Happy you got to take it. Sorry, I didn't even think about posting the link for you.

We have those on GOG, too. They're implemented as offline installers. No DRM required.

Because one side, those in favor of allowing DRM to slide, want to harm everyone and take things away (while getting nothing meaningful in return). While the other side is trying to keep things in a good state and even improve them, to no detriment of anyone. There's no agreeing to disagree when one side is actively harmful and belligerent.

I think for that they could partner up with Nexus or another mod site that does not require Steam.

I am as much interested in a GOG only workshop as I am in a Steam only workshop and that's not very interested at all.

A GOG interface for that workshop would be ok, but the backend should be shop independent.

I think your wording was fine. I understand that there are different degrees to which DRM matters to different people, and we do have those discussions as well.. but I think a lot of the heated discussions that go in circles here arise when people want to uphold the claim that the GOG store or a particular game here is DRM-free (while some of its content is gated behind online activation). This thread included. "i would hardly call it a drm scheme" "You can play Cyberpunk offline fully" and N pages of arguing about why online activation for a piece of content is(n't) DRM.

I think most of us in these discussions can stomach the fact that most people just don't mind a bit of DRM or gated content or whatever you want to call it. So that's not why these discussions are heated, and that's not why people go in circles..

I think there are three main points of discussion, starting with the one that causes most "heat":
1) whether certain games on GOG have DRM (i.e. whether GOG has broken their promise) / what is the definition of DRM
2) whether a little bit of DRM on GOG is acceptable (erosion of GOG's values, slippery slope argument)
3) whether any individual cares about the little bits of gated content (this is most subjective, and thus least controversial)

Most heated arguments arise when a person who doesn't mind some gated content (3) goes on to claim that GOG/the game is DRM-free (1) and that a little bit of gated content doesn't matter (2).

The disagreement there isn't so much about (3) as it is about how feelings projected from (3) influence discourse regarding points (1) and (2). "I don't care about some stupid cosmetics, therefore GOG is a DRM-free store!" should already be a meme, it's been beaten to death so many times here. It's just not very conductive to agreement, not even to agreement to disagree. I hope you can see why?

Also, I quite have to disagree with the idea that no gamer would refuse 100% reliable offline DRM. In my world, and in the world of most of my relatives and acquaintances, there is a moral framework that suggests it is acceptable for someone other than the legal owner of a game to play it in various situations, e.g. among family, or with friends at a LAN party, but also possibly in things like research, exhibitions, museums, etc. Sometimes the best way to get a friend to buy a game is to let them try it. Sometimes, sharing with someone is morally the best thing you can do.

That imaginary perfect DRM is designed to intrude both morals and local laws. It is very very unacceptable to me.

I can understand some of the frustration, because there are issues, but overall I have had almost only positive experiences with GOG and with Galaxy. I also completely understand not wanting to use Galaxy, and being upset with the problems which are directly or indirectly tied to it, although I think it's a really small portion of all the games available which are affected (but others might have more precise statistics on this).

The discussion got perhaps a a little too heated, so I hope my examples helped explain some of the possible reasoning behind the differences in opinion. Like many things, it's a matter of degrees for most, including DRM, which is why people end up not communicating properly. It would be great if everyone had the same outlook on DRM, but it's easy to see why someone who doesn't play multiplayer or has no interest in cosmetics would be at odds with another who think those elements (or everything about a game) matter.

If you want to hear my thoughts on the survey, I don't think it's all doom and gloom. The survey was fairly standard, and I feel like if GOG was trying to "boil the frog" it would die of old age first, given how little they are actually pushing for DRM (if we take all their actions in the worst possible light and assume they are doing that). They are obviously still struggling to grow, so this is an attempt to gather some more feedback for their future moves.

Well, then i guess you will have to cope with that then.

I see that GOG's passion for graphic design fails us again, I thought one of the design elements was an inverted willy.

Also, "Hot or Not"? Isn't that dated back to the 2000s? Thought it was "Smash or Pass" now.

It could be that people identify DRM only as its negative side-effects (causing issues to playing games, bugs/glitches/performance issues, spyware, whatever), and thus correlate the lack (or apparent absence) of these issues as meeting their standards (not having the two items in Cyberpunk is hardly going to affect the player's experience in a significant way, and that's about all it can cause).

Of course, in many cases the problems with DRM might be in the future, not in the present, but that's another topic. They feel that an extra isn't part of the main game, and honestly, it's not a terrible jump. I feel this is where the crux lies. If a company had come on GOG, and asked us "do you want this extra content removed, or subject to an online check?" What would be the right answer? Remove the content, deny the game on GOG at all, or allow this check? If the content is trivial, would it really be right to refuse the game? And after that, we might as well give the choice to those who want it (because at that point, refusing the DRM only serves to remove options). Maybe refusing the content is the more "ethical" option (after all, it has no DRM that way, and the game is basically intact)? Or the game should be refused entirely, even if they would offer a no DRM option?

I am not saying "We should have more DRM!", but I can understand the utilitarian view of defining what's core in a game and pushing to keep it on the store, I don't think it's just people having no standards. Most importantly, I think even people with a very clear definition of what's DRM might have split answers here (between refusing the game and getting only the DRM-free version without the extra content).

Well, I also said non-intrusive, so who knows how this DRM would work, really? :p Perhaps it would also have allowances for lending, donations and change of property for the license. It was more of a thought exercise, I understand fully well that such a thing doesn't exist, but i was trying to argue that the main issue with DRM are its downsides, not its objectives (at least, not necessarily, since I assume DRM is also used to assert control beyond ethical boundaries often). In practice, the only way to not have those problems is to not have DRM, which is why we are here.

Anyway, sorry for the long-winded replies, I wouldn't want to turn this into a long debate, I don't even think we disagree on most points, my posts have a bit of devil's advocate in them. Ideally, there wouldn't be a need to think about those things when on GOG, as there would be no room to wonder if something is DRM or not.

If you are wondering, I am personally okay with buying DRM-ed games, if no option is available (or if time is of the essence, like with certainly online-only or -mostly games), but for that there is already Steam, and I buy on GOG whenever is possible, I oftent buy games years after they come out anyway, if they aren't on GOG, so I usually know by then if they are coming here or not. I strongly prefer DRM-free, but it's not a matter of principle, essentially.

Agree to disagree? :p

All jokes aside, I can see getting into a conversation at first, but if you get each other's positions and they are impossible to reconcile, there is no point in going in circles, it's all I was trying to get at. Even if the positions are distant, being civil doesn't hurt anyone's point. Even assuming one is 100% wrong, past a certain point you can only entrench them further, you can't always come to see eye to eye.

That's not the point. You're got to expand your business and attract more people to buy, including those who may have temporarily stopped because of issues with the business or potentially aren't buying right now because of personal financial issues.

If you stick only to the "whales" you're not going to grow your business.

I would refuse it. I would never buy nor play a game distributed only through those means.

I don’t care how nice a DRM scheme tries to look, in the end I don’t want to let companies have any kind of control on what I do with products I buy from them. They already get my money, they do not deserve anything else.

It is normal for conversations to become heated, my friend, it happens in all forums and this would not be the exception either. The important thing is to maintain respect and each other's point of view.
I'm not aware of the Galaxy issues; so far everything normal. What I would like is, in the future, to incorporate the profile and the forum so that I do not have to enter here with the browser. That would be very useful... at least for me.

Exactly.

People who hate DRM -> disadvantaged with DRM creep
People who don't care about DRM -> not disadvantaged either way
People who love DRM -> disadvantaged without DRM (but they're most likely not shopping here anyway)

So when someone pushes the opinion that they don't care about DRM, then there must be a counter argument expressed or GOG will start insinuating that's the norm of its community base, and such a change would be to the detriment of people embracing GOG's first established core principle.