Hi,
I really like GOG that's why I bought some games here that I remembered from the good old days. Actually if the catalogue would be a little larger including great games like Monkey Island, Day of Tentacle, Colonization, Sim City, ... I guess sales figures could be increased quite a bit more.
Now I wonder if this business approach could also work for newer titles and larger game collections? Or is it only working in the niche of older, relatively cheap anyway, nowadays not so popular anymore, ... titles, where the losses due to piracy are manageable?
I think that while DRM free is sooo convenient for the customer, its also an invitation to piracy. You can't make it much easier, can you? Even the GOG titles are on the filesharing network as mentioned in another thread here.
And if you have the choice of spending 50 bucks (for a new game) or spending zero bucks ... people tend to decide for the second option. We are all no saints... more or less. :)
I am not even sure, it works for GOG. Published sales figures for GOG are not available, so it even might be going down in the future.
Since you are here, you bought from GOG and this means there is some trust in this business principle. Do you also think, it would work on the large scale?

Frankly I don't think that it'd make much difference, selfish pricks will pirate it and honest people will pay for it. There might be a slight increase in casual piracy of running off a copy for a mate but there might be a slight increase in people buying it when they know they don't have to screw with drm crap and they can save money because SURELY the prices would be lower when the publishers don't have to pay for DRM... right?

No. Investors need a sense of security, even if it is mostly a false sense of security.

I think it will remain pretty much unchanged. Piracy* of the games may lessen a bit depending on the attitude of whomever is selling the games, but I don't think it will be anything significant.
It will still have to be a game of staggering brilliance for me to shell out $50-$60 even with a good exchange rate. Too many years of cheap games and discounted sales have ruined paying full price and at release date for me, I've got enough of a backlog to play and I'm quite happy to wait.

I think the losses would be greater, sure, but if Publisher release their games DRM free and cheap it would be the best way to avoid piracy.
I still remember that Prince of Persia (2008) was one of the very last next-gen releases by Ubisoft which got released DRM-free. The problem why it got so low sales was the ridiculous overprice like any blockbuster game, and no one liked the low gameplay quality.
Ironically this caused Ubisoft to pull the piracy argument and stopped any further PC-support and instead working on the uberDRM.
So, yes, I am convinced a DRMfree policy can work on the larger scale, but Publishers also stop being damn pricks and look after the interest of the customers.

Contrarly to many peope here, i believe less DRM = significantly more piracy.
When I was pirating games, I was only pirating game with no protection at all (back then, protection meant needing the CD to play). I was not going to risk my computer on Warez sites and I had no way to copy a CD. Basically, a friend came to my place and told me "try this" and we copied the game provided it needed no CD (he might lend me the CDs too). So DRM slows down "casual piracy", "piracy with no effort are needed". Of course, hard core pirates are not impressed.
GOG works because for only up to 10$ you got the bonus AND you don't have the hassle to go download the game on torrent and hope it is not a porn / bugged / a trojan. This comfort is probably NOT worth 30$ of more, but it is surely worth 5$.
DRM you-can-only-install-this-a-number-of-time is not a problem for most casual gamers, as they will play the game only once, so I don't think it hurts sales much.
On the other hand, I bought DiRT 2 and discovered the pleasure of "Windows Live Gaming" or whatever it is called, and trust me, I will NEVER buy a game that needs that stuff ; even though I believe it still does not hurt sales much.
Take the example of World of Goo. They claimed 80% of the copies of the game are pirated (they had a system through high-scores to know that). Let's say the real number of piracy for a game without protection is more like 50% because their calculation is gross and because it is a small game. If only 10% of the people who have pirated would have bought the game instead, this would have meant a increase of overall sales of 5%. Remember that making video games has no variable costs, only fixed costs, so 5% more sales can be quite a lot for games close to their break-even points, i.e. niche games or games that sells so-so. Also, remember I took conservative figures.

We are talking about older games here, the ones out of the general public eye. "Grand scale" here is an unrealistic measure, and a no DRM policy will work either way, since it is the most fair policy. Also, people will rather pay the measly six or ten dollars to get a good version of a game plus extras as opposed to actually finding a way to pirate it. And anti pirate measures have always been anti customer measures, and customers have become stockholm syndrome'd. That's the current situation with gamers, they think no DRM spells financial disaster and an invitation for piracy, while the actual quality of the game doesn't factor into this.

The clue is in the name. DRM never has been about piracy. The whole purpose of DRM is to restrict the rights of those who do actually buy the product.
This is an attempt to secure extra sales from people who can't use something the way they want without buying a different version of it (iTunes being the all time worst offender here).
Therefore that could result in lost sales as people are no longer being screwed over by shitty DRM and subsequently have no desire to buy the same thing again to overcome certain restrictions.

GOG is surely the ideal example. Buying is easy, downloading too. Afterwards you can enjoy the game experience. However we don't know how well GOG is really doing. I have never heard of any statement about profitability or number of sales for GOG. Also its not known how often GOG games get pirated. From interviews with people of GOG its known that its difficult to convince publishers of the idea. The catalogue of GOG is still very limited, many popular titles are missing. On the other hand, the more popular the titles will be, the more piracy will occur.
I don't know if a lot of people would pay even six dollars when they can get the same product for zero dollars (not that easily though).
I know, that if I had the choice between buying the same game for the same price, once without DRM, once with, I would choose the DRM less version and be very happy. But since piracy level would probably not be the same, ... equal pricings aren't very realistic either.
The best DRM measures nowadays in the sense of difficult to pirate and convenient for the customers is kind of the STEAM way: account binding, constant updating, additional features for paying customers. Its clearly not DRM free, but seems like the future in the mainstream market. For me it seems like piracy is killing the DRM free approach on the large scale, on the small scale of GOG it might work.

No, Windows is the all time worst offender here, especially their OEM license restrictions. (I hate activations!)
iTunes is for the most part rather generous these days; no DRM at all on music, apps can be used on 5 machines and an unlimited number of iPods and iPhones... movies are the most restrictive though, since you can't watch them on the big screen using something like a PS3.

Yes, but gog.com's profit could be thousands of dollars and EA's could be millions. See the difference?
Also, EA gives job for thousands, GoG maybe for 20.

EA is the bigger company, GoG is just 2 years old. They need time to grow. If they get more profits, the more chance they expand their company and hire more help. It's simple as that. All in all, I see it as a good start, you just have to tell more people about it.

One big problem is that people think in terms of absolutes. They think that because a game can get cracked, there is no point for DRM.
I posit the following metaphor/analogy/whatever:
You own a house. Do you lock your door? A determined thief can easily pick the lock or just break the door down. So is there no reason to ever bother to lock your door? Yes, your friends are inconvenienced because they can't just walk in. And so are you, since you have to fumble with the groceries to unlock your door. But I don't see too many unlocked doors :p
That provides an argument for some form of DRM, at the very least. The problem comes in how much.
Let's get back to your house. You live in one of those super fancy gated communities. But you are kind of paranoid, so you have a heavy duty security system and a steel door. You ARE a lot more secure (although, a determined thief can jut use a window), but your neighbors feel pretty offended. They get by with just a deadbolt.
That is the argument against "excessive" DRM. Admittedly, everyone has their own ideas of what "excessive" means.
Now let's say your house is in a REALLY dangerous city (the Detroit of Robocop comes to mind :p). A simple deadbolt isn't going to cut it. So you actually have a reason to get some pretty heavy duty security.
That is why some regions (Russia/Eastern Europe in particular) tend to have stricter DRMs. The "generic" thief is more determined.
So it isn't really about keeping everyone out. It is about providing a sense of security for the publisher (and the dev. Nobody wants to see their work stolen) while not alienating the customer. Of course, I suspect they are less worried about alienating the people who hate DRM on principle alone and argue that it is all a big conspiracy to screw over the customers so that they won't give the company any money. But for the rest of us, it is a balancing act.

I know what you mean but the question is can they make the same or more amount of money without DRM? I am sure that they cannot (at least they think the same way) so that's why they still use DRM.