Well, actually it says „this place WAS made for gamers“. Past tense. Maybe they should add your sentence after theirs. Would fit, if you ask meß

Ooh...good point. Well, I am a little more heartened by recent staff responses in the "no response from support" topic. Trying to look at a positive angle, it looks like the issue with No Man's Sky might get resolved soon.

I don't doubt GOG will continue trying to maintain this website itself as a DRM-free store...just worried about the ramifications the new client store will have on getting future games here.

Thank you for the statement here. It's nice to hear something official from the staff. (And congrats on securing the DRM-free releases that you mentioned - awesome work!)

However, I'll echo the still-unanswered question that many others have been asking: How is GOG planning on addressing the concern that adding Epic games to Galaxy will lead to fewer DRM-free GOG releases because developers can claim that a game is already released on "GOG" since you can buy it from Epic through Galaxy? (And I am looking for very concrete answer like, "Our contract with Epic mandates that any Epic games released through Galaxy will get a DRM-free release on GOG after the exclusivity period is up" instead of a hand-wavey message of hope and goodwill like, "We're always committed to DRM-free and to our fans".)

To be clear, my primary concern here is that GOG is setting themselves up to have Epic eat their business away by letting their own DRM-free releases unintentionally get replaced with Epic-via-Galaxy ones. If the DRM-free releases stop happening, then I no longer have a reason to buy from GOG instead of Steam, etc.

I disagree with this statement. While I think it's a cool feature on paper, I have no issue with installing any number of game launchers, and I have yet to see anything online that indicates that this is a killer feature that people are clamoring for. In fact, one of the rallying cries that I very often hear specifically from Epic supporters more than anyone is that Epic Game Store is "just another launcher", and they seem to actually like having multiple launchers installed. So I think that trying to pitch this feature to Epic users in particular is misguided. What IS a killer feature is DRM-free games. I see complaints about DRM all the time. So I worry that a disproportionate amount of effort is being put towards the wrong goal, and as mentioned above I worry that this will inadvertently erode the capability of GOG to secure new DRM-free releases in the long-term.

Speak for yourself, I hope one day all launchers will be forever and inseparably unified in one. Then I will be able to not use only that one uberclient. Right now I do not use Steam, Epic, Origin, Uplay, Battle.net and it's such a hassle not using every single one separately, instead of all at once.

Fair enough. The point that I was trying to make was that I personally have interacted with more people that dislike DRM than people who complain about installing multiple launchers. So given a choice of which feature to focus GOG's business on, the DRM-free games would seemingly be the more profitable choice.

In the end I do not want to use any launcher to start the games I have on my PC. But well...let's see what the future brings.

No, not only in yours.

Haha, OK. I wondered if that was sarcasm, but I didn't want to join right in just in case you were serious. (Ah, plaintext and its lack of nuance...)

Yes, I agree. That would be ideal and is a great feature of GOG. But unfortunately with DRM being what it is, I can't see competitors backing down from launchers anytime soon. Well...unless the Suits create their DRM fantasy world and everything goes to streaming...

And if a game company offers their game DRM-free on Epic, ignoring exclusivity periods why aren't they also releasing it on GOG in the first place? Is it the 12% versus 30% split? I suspect we're not going to get any answers of this level of detail however.

While it is true that Epic does have some DRM-free games, I believe the screenshots we were previously shown contained games that are DRM-enabled. IMHO, if GOG is partaking in selling games via any mechanism whatsoever where they're making bank from selling DRM-enabled games whether it is on their own store or someone else's store, whether it is on the website or within the Galaxy client itself, no matter how they try to explain it away it still boils down to GOG.com producing revenue by being a willing participant in the sales transaction for DRM encumbered games which completely undermines everything they've said about DRM being evil for over a decade, and the entire FCKDRM.com initiative.

FCKDRM unless you need or want to make a bit of extra money on the side then it's ok. Reminds me of a really horrible joke comedian Louis CK did years ago about rape. Wont go into the details but it's on YouTube for the curious. Essentially using that as an analogue to the concept of DRM the joket would go something like...

"I'm not condoning DRM obviously, you should never sell games with DRM to anyone. Unless you have a reason, like you want to sell games with DRM to someone but you've told people you wont, in which case what other option do you have? How else are you supposed to make money from selling games with DRM if you don't sell them games with DRM? I mean WTF?"

Jokes aside though doesn't it really just boil down to this? Is it "What if we stick our toe of values in the water and see what happens... if 99% of our existing and new users don't care then is it really a problem? Even a lot of those that do care wont likely leave even if they don't like it so why not give it a go?"

I dunno but that's how it feels to me with the almost complete radio silence from GOG on the topic. For them to have gotten this as far as it appears they have, it seems like the train has left the station and isn't going back though so it's just a game of wait and see what happens now I guess. Hope for the best but prepare for the worst so to speak.

No, because DRM-free now does not mean DRM-free after updates as well.

yes, and gOg gets bought up EA next week who slams DRM on all gOg games in the next update cycle.

or - no one can predict the future. DRM free is ever only DRM free now, no one can know what happens in a week or in two years time. which is why you should back up your games

Well, I do - but if there's an important update coming that ALSO includes DRM I won't be able to use that update ... this does not happen on a store that guarantees you DRM-free.

*shrug* and when EA buys gOg next week, that guarantee is not worth diddlysquats

edit - not to mention that gOg themselves can change their mind at any time, and introduce DRM on their store, and there is nothing you can do about it. So make sure you back up the DRM free games. That guarantee is only a sales gimmick

And you don't see a difference in the probability of GOG being closed and a game receiving a DRM'd update, no?
As a reminder: the question was not if a game is DRM-free or not - the question was, if it is a difference to buy a game that is officially DRM-free on GOG or one that is at the moment DRM-free on Epic. If you fail to see the difference here - I can't help you.

Btw: If GOG SHOULD introduce DRM on a game I already purchased I am legally obliged to refund it .. .so there IS something I could do about it.