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General discussion (archive)GOG and people's perspective on it(279 posts)(279 posts)
(279 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted October 06, 2013
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timppu: Funny, I have no objection of keeping all my Pink Floyd music in digital files on my hard drive, which I can easily copy to any of my electronic devices capable of playing mp3 music. I don't like the idea that all those devices should download the same music through ITunes. My mp3 car stereo does not even support ITunes.
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keeveek: With my current connection downloading Pink Floyd discography would take me around 30 minutes. There is no reason why should I store them all the time.

Lately, I don't even download music at all anymore, I am perfectly fine with my Spotify account.
PBay is blocked here, and downloading the music (while at the same time sharing it to others) is still illegal.

You are obviously fine with paying monthly to Spotify Premium to play the Pink Floyd music you have already bought before. I am not. Also, my car stereo does not support Spotify either.

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keeveek: and your solution is to buy new external HDDs over and over again up to the point the new HDDs will no longer support old file systems?
Ummm, what are you blabbing about? The digital file does not really care what the underlying file system is, as long as the file system is not archaic compared to the one where the file was created. I can store the same files on NTFS, ext4, whatever file system Android is using etc. If a new file system becomes dominant, I simply copy the files from the old file system to the new one, just like I did from FAT to NTFS, or how I keep copying files between my Linux and Windows partitions.

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keeveek: And if you're still using magnetic external HDDs (because flash ones are too small), you can loose all your data in a second.
Actually it is the other way around. Magnetic HDDs much rarely die in an instant, without SMART giving lots of warning signs beforehand etc. It is the SSDs that have sometimes had the problems of a firmware error wiping out the whole disk just like that, without any pre-warning.

And in a case like this, I would just take the files from a secondary backup. If I didn't feel the files were important enough to keep several copies around, then I guess they weren't that important. Some backups might be even online, like on GOG servers. But I don't solely rely on that.

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timppu: I stopped trusting that as one of the cloud/social services, where our family had lots of our personal videos and photos, sent an email earlier that they are closing their doors. We were in a hurry to download everything back from the service, and decided to make sure we always have local copies of them in a safe place from now on.
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keeveek: I don't store my personal files in the cloud not for convenience reasons, backup reasons, but for security reasons.
You can always encrypt your personal files so heavily that not even NSA can open them. If you really feel they would even be interested in them.

So, what was the real reason you don't keep your personal photos and videos online?

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keeveek: Those photos which we hold dearer to our hearts, we print and store in albums. Like some old people. But analog is rather trustworthy.
But what if a volcano erupts next to your home, and all your albums are engulfed in fire? What do you do then, huh?!? Using your earlier logic, that's why you should keep all your personal files only in the cloud, and definitely not keep any local copies of them in albums or HDDs at your home.
Post edited October 06, 2013 by timppu
Posted October 06, 2013
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iippo: Well, if games being updated, content added etc - manually keeping up to date the install files for all my 600+ electronically owned games would be "a bit too troublesome".
Depends if the updates are really meaningful. So it isn't like you all the time have to keep all games up to date in real time. The same game still works fine, even if it uses an older GOG installer version.

If it is an actual change to the game content, GOG usually provides a separate patch so that you don't have to redownload the whole game.
Posted October 06, 2013
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timppu: But what if a volcano erupts next to your home, and all your albums are engulfed in fire? What do you do then, huh?!? Using your earlier logic, that's why you should keep all your personal files only in the cloud, and definitely not keep any local copies of them in albums or HDDs at your home.
I have family photos stored in analog form from over 50 years. Call me when your HDD files last that long, will ya?

Also, I've kind of accepted the fact that most stuff in this life is perishable. And digital shit is even more perishable.
Analog stuff can last for centuries without much care, though, so if it's a reasonable solution for some stuff (books, photos), obviously I'd choose this.

About stuff that is digital from the get go, I don't really care. They're fragile anyway.
Post edited October 06, 2013 by keeveek
Posted October 06, 2013
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iippo: Ive got family and work to take care of after all - gone are the days of youth and idle time.
Then you wouldn't be playing games at all, or writing to GOG forums. Go back to work and playing with your kids.
Posted October 06, 2013
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iippo: Ive got family and work to take care of after all - gone are the days of youth and idle time.
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timppu: Then you wouldn't be playing games at all, or writing to GOG forums. Go back to work and playing with your kids.
actually thats exactly what i am doing, putting clean clothes to closet and cleaning kids room. just got to change the track to something else at times. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16jGItPHRd4&feature=c4-overview&list=UUZ7jfKo_yCRhcgvWJzl_IDg
Posted October 06, 2013
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keeveek: You're right, but that probably works only with smaller businesses.

If Activision sells gazillion games a year, and every year brings them more sales, they don't really need to hear why several thousand people refused to buy it.

Because even if they knew, they wouldn't change their strategy just for them.

People have been "suggesting improvement", meaning, dropping DRM completely, for years, but it didn't change anything. Why? Because sales are growing regardless.

I probably would never buy an iPhone because of iOS closed platform. There probably are many others. But if I believed Apple suddenly would make their platform open, I would be rather delusional, because vast majority of their buyers don't seem to care.
That's basically the equivalent of saying "it's useless to vote because it will never change anything, it's just rationalization.

Yes having some peoples avoiding buying DRM using games, some not buying Activition games, etc... might not change anything... but on the other side not doing anything will for sure NEVER, EVER, change anything.

And that's true for everything, not just gaming.

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keeveek: Gaben once told that reducing a game's price around 75% makes 3000% more profit than normaly. Yes, three thousand percent.
If they makes more profit than "normally" that's most probably because the "normally" in question is usually at a time where those games are barely making any profit at all because; they are several months/years old and most of the peoples who wanted to buy them already bought them long ago (or wait for a sale).

That's the reason why several big publishers are not such big fans of those discount; if peoples who usually buy games at full price (i.e. the one they really care about, the ones that allows them to live) start waiting for discount instead, they are in serious troubles.
Posted October 06, 2013
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keeveek: I have family photos stored in analog form from over 50 years. Call me when your HDD files last that long, will ya?
As I've tried to explain to you already, the digital files are not tied to the media (HDD) at a given time. During that 50 years, I've probably copied the exact same digital files to a new media/file system several times already, without degrading their quality like happens to physical photos.

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keeveek: Also, I've kind of accepted the fact that most stuff in this life is perishable. And digital shit is even more perishable.
Only if you choose so.

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timppu: Then you wouldn't be playing games at all, or writing to GOG forums. Go back to work and playing with your kids.
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iippo: actually thats exactly what i am doing, putting clean clothes to closet and cleaning kids room.
You could do the same while downloading updates to GOG games too.

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jamyskis: Given that HDDs have a fairly poor lifespan, I don't doubt that Steam will outlive any external drive that I have.
If the HDD is used for storage, in my personal experience they have a very good lifespan. I've recently used some PATA HDDs even probably up to 15 years old (most of that time on the shelf), and they still seem to work fine.
Post edited October 06, 2013 by timppu
Posted October 06, 2013
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keeveek: Not really. EA is quite happy with their origin, Ubisoft with uPlay. When Activision finally wakes up, they will found their own platform as well.
Battle.net perhaps?
Posted October 06, 2013
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iippo: actually thats exactly what i am doing, putting clean clothes to closet and cleaning kids room.
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timppu: You could do the same while downloading updates to GOG games too.
...i do however prefer listening to music than clicking and backuping games that are totally safe enough on gog/steam/whatever's server.

Anyways, how often you think it would be good idea to download them all again? Once a year? 4 times year? Make a excel list and write the last actual update times there to prevent me from uselessly backing up stuff that hasnt changed?

ofcourse buying few TB hdd just for backups wouldnt be big deal these days, but it just feel its more work than benefit.

Well, i can understand that someone else wants to do this sort of thing, but as i said, i simply dont have the time or really patience. I worry way more about many other things going bonkers in life than my bit spread game collection disappearing from my hands.

Sure it -can- happen, but how likely that is atm? ..no, i am not feeling one bit worried about that.
Posted October 06, 2013
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Xanto: I'm torn when it comes to Steam and GOG really. I like all the stuff using Steam gives you as-well as the ability to buy newer games but I like the peace of mind the GOG gives you when you know they can't just up and ban you from the games you buy or take them away because GOG shuts down.

Steam is DRM and DRM does nothing against piracy. We all know this. I told myself to stick with GOG and buy only DRM free but the more I think about it... the more I feel that is kind of silly.

There is a chance I might lose access to all my Steam games at some point in the future, I honestly don't feel that much safer with having DRM free games either. In 10 - 20 years GOG may not be around, and without them constantly updating there games (which is unlikely when they get to the point of having 1000's of games anyway) newer technology could easily make all our DRM free games useless anyway and sure we could keep old tech around to play these games but that will only get us so far when that breaks and goes away as everything does.

I think some people here at GOG have told themselves that by buying DRM free games there much safer when it comes to having the ability to play them again in the future. When quite frankly were really not. Every year technology gets better and gets better at a faster rate then the year before. The technology of 20 or 30 years from now could be vastly different from the tech of today.

My views are becoming more and more of just buying what I can where I can and even it goes away at some point well I get plenty years of enjoyment from it and there will be new games in the future for me to enjoy over these really old games anyway. Nothing is certain so I don't see why buying from one place over another is any better.

The future is so uncertain I can't see why we should worry about the "what if" and limit ourselves... DRM free is nice, GOG is awesome... but are you really any better off? In some cases (like activation limits for some games sure) but generally no.
That's a dumb argument . I play games made before I was born that I get from abandonware sites without any problem, I doubt there won't be some way to make my GOG games run on a PC 20 years from now .
Posted October 06, 2013
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timppu: It's just the pro-DRM folks, nothing new there.
*Snip*
Please, explain this term to me once and for all. Pro-DRM folk?
Posted October 06, 2013
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KneeTheCap: Battle.net perhaps?
Is Call of Duty sold there?
Posted October 06, 2013
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KneeTheCap: Please, explain this term to me once and for all. Pro-DRM folk?
Hard as it may be to understand and believe, there are actually gamers out there who actually somehow find it in themselves to defend DRM. I guess the reasons for this behaviour vary greatly, range from a white-knight attitude to an unhealthy gaming addiction creating a sort of "Stockholm Syndrome" ("oh the poor developer", "oh the evil gamers stealing the games"), but at the end of the day, such people do actually exist.

Thankfully these idiots are a vocal minority and the overwhelming majority of gamers fall into the category of either being anti-DRM or apathetic about the matter.
Posted October 06, 2013
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KneeTheCap: Battle.net perhaps?
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keeveek: Is Call of Duty sold there?
No no, I was just commenting about your comment on Activision setting up their own service. They do have Battle.net already, maybe they'll expand that?
Posted October 06, 2013
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keeveek: Is Call of Duty sold there?
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KneeTheCap: No no, I was just commenting about your comment on Activision setting up their own service. They do have Battle.net already, maybe they'll expand that?
They don't, Battle.net belongs to Blizzard Entertainment.
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This is my favourite topic
Community
General discussion (archive)GOG and people's perspective on it(279 posts)(279 posts)
(279 posts)