Having dual backups die at the same exact time is perhaps possible but not anywhere near likely enough to happen to really consider.

Yet, it is still an extra service offered on top of the DRM-free installer that the end-user can either choose to use, or not. It is not DRM, anymore than the retail store offering a service to replace broken CDs is.

Your argument apparently is that Strategy First's store's installers are more DRM-free than GOG's, just because SFI does not offer a similar service as GOG where you can re-download the installers as many times as you want.

Continued access to your game library is 100% contingent on CDP allowing it. This is DRM.

That's just completely false. Purchase, download, pretend CDP no longer exists, own game forever. The only reason you would ever have to log back into GOG is if you didn't back up your games properly.


Nope. The vast majority require no activation with GFWL. They did start doing that toward the end, Dead Rising 2 was the first, Bulletstorm and Fable 3 were a couple others, but the vast majority had some other form of DRM and GFWL was only an optional application for online features.

Purchase, download, pretend CDP no longer exists..until hard drive failure. Now your license is pointless.

True DRM-free would entail guaranteed access to your past purchased games as long as CDP exists, even if you murder the CEO, initiate a failed corporate takeover, get charged with extorting money from them, etc.

Why would companies be responsible for your backup process any more than they would be a fire destroying your CDs? Your definition of DRM is absurd.

No, that is THE definition of DRM. Digital. Rights. Management.

Is that supposed to be an informative rebuttal of some kind?

I forgot about the decline in games using GfWL. :) The change was about half-way through GfWL's lifespan but by then there were fewer publishers using GfWL, so overall most GfWL games would indeed be of the old type.

This also means that access failures in the future will be the fault of the publishers more often than Microsoft, especially if Microsoft keeps the basic activation functionality online indefinitely after shutting down all other components.

DRM is about controlling your access to the copy or copies you already have (copy protection, online activation, offline DRM driver incompatible with new OS, etc.)

I have SimCity 2000 on CD. It's DRM free (no disc check or even a product key). If I lose that CD and don't have other copies I can't (legally) reinstall the game, but I'm not going to blame Maxis. Similarly, if I lose a CD containing the GOG version of SimCity 2000 and GOG has somehow shut down by then I don't see how I can blame GOG just because my CD copy originated from an online source rather than a physical retailer.

Yes, the publisher/distributor carries the blame if they intentionally included a barrier (online or offline) to control access to an existing copy, but I don't think that's on the same level as a digital download server being shut down that has no effect on the functionality of any existing copies (whether already installed or in the original installer form).

Does Half Life 2 has any DRM? Surprisingly the Linux version of it runs on my PC without CEG, just starting the hl2.sh runs fine for me. Portal should also work on Linux but aborts with an error :(. DotA2 however needs CEG (unsurprisingly).
Can anyone test this on their PC? Maybe more Valve titles run without CEG on Linux since they put in the HL2 Linux verison all data in one folder instead a shattered mess of archives in ~/SteamApps.

Updated List

Says you. DRM is about controlling your use of a given piece of software. If nothing else, the EULA you must agree to before installing an already downloaded GOG would suffice to meet the criteria of DRM.

Ok, sure, but GOG's retention of control over continued access to purchased titles is a form of DRM. To be completely DRM free, GOG would have to guarantee permanent access to anyone, anytime, no matter what CDP thinks of their conduct, even if the person shot and killed 25 people in a mall, stole a game demo from them, or modified The Witcher to be a "Notice of copyright infringement" delivery sim.

All memory units fail. All of them. So any restriction on maintaining the licensed access to a game is DRM.

...so in other words it's impossible to sell digital downloads DRM-free by your definition of the concept since no company would ever guarantee a service's availability for all of eternity. :)

GOG does not retain control over the game installer that you have purchased and obtained (=downloaded) from them. If you haven't downloaded the installer yet, that is a similar as paying retail store for a retail game, but for some reason not going to the store to pick it up. Yeah, in that case you lose the access to the game if the store closes its doors for good, but it was your choice that you didn't go to pick your game up.

Your definition of DRM being any _optional_ service on top of that is completely meaningless. I have purchased and downloaded games ("DRM-free game installers") directly from Strategy First, which doesn't apparently offer me anymore the option to download them again, never ever. According to you, I can't play or access the games anymore because I can't redownload them from SFI unlimited, but in reality I can certainly install and play the games that I have obtained from them, without any limits. I have full _control_ over keeping the game installers in a safe place (including the ability to make limitless backup copies of them) and retain access to them, not them. Hence, not DRM.