Posted May 09, 2011
TheEnigmaticT: It seems to me that the issue with patching is not an issue with DRM; rather, it's an issue with content delivery. GOG.com provides the game without DRM to everyone. Once we've given you that, it's out of our hands how the rest of the games' content is delivered.
It's all semantics really but DRM free to me means "here is the thing, download it, now it is yours forever." That is how GOG handles releases, that is how amazon MP3 for instance handles releases, and that is how I see DRM free. Restricting access is not DRM free. If I buy the game on GOG the patches and DLC are not there for me to download and backup at me leisure, they are restricted within a client. As someone said previously he does not have internet at home, he downloads games and patches at work and then takes them home on a USB. For him your patching method makes patching The Witcher 2 impossible. Even if that is not DRM by your definition how it is in keeping with GOG principles? You are restricting a paying customer's access to the patches and DLC. Meanwhile a pirate can just download the patch on a torrent and back it up however he wants.
I thought GOG was about the paying customer not being artificially hindered. The way Witcher 2 is being done, regardless of whether you want to call it DRM or not, the paying customer has less access and control over his game than a pirate does. This sort of thing is what infuriates many of us when it comes to DRM... why do I have less control over my game and experience than someone who stole it? If it truly about your bandwith then just offer the patches to external hosts, should they want to post it. It's not about your bandwith though, it's about trying to limit pirates' access to the patch, as you yourself said. The problem with this is the same as the problem with all DRM: it doesn't work on pirates, and it actually does work on paying customers like the man with internet only at work.