Creeping normality
Normalizing "a little bit" of so-called "very unobtrusive" DRM will lead to a lot of extremely obtrusive DRM in the future. If the leadership of GOG feels they need to increase the use the use of DRM to remain competitive in the marketplace then they should just publicly announce so & quit bothering with the hypocritical "DRM-free, no exceptions" platitudes.


To anyone that doesn't have a problem with DRM or the instances of so-called "not-DRM" that GOG has enacted (such as with Hitman, Cyberpunk & the Witcher 3 re-release), could you please explain to me how GOG completely dropping the fiction of being a DRM-free retailer have any significant benefits in comparison to Steam, Epic or some other DRMed retailer?

If GOG decides to do such a thing what's to stop publishers from adding more retro-releases with DRM & retroactively updating previous retro-releases with DRM? I realize that you said that you download & backup the installers, I would assume at time of purchase, but what would be your (or someone else's who has not had a chance to backup a the installers yet) choices going forward in such a scenario?

Bandcamp, though they specialize in niche artists.

Also Amazon sells a lot of CDs that include mp3s that are downloadable at the time of purchase (one does not has to wait for the purchase to be shipped to receive access to the mp3s).

Yes and I agree, they should consider the option. Their main concern should be to grow the customer base in a meaningful way and the community would be a good fit. Open source doesn't mean no revenue or does it?

Virtually anything would be better than throwing everything they say the company is standing for out the window and turning the whole enterprise into a generic client-bound, multi-tiered subscription based service.

There are signs that this is exactly the way upper management is planning to take it. For now they are trying to nudge us to start using the client, by giving away even more in-game items and content:


Will there be more rewards added in the future to MY REWARDS?

We do have plans to expand MY REWARDS in the future, so make sure to follow The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt on the game’s official social media channels, as well as thewitcher.com to stay updated on what’s coming in the future.

When the number of client users is large enough, they are going to offer exlusive games, and from there it is just a small step to cut the website library and go full-steam ahead to add services like subscriptions, cutting the offline-installer files because they only take away server space, ending up to be the exact opposite of whatever GOG once was or stood for.

We'll have to wait and see and hope for the best that this isn't going to happen. Actually it mustn't happen, if they would both listen and communicate past where it feels convenient for them, to throw some morsels our way, telling us how they listen and in a news bit going on at length how they prioritize other things, the chat-bot, the client. They must learn that lesson first and foremost, else they can have the best website, the most games and the greatest bonuses, while customers numbers and revenue will shrink instead of growing. Ultimately it's on the management to decide what's more important, vein attempts to somehow bring in new customers because regulars will turn their backs on them, regular customers with money in their pockets to waste on games, or shareholders and their own ideas how things are supposed to go.

I will stay positive and keep hoping for the best. In the end it's their win or loss and it is none to me. :-)

Hundreds of places to buy all kinds of colours to paint your house with.
ONE, only ONE store where they only sell grey.

You are fine with that, because you love grey. And you love the store where they only sell grey. You love it so much, that you never want that to change.

Sure, "stagnation is death", they say...but to hell with that.
Everything has to stay the way it has always been, because that's the way you want it.

And yes - of course - you had to punish your preferred store after you found a hint of pink on the outside of some of the canisters filled with grey colour. That's an absolute no-go!
So, of course, you stopped buying from them. How else could you show them how mad you are at them?

Nowadays, there are many, many, others, who stroll into your preferred store, and would like to buy here the colours they want to paint their houses with.
Alas, the selection at your favourite store is a little bland.
See - not everyone loves grey as much as you do.

For setting some accents? Sure, for that, grey is ok. But they don't want be forced to paint everything with it.

So, some more variety wouldn't hurt. Nothing too fancy, just the primary colours.
Well, maybe some secondary colours, only to have some nice selection to choose from.

You: "No! Grey is the only colour that I want! And my preferred store has to stay the only store where they only sell grey! Because grey is the best of all the colours! If you want to buy other colours, go ahead - there are hundreds of places where you can spend your money on other colours!"

In other words: "If I DON'T WANT X - then YOU CAN'T have X!"
(thanks for the confirmation)
++++++++++
Nowhere do any of you - even for a second - consider the (not even confirmed yet!) addition of DRM'ed games, to be a mere OPTION provided for OTHERS.

An INCENTIVE for OTHERS, to spend THEIR money here on GOG.

All you ever seem to see is "if anything DRM ever comes to GOG, it will be a 100% replacement for DRM-free games! All DRM-freeness will vanish >poof< into thin air!"

But stores can sell many different colours, as you so correctly stated above. With grey being just one of them.
And as you may have noticed - other stores already sell many colours - including your preferred grey.

The ONE, only ONE store, which restricts itself to sell grey, and grey only...probably won't make it much longer on the free market.

But hey - at least YOU were around, when your preferred store was forced to close shop.
I'm sure that counts for something, in the end...

Edit: there != their

The problem is we've already seen the long-term precedent outcome when you start mixing contradictory content - Humble Store once had a great choice of DRM-Free games. Now the 'choice' is overwhelmingly Steam keys and only a very few 'token' self-hosted downloads (many of which have been left out of date). People aren't opposed to "choice" in general when those choices are complimentary, they oppose obviously contradictory fake choices being presented as an excuse for one giant bait & switch (that's already been observed to happen on other stores).

Likewise, when Microsoft released Quantum Break as a MS-Store Exclusive, did people "choose" that over Steam? No that's why MS were forced to release it on Steam. And when people buy Ubisoft games, why do they buy it on Steam (that needs 2x clients) instead of direct from uPlay (that only needs 1x client)? Why demand EA games be put back on Steam instead of 'choosing' to use Origin? Because it turns out that once DRM-Free becomes irrelevant, most people really do just want it on Steam and the mainstream "choice" is mostly illusory.

What genuinely brings people to stores in the real world isn't "choice" at all, it's Exclusive First Party Content (starting with Half Life 2 needing Steam through to today's Epic Games 1 year exclusives that were the only reason people bought Metro Exodus, etc, on Epic and not Steam). CDPR only has 4x non-exclusive games and it's simply delusions of grandeur to think that is even close to being on par with what EA, Ubisoft or Microsoft can get away with for selling DRM'd games that are "not Steam". Go back in time a few years, and recreate the Epic Game Store from scratch, minus Fortnite and all the Fortnite-funded giveaways + Epic exclusives, and it would be a barren as hell long forgotten about wasteland today after everyone continued to 'choose' Steam.

Short, concise, and accurate. And apparently hard to comprehend. Eventually people will get it. Allowing marked DRMed games next to DRM-free games is a grievous error that eliminates any incentives for companies to deDRM and get things on GOG properly, leading to GOG's death as a viable place, if a place at all.

AKA, DRM-creep here reduces choices.

Not a great analogy. The reality is that DRM is the gray. It's the boring, vanilla, sterile, "all of the other corpo-types" are doing it solution that I can get at literally any other storefront. The unique, vibrant colors that you mention are the DRM-free games that are unique to this storefront and allow a user to play and preserve a game as they choose without having to worship at the altar of anti-consumer corporate greed. By the same token, if you are a huge fan of DRM Gray, there are plenty of places you can get that color without having to beg GOG to change their business model, and it's really not worth your time or effort to attempt to lobby for that change to happen. Being able to buy your DRM at the DRM stores is part of the "all about having choices" that you speak of. If you like DRM and don't like that GOG doesn't have DRM, then by all means buy your DRM elsewhere.

Absolutely! Which is why I will have absolutely no reason at all to shop at GOG if they become a DRM store. So in that case GOG kills the golden goose that draws in customers. Again, not the best analogy.

[Citation Needed]

What your extended metaphor is missing is the additional fact that the other stores refuse to sell the shade of grey paint I want. That if not for this store selling the shade of grey I want, the choice will be effectively removed from the market entirely. Consider: If GOG is okay with DRM, then why would any AAA or even AA release here DRM-free when they could just release here with DRM? Blind hope and faith and fairy dust? We see how these companies operate. They'll take all the control they can get.

You can have X anywhere but this store. I CAN'T have Y at other stores. These "options" do not occur in a vacuum, as ListyG's excellent post demonstrates. Your argument is effectively equivalent to "let microtransactions and timers into mobile gaming, what's the worst that could happen, you can just buy other games" which is ignorant of the fact that there won't be other games (except in very small niches on the verge of going extinct) when such anti-consumer practices take root. It will just end up being a wasteland of anti-consumer garbage. Monoculture, which is what you are advocating in practice whether you realize it or not, is not choice.

If you're talking business strategies it should be apparent that GOG/CDPR is entering a "red ocean" occupied by much bigger, badder sharks; in other words entering such a space is rarely successful for small, underdog type competitors.

To follow up on your post, it's Humble that I continue to have in mind since it seems like such an obvious real-world example of what happens when the store devolves into a Scheme key reseller. The biggest DRM-free release on Humble in terms of starpower/quality/"AAA"-ness is probably Bioshock 1. Did you know that Humble never managed to get Bioshock 2 or Infinite DRM-free? Surely that is just a coincidence and not in any way related to the fact there is little reason for devs/pubs to provide DRM-free releases when they can reach "the Humble audience" by selling Scheme keys there. And that is precisely what would happen with "the GOG audience" here.

Edit: love this quote below and agree the vibrant colors are a better example of DRM-free, so take my earlier mention of "grey" with a grain of salt as I would really amend it to something like this but I don't want to get too hung up in the metaphors.

Another excellent post, rjbuffchix, and so accurate it almost hurts. Allowing DRMed games on GOG, alongside DRM-free games, will absolutely have the effect of reducing choice, not improving it. It will remove GOG's one single remaining unique selling point; greatly reduce the likelihood of seeing DRM-free releases of newer games in future; and be hugely damaging to DRM-free gaming.

If you weren't aware, and if it concerns you (which it probably should), Epic Games bought Bandcamp this year. And, while Bandcamp is indeed DRM-free, you cannot rely on your catalog/collection there: makers can unilaterally remove anything at any moment, without recovery or recourse. So if you don't have it downloaded, it can vanish with zero notice. And indeed did happen to me this year. Fortunately for something I did otherwise have though, but it makes it a PITA for "let's see what I have" or other exploratory activities.

But funny enough, DRM on music is basically non-existent now for purchased [non-subscription] music because of consumer demand and indeed led to improved choice. At least until younger folk started buying up the subscription service mindset.

Is it a place for GOG to consider going into more? Probably. Soundtrack purchases that don't count as DLC, along with the extra music from the same musicians (Ben Prunty, of FTL and others fame, has a lot of great non-game music that is "more of the same style"). For GOG to consider before DRM...

Is that not like saying people don't want to be forced to play games without DRM?

It was Amazon he was complaining about so I don't know if they've changed recently.

Oh balls, I didn't realise that had actually happened.


Also: Oops, sorry to everyone for going way off topic here!

Kinda.
You have to see it in the context of this:

People come here to GOG because they like an underdog more like the top dog, but they don't want to be restricted to only the DRM-free games that GOG has to offer.
I hope that clears that up.

I'm not sure grey only is a fair comparison, more like GOG has a few different colours but other shops have a lot more.

I get what you're saying though. I'd never considered being the underdog as a reason to shop here before (despite being a bit of an underdog supporter myself).

The reason I came to GOG in the first place is that the DRM on a game I actually own prevented me from reinstalling it after hard drive failure. Basically the sticker containing the code for my copy of Neverwinter Nights 2 had fallen out and disappeared. Ever tried getting a replacement code for that? I for one want nothing to do with DRMd games on GOG and never will.

Please do count me out of your insane reasoning.