Oh I agree with that.

Function is important though. Your explanation of the functional stuff was off.

On Steam you subscribe to a service that enables you to make use of a license granted by a content-creator. So basically Valve owns the license, not you, and they give you access to it via the subscription to their service. They say you are no longer under subscription, you lose access. Thankfully you lose nothing at all though because you never bought something in the first place. ;-)

I prefer the GOG.com/model where I actually purchase the license, not just subscribe to a rental-service. With the independent installer I will always be able to keep hold of my property rather than relying on a third party distribution system.

I very much made some of these experiences that the thread starter speaks of myself. There is quite a strange opinion building going on these days that worries me to be honest. I really hope that people that are arguing in favour of DRM are a loud minority. Nevertheless it seems to me that their stance is more welcomed and supported in the gaming industry than the GOG.com DRM-free attitude is. Usually it is me arguing for DRM-freeness or at least a diversification in digital distribution and usually then I am the one jumped on and talked down.
I argued over a year with many people over at the Egosoft boards for a Steam-free alternative distribution of their upcoming X Rebirth without any success to a point where I simply gave it up. Even the Egosoft developers themselves stated they will go Steam-only. Not because of the DRM though, but because they do not want or cannot afford to maintain various builds for various distributors. They say they want to keep their game up-to-date which can only be done through Steam to be cost-effective. I never got an answer from them when I asked to give a good sign and distribute their older titles which do no longer require patches here on GOG.com though.

I think this is a development we will see more and more in the future. Developers will offer exclusive through Steam and will never feel the need to remove it. Why would they if the majority of people will use Steam anyway? If SteamOS and their hardware will be a big success, I think this development will even be accelerated. Where shall the future Good Old Games come from if they are always bound to Steam and always be available there?
Well I do not much care anyway these days because I for one solely buy my games without Steam. Not necessarily DRM-free, but preferably here on GOG.com.

I know, I am horrible at explaining things :)

A few misconceptions here, allow me to clarify.

This is just wrong... You own the license just a much on Steam as on GoG. The services are different, yes, but not the game licenses. If you say you "subscribe" to steam's services, then you may as well say you do the same for gog. In terms of licenses and the uses thereof, legally there are no differences between Steam or GoG.

If gog folded tomorrow and you did not back up your games, you did not loose anything, because you never bought anything either (except the same license you would get through all retailers that is) :)

It is fair to prefer one service over another, but that is all it is. A game license is just as much your property on Steam as on GoG.


Just because GoG can not enforce the rules, do not mean that the rules are different. The onus is therefore placed on the end-user (that is you) to know about them and behave legally and ethically. They trust you to do the right things, so in the end the difference if that if ever a IP holder revokes a license (it will never happen) Steam will delete the game for you, whilst gog trust you to delete the game yourself. That is the only difference.

It's the difference between a chastity ring and a chastity belt to which you don't own the key.

Well, I guess it all boils down to a simple question: "Who do I trust more - Steam or myself?".

And for a developer / IP holder the question is: "Who do I trust more? Valve or Random Unknown Customer (RUC!)". Which is why so many do not have the same attitude to DRM free, even though DRM do not work in practice (as we know).

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I'm sorry but I hate the whole stance assuming that software's business is new and beyond all other businesses.

When you buy a book, you aren't allowed to reproduce the work claiming that you wrote it: it's plagiarism. And you aren't allowed to make copies and distribute them.
You don't buy author's rights.
But you own that book.

When you buy some food, you aren't allowed to reproduce that food claiming that you made it.
You don't buy cook's rights.
But you own that food.

When you buy some drugs at the pharmacy, you aren't allowed to make your medecine if the physician and/or the pharmacist haven't told you to do so.
You don't buy pharmaceutical rights.
But you own these drugs.

When you buy CDs, you aren't allowed to copy them and sell these copies, and you aren't allowed to use that music to claim that you wrote those songs.
You don't buy compositor's rights.
But you own these CDs.

When you buy a software copy (a video game for example) which isn't opensource, you aren't allowed to modify it and to claim that you made that software.
You don't buy developer's rights.
But you own that copy.

So since GOG allow us to make personal save copies of the game wich we bought its licence, anyone buying that licence and making save copies own those copies.

So please. Software aren't different than what happen in the real world.

When you're at a standoff where the developers don't trust the customers, and the customers don't trust the developers, maybe it's worth pursuing a compromise that both parties can walk away from feeling good about.

For me, I'd be happy with buying a game, providing my name to developer, getting an email back with an activation key that links the serial number to my name, and then using that to activate the game offline whenever I want. I don't mind if the game even displays my name somewhere in the game. Sure, I could provide a fake name, but if anyone who knows me saw me playing that game, they'd assume I was a pirate (whether because I got the game from someone else or because I intended to give the game to someone else) and hopefully express some disapproval.

You are forgetting many things: oldschool gaming is now a niche. Playing actual games in the next 30 years is oldschool gaming, so people who will really want to play them, will be at least like now: a niche. And being a niche won't prevent motivated people to make emulators or software able to make them work. Well... just like now. Name one old hardware that haven't already opensource emulators working now on opensource OS. If some people aren't motivated enough to try to play their games on linux (for example) because linux would be the only OS to make them work, well, these people aren't really interested in retrogaming at all, and won't even try. Just... like now.

One another thing, you are assuming that windows will be the main OS in the next 30 years. A dream. Or a nightmare. But nothing but speculating. Administration in many countries are turning to opensource OS since years. And it's only the beginning. So assuming that Linux will be a niche in the next 30 years is only speculating.

I think you are missing two main points:
-first, the Moore's "law" is coming to an end, hardware won't be more and more powerfull forever. Even now many techs are discussing about that "end", and how to compete. Some of them are turning to streaming and online-only gaming only to legitimate the fact customers could spend money for their services. Some just want to make better softwares and to improve coding (look at the reports of the Linux conference). So hardware will hardly be different than the one we already have.
-secund, you're missing the opensource point, and how people can be motivated to make their dreams come true, especially when they have tools to make them. So, don't think that drivers would be a plague.

"All the time" no; but quite often yes.

A lot of peoples don't seem to be able to make the difference between the "features" that Steam provides (i.e auto-update, cloud save, etc...) and its DRM component and think and that those feature cannot exists without it. If anything that's one of the main reason why I think that GoG "must" release an optional client someday.

Just curious, what benefit would there be if GOG did add a client?

To "prove" some peoples that it is possible to have some of Steam features (i.e. auto-update, launcher, etc...) even with DRM-free games.