Posted October 04, 2015
Except for some exceptions, I am not really expecting brand new AAA titles to appear on GOG.com DRM-free. At this point the best we can hope is for some a bit older AAA games to appear on GOG.
To me personally, that is acceptable because I buy AAA games brand-new very rarely (The Witcher 3 was such an exception). Darksiders 1-2, Metro games, Saints Row 3... keep them coming, even if they can be considered old at this point. If the publishers feel they need to have some heavy DRM during the critical first few months (or year(s)) when the demand on pirate sites is also the highest, it is fine as long as they strip the DRM at some point.
However, as has been pointed out, for some like EA and possibly Ubisoft it may be more about pushing their own store, instead of GOG.com or even Steam. After all, there are apparently some DRM-free games also on Origin (admittedly, older games that are already on GOG too, I guess).
The best anyone can do is to vote with their wallet, and not to misuse the trust of those publishers who have released their games DRM-free on GOG.com (like, by sharing their copy of the game to other people, especially on the internets). If you do, don't be surprised if publishers feel even more strongly that DRM can be a good idea after all.
It worked for music at least, record labels started seeing DRM-freeness as good enough incentive for many people to buy more music. At the same time, I presume RIAA etc. have still been aggressively going against pirates on p2p networks etc., which IMHO is quite fine. Just like I felt CDPR going against The Witcher 3 seeders on torrent networks was quite fine, only the tactics used by the hired legal firm were maybe dubious.
To me personally, that is acceptable because I buy AAA games brand-new very rarely (The Witcher 3 was such an exception). Darksiders 1-2, Metro games, Saints Row 3... keep them coming, even if they can be considered old at this point. If the publishers feel they need to have some heavy DRM during the critical first few months (or year(s)) when the demand on pirate sites is also the highest, it is fine as long as they strip the DRM at some point.
However, as has been pointed out, for some like EA and possibly Ubisoft it may be more about pushing their own store, instead of GOG.com or even Steam. After all, there are apparently some DRM-free games also on Origin (admittedly, older games that are already on GOG too, I guess).
The best anyone can do is to vote with their wallet, and not to misuse the trust of those publishers who have released their games DRM-free on GOG.com (like, by sharing their copy of the game to other people, especially on the internets). If you do, don't be surprised if publishers feel even more strongly that DRM can be a good idea after all.
It worked for music at least, record labels started seeing DRM-freeness as good enough incentive for many people to buy more music. At the same time, I presume RIAA etc. have still been aggressively going against pirates on p2p networks etc., which IMHO is quite fine. Just like I felt CDPR going against The Witcher 3 seeders on torrent networks was quite fine, only the tactics used by the hired legal firm were maybe dubious.
Post edited October 04, 2015 by timppu