I think this has been true only since the wide spread use of the internet. Back in the old days, copyright protection was like looking for the right word in the manual or spinning paper discs around for a code. But with the ability to download and the easy spread of info online those types of copy right protections don't work anymore. While I think DRM is more actually hardware or software based where it actually looks for things like discs or for some kind of registration or that one is signed in.

Copy protection is generally something built into the media itself, to prevent it from being copied, thus the name. Usually for disks, it's things like intentionally bad sectors to screw up CD burners and imaging tools. However, with physical media seemingly being on the outs these days, copy protection has become less common, though it's still there. Mostly nowadays it's just on movie DVDs and Blu-Rays to reduce bootlegs.

DRM is a way to limit or control the end-user's access to the software. (The software being distinct from the media it's stored on.) Clients and activations and server access are the common ones these days, and those clearly aren't copy protection. However, there's some overlap between the two, especially in the early days. Stuff like "What's the third word of the second paragraph on page 32 of your manual?" was used back in the day because it was easier to copy the data than to copy the physical manual. And CD-checks overlap too, because the program usually forces the drive to read the same bad sectors that are used to prevent the disk from being copied.

Ultimately though (basically) copy-protection tries to prevent copies of media, and DRM tries to control access to the software contained therein.

This made my day (night):

GameSpot: Will you also be selling DRM-free DLC for these games?

Guillaume Rambourg: Our plan is not to sell past DLC separately, but rather bundle that content with the main game, so that we can offer a massive package at a good price. Again, our aim is to provide value for money to gamers so that they are happy to buy games from us and therefore never fall on the dark side, by which I mean piracy.

pd: 8 hours to go.

Thanks for the Alone in the Dark code. I already had it, but a great friend of mine who just registered here didn't! She really apreciated it!

fuck all that, give me the DRM free version of Shadow of Chernobyl and no one gets hurt.

On a slightly different topic, i wonder how gog will organise the new titles.

Will they just list them all in alphabetical order? I wonder if there be options to list them by release date (maybe in groups of decades) or by publisher, or divide them into older games, newer games and indie games.

I hope there will be some options so that some of the later gems (alphabetically speaking) don't get lost in the expanded catalog and get the attention they deserve.

The Whispered world is a great game, I bought it on steam when it came out.

If you enjoy adventure games, especially comical ones and miss older animated style ones this is right up your alley.

One of the best adventure games to come out in a while.

Awesome I loved Trine (Still need to play Trine 2 Though)

And have never heard of The Whispered World (So now I must do some google searches)

NvM I have heard of it and it was a game I really wanted to play

Indeed. It's a given that people will wax lyrical about their love for Steam on the Steam forums and that you'll see these people spill onto other forums. Come back into the real world though, and you'll find that a huge amount of people who have Steam accoounts have one simply because many retail games require it these days. Most people I know hate it (in fact, apart from myself in the past, I know only one person who actually buys directly from Steam) but they still put up with it to play the games. Doesn't mean they're "happy".

Other people buy from Steam for the extremely low sales prices, but as I've said in the past and as a number of people have indicated here, this dumping policy is not doing the industry any good. As soon as Steam stops these extremely low-priced sales (probably because of lawsuits for anti-competitive practice, of which whispers are already being heard), you can guarantee that there will be an exodus of a significant portion of these 30 million.

Not forgetting that a significant number of Steam accounts are inactive, either from plain abandonment, from people having used them as additional accounts (e.g. to use for Counterstrike hacks and so forth), or from these various scams where people created more than one account to get bonuses (such as the gift pile thing).

The difference between GOG and Steam is that people buy and download from GOG out of simple choice. Many people use Steam for the sole reason that many of their games will not work without it, even if bought from sites like Gamersgate. People tend to get cranky when they're forced to jump through hoops.

Fully agree. I only hope they have language localized versions too. I got used to the german voices and since they are kind of original voices...

Not "kind of". German is the original language, as it is for all of Daedalic's games.

While I do prefer to play games in English, it's only because most of them were developed in English. I was playing the English version of Lost Horizon by Animation Arts recently and the fact that it is a translation shows. They're slightly better in the original German.

Great news indeed i might pick up Trime 2 at some point and i think it is great we will now see indi games here. The indie community deserves our support as at least they produce games not just an excuse for a great looking interactive novel with no gameplay that a lot of big publishers are releasing these days.

Hmm... So maybe my hare-brained theory about the LucasArts titles being picked up by GOG.com as one of the announcements in a few short hours WAS in fact a decent theory?

BJ

So... could you theoretically play it with German voice-overs and English subtitles? That would be nice. In any case, The Whispered World does look like a nice game.

I'm very much looking forward to the site update tomorrow morning.