And how is this related to DRM? Anyway, that's your personal opinion - and I disagree.

If you're from one of the more censorious shitholes in this world, you'd probably feel more inclined to be put off by DRM.

Case in point: Region locks in Germany for Squeenix games on Steam.

Now, those go way beyond what gog customers are used to: Usually, games that are put on the German Index (a government blacklist of media deemed "harmful" to youths - they're not banned, mind you, just some sales restrictions apply. They basically become under-the-counter stuff.) get a region lock, so you can't buy them anymore. So far so bad. There's usually one way to circumvent that: buy the games while abroad. Now, here's where the Steam DRM kicks in: If you do manage to buy an uncensored version abroad, Steam will actually PREVENT you from starting your legally purchased game from within Germany! I must stress again: I'm not even talking about banned games here, I'm talking about games that are restricted to an adult audience. And since Steam has no age verification, you're forbidden from playing your game.

So, yes, I DO care about DRM. With gog, despite all the shit they pulled in the past, I'm not too concerned about something bad happening to my account. On Steam, the fear of loosing my library for whatever reason is very tangible and its thanks to their DRM.

right that it's not but I think it does flow off of the context line of gog relaxing its standards and becoming more like other stores that engage in practices like DRM.

so when a new game launches on gog, you are completely unconcerned with whether or not it will receive all and/or important development updates? if games are pulled from the store while continuing on other platforms this doesn't concern you?

Actually, it is related to DRM and DRM-free. The average consumer, if things keep going as they are, is going to associate the idea of "GOG", "DRM-free" and so on with "unsupported games that get patched 6 months later, or not at all". Yeah, "the need of a patch is the developer's fault" but let's remain in the real world of things: today games get patches and content for months after release, and GOG has done nothing to force developers to keep their games updated like their Steam counterparts. They've made it easier, but the developers can do pretty much what they want, as long as the game "works".

That actually happened to me. I have a retail game that I cannot even install on my Windows 10 PC, as the second I put the CD in it causes the PC to bluescreen and it will not boot into Windows (as the game tries to install Starforce drivers and Windows halts the system) I had to do system restore in the end.

Its the only game that I have that causes this problem with Starforce drivers. The others just woun't run due to the driver being blocked.

Is this a multiplayer thing? Because I don't have any games here that were left in an 'unfinished state'.
What I mostly disagreed on is that patching is GOG's responsibility/fault. Sure, ideally the publishers/developers should provide the latest update here - but it's rarely that 'critical' for the operation of the game. Yes, I'm talking about single player games.
So maybe we're talking about a different context (single player / multiplayer), but you should've mentioned that.
"The average consumer"? Are you working at some marketing department?
If GOG *mostly* catered to the average consumer, it wouldn't be DRM-free at all - it'd be a Steam clone.

And ehm... forcing developers? The GOG Polish Thugs With Baseball Bats team is doing the best they can!

I'm not saying it's solely gog's fault. Even when the threads were going up blasting them I was the one saying that it's not all gog. I'm saying that in my opinion this is their largest current issue.

reason I mentioned it is because while the explicit question in the OP was "do I care about DRM?" the implicit question following from that is "do I care about gog?". the patching situation is related.

I was always big on gog and I was someone who was less against Steam than some.

You're missing my point. I'm as concerned about preservation as anyone else, and I constantly remark about trusting the community to do that since companies are too lazy and greedy to do so. My point was that most people still rent The Terminator, or catch it on cable. It's a viable way to enjoy the media without owning it. People could do the same with Steam/Origin/Whatever, when the prices are low enough to count as a rental.

The better counterargument to my post is...

Sure, and I get that perspective, but you also have to accept the perspective of tilting at windmills. The world changes, the vast majority of people accept a change and then there's nothing you can do about it. Steam and account-based DRM is so pervasive and accepted now, even seen as a benefit by many, that there's no going back. The battle is over. The principles at this point get you nothing but stress and loss. Not nearly enough people cared about DRM to avoid buying Half-Life 2 14 years ago, let alone in the years since. The battle was over a long time ago.

Is Half-Life 2 14 years old?

Holy shit!

It is funny to read the first post, when Star Wars Racer just got released exclusively here.

I'm not missing your point, you're simply conflating two separate issues. People who rent movies do so via a subscription (cable / satellite / Netflix) or physical rental (eg, Lovefilm or the old Blockbuster Video) knowing full well the service is a rental. If it's a bad film, they'd skip it. But if it's a great classic, they may choose to buy same film afterwards (eg, Blu-Ray). Two different things. Don't pretend though that buying discounted games (same way you'd buy a Blu-Ray on sale) turns them into "rentals" simply because they cross some personal arbitrary price threshold. It isn't price that determines what a genuine rental is, it's the distribution channel / logistics (eg, subscription service whose catalogue completely disappears when you stop subscribing vs product you obviously continue to own).

You're arguing "DRM and 10-year lifespan games are OK if discounts let me pretend I'm not really buying it". Lifespan shortening brought about by DRM is not "excused" by pointing out coincidental deep sales discounts. That's just a "red herring" as it isn't the DRM that's lowering the price of games, and DRM-free versions of same games also fall in price at the same rate. The reason games get cheaper over time is simply because they depreciate in price no different to old CD's, books, DVD's, electronic goods, etc, which can be had equally as cheap as a Steam sale, but literally no-one tries to argue "you don't own a cheap $3 book after you buy it" as a deflection tactic.

I do "get" your point, but really your point is just conflating separate issues as price depreciation and deep Steam / GOG sales occur anyway irrespective of DRM. I bought Bioshock from Humble for £2.49 (DRM-free offline installer). The Steam DRM'd version was (and still is) same £2.49. Not sure how the "rental pretence" maths is supposed to work there...

I think most of what you are saying is right. The world might change, but if you just take it as it is without fighting, then you have already lost. And if that is what you think, I have a question "why in the first place started GOG and became successful"? One (me) could argue that back in 2008 the world had changed to "DRM is ok" and if no one would have opposed to that, GOG would not have started. (I hope it is clear what I'm trying to say)

You might even be right that the fight with GOG is lost, but there is always the nagging part left as a possible customer. If this doesn't help, maybe there is enough demand, so that someone will open a new store that fullfills my needs (oh oh, this sound ambiguous ;) better than GOG does. I have not problem with a new store and I don't even have problems with existing stores like Origin, because they have Battlefield and in this case, I don't want this to be here on GOG, because I don't think they could handle the masses in the right (without problems all day) way.

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Everybody will care when Steam goes down.

No, I'm saying if you really want to play Deus Ex 4 but don't want to pay $60 for a DRM'd game Valve can take away from you years down the road wait for a $5-10 sale and treat it like a rental. I'm not actually saying it is a rental, or that I love me some account-based DRM. I'm just saying at that point the expense and risk of loss is so minimal who cares.


Not to keep being a contrarian in this thread but I would actually argue otherwise. Early on when I came to GOG the lure was very much "good old games we made run well on modern Windows!" The DRM thing was kind of an aside. Steam didn't have a ton of old games back then, they got into that very much as a response to GOG taking that part of the market. Don't get me wrong, GOG did promote the DRM-free aspect, but I don't think it was as core to their existence as very passionate forum members act like it was.

The word "passionate" is very apt to mention, because that's what this whole thread comes down to IMO. I am very much anti-DRM. I think it's bad for consumers, bad for preservation of video games. However am I passionate enough about that stance to not play the newest Fallout? No. Why? Honestly, because I trust the PC community to keep the games we love running, as they always have before. Getting Deus Ex 4 to run without Steam one day with a fan patch isn't incredibly different from getting Westwood's Blade Runner to work on Windows 10 without CD's, which I just did the other day.

It's consoles where I think DRM is a much bigger issue because they're closed systems, which makes it harder to just download a fan patch to get an old game running.