It definitely makes one wonder how far they'll go to promote Galaxy. Will there be Galaxy timed "exclusives" at some point? Or DLC only through Galaxy? You can extrapolate a lot of nightmare scenarios. Still, as of right now, I don't consider this to be a big problem, just a sign of possible future problems (like a lot of things lately).

Like I always say though, GOG know half their audience disappear if they start using real DRM. I don't see it happening, unless they get a LOT bigger.

The problem is not CP2077, it's about the "rewards" bonus items, which you can get ONLY if you use Galaxy.

The same reason The Witcher 3 did?

And you can download a number of DRM-free games through the Steam client. So what's the problem with Steam? The point is, that the last of GOG's promises that wasn't yet broken was, to keep Galaxy optional and all (singleplayer) games 100% DRM-free. There are several customers here, who are here for the DRM-free and who don't want to use any proprietary client. I, for one, will never use Galaxy. If I ever feel that using a client is unavoidable, I will go to Steam, because GOG has lost, or rather thrown away, their last distinguishing advantage that they had over Steam.

If GOG drops their last advantage, why switch to Steam? If you are fine with having a client, then you can also continue using GOG or both in parallel, no?

No. I was here to support GOG out of principle, why should I keep supporting them after they kept lying to us and betraying us by breaking all promises? Steam is at least honest about the anti-consumer practices they use.

I'm not saying that I will go to Steam. I'm not OK with using a client and probably never will. I just was making the point that there is no reason to use GOG anymore. Steam and EGS have a competetive advantage because they are bigger and can often afford lower prices or exclusives. GOG had DRM-free and client-free downloading as advantage. But they threw that away.

I won't use a client but get new games from other stores that still are actually DRM-free. zoom-platform.com, for example.

I've never considered this "DRM-free". Same with the EGS games.

Truly DRM-free means I can download my game from any computer with an internet connection (and browser). Regardless of the machine I will run them on. You can't install Steam on a computer in a public library, an internet cafe or at work.

Exactly. So if Galaxy is required for downloading, that breaks the 'obligatory' promise and for me as well the 100% DRM-free promise.

Well it's essentially rather useless bonus material, the game itself is DRM-free.

But how ironic to have a DRM'd "DRM free revolution" t-shirt in the game...

Yes, that makes me wonder whether that is just stupid carelessness or whether it's an intentional middle-finger to their 'DRM-free' old user base.

DRM is more about how you access something than the "importance" of the content. There's zero practical reason why the content isn't just included in the game. There are other games here like QUBE 2 where "it's only cosmetic skins" (Classic QUBE 1 Glove Skin) are still made available to everyone offline via a small sub 10MB offline installer (see gog.db entry).

This may be seen as relatively unimportant content to many, but we all know exactly what the issues have been over the past few months with GOG's incessant "over-pushing" of Galaxy, this isn't an issue that exists in a vacuum and is very obviously part of an ongoing "slippery slope" given other recent events, and the constant gradual "gating off" of single player content behind not really 100% "optional" clients by the actual owners of the store here is an entirely 'political' move here that's no longer about claimed 'misunderstandings' with 3rd parties as with No Man's Sky. (Points to Hello Games -> "they did it not us" is not an excuse this time).

"But it's only cosmetics" -> "But it's only a soundtrack" -> "But it's only DLC" -> "Ah, what the hell. All that DLC requires a client, so why shouldn't the base game?..." I can see exactly where this is going to end up 5 years down the line without "pushback". Hence why "irrational" complaints here over 'trivial cosmetics' are entirely rational when looking at the "long game".

Yep. He's right, cosmetics aren't DRM. Having to authenticate online to get them is DRM.

I agree, it's difficult enough to accurately attribute what someone's intent is, but I don't honestly believe that they hate DRM-free users or are trying to incrementally make Galaxy mandatory. This would have been a chance for CDP to, at the very least, reward customers who bought the GOG version with convenience ("You don't have to connect to GOG if you bought directly from us! Just start playing and you will find everything in game, no extra steps or online connection required!"). I will still give them the benefit of the doubt because this game is still going to be getting patches and content for years to come, so I hope before the time the Definitive Edition rolls around, there will be no need for GOG users to connect online to get the My Rewards content. And in any case, I've been gaming on PC long enough that I think one needs to be a masochist to play a AAA PC game on day one. >:3

Hadn't heard about this before now and find it deeply worrying. I'd been planning to buy the game - once it's fully patched, which I suspect may take a long while - but I definitely won't until this is remedied (and I say this as someone who already uses Galaxy, albeit mainly as a downloader for the offline installers). If the reward is for making a GOG account, then it should be available to everyone with a GOG account, not just people with the client installed.