservation, thinking about it.

-edit

Of course we have people that create private servers and such, but still. Steam may look, at times and from a certain point of view, as a cemetery of old drm'ed online games that nobody plays anymore, because their original servers died long ago, but in Steam nobody is willing to buy them again for the sake of 'maybe' finding someone to play online.
Welp, random thoughts about online games preservation.

Given Valve's pedigree and who they are (i.e. owners of Steam) and that CS and CS Source are still active, I'd expect that w/ them.

Now, w/ EA....eh, who knows. [shrug] They have a tendency to cut-out MP from their games, not too long after the game's player-based just dies out.

EA published Crysis series back in the day, but...I don't think they own the IP entirely. IIRC, they were part of the EA Partners (publishing) program. I don't think Crytek is owned by EA, but still independent. Crytek probably still owns that IP and I don't think they're also in the best of financial positions either.

I haven't bought Crysis Remastered from Epic (or any other store that has that, since that's an Epic Exclusive...for now) yet, so I don't known if MP in that is active; what Crysis Remastered uses for its MP (does it use Epic Store?); if the MP was actually removed; or what.

Those are good questions. But I doubt they would relaunch a game like Crysis without modding and multiplayer support. There's a good opportunity for creating a good "BF3-like" experience in it's engine and modding, by what I've seen, with this remaster. It's just sad that Epic is getting those exclusive partnerships though.