"However, when the finished 4.00 update is publicly released in the first quarter of 2021, it will become mandatory to login using your e-mail address.
Please note that those who use modified clients to play X4: Foundations will no longer have access to their online account in-game.

The reason for these changes is related to a major update to the X4: Foundations online gameplay planned for the near future. Before our plans can be implemented, these preparatory steps are unfortunately necessary. More information about these changes will be made available when the 4.00 update and the X4: Cradle of Humanity expansion are released, if not before." -Egosoft website

Sounds like multiplayer will be locked through galaxy & even then you will need to be logged in to a specific email linked to a third party website. fun times; the obvious use is for banning trolls to preserve what the developers think the games ecosystem should be like instead of allowing people who paid good money to play their game the way they wish to play it.

I saw that earlier and got worried but if they will let me play my single-player game in peace I do not care. It should not affect those who avoid connecting to others or I will help raise a ruckus.

Yeah so I am merely interested if single-player will require that log in as well. If it will, most probably I am not interested in buying the game.

Online multiplayer? Ok for me, most probably I wouldn't play multiplayer anyway, and even if I did (with total strangers), I am fine with its DRM if it helps banning cheaters and asshats for good (meaning that those who would be caught cheating in multiplayer, would get banned completely from the game's multiplayer (rendering their game single-player only) and the only way to circumvent that was to buy another copy of the game).

At the moment it only applies to microtransaction like stuff.


So you would say you are a fan of someone legally purchasing the license for the sake of them entertaining themselves then have that money effectively stolen because the license is removed from them after the fact.

Lets apply that logic to rendering software.
If you bought rendering software and as a joke used it to make suggestive models as an example of what you can do with it on youtube and because the developer did not like that negative publicity your expensive rendering software was unable to be patched due to the developer blacklisting your copy thus negating it's future use come the next OS cycle.
You would be in favor of that?
It still technically would work... for a while..

I mean i don't like asshats as much as the next person, but when you pay for a license regardless you should be able to use it without respect of what the designer intended it for, but for your intended usage thereof.


Griefers being kicked isn't as big of an issue to me as having my licence null & void because I'm a newb in a game or have crappy controls and having a false report made against me.
Luckily X4 is more centrally a single player experience -> for now.

It's not exactly DRM. It's extra cosmetic fluff if you play online. I never play online so probably wouldn't affect me. I still plan on eventually getting X4, but at the moment I don't have time for it anyway.

The single-player would still be there, their product would be just crippled for not allowing online multiplayer anymore because they've been caught cheating or somehow otherwise trying to "break" the multiplayer game for others.

It would be ok of course if such "crippled" game would still allow e.g. local (LAN) multiplayer. Cheaters may cheat among their friends as much as they want.

I don't think it is actually the license (to the game) that is being revoked, just that the extra service in the form of public online multiplayer would be revoked from them. They'd still have a license to the game where certain extra service is denied for them. A bit like if they were banned from the game forum which grants access only to game license holders.

I try to look at it pragmatically, and the way I see it:

1. DRM in a single-player game doesn't really benefit me, a customer, in any way, so I don't want DRM in my single-player games.

2. DRM in public online multiplayer may benefit me if it makes possible for the admins to ban cheaters for good, As I am not a cheater in multiplayer games, I benefit from cheaters being actively banned.

Of course if the game also has local LAN multiplayer or the ability to create your own servers in your own hardware, there I don't see much of benefit for DRM, even as an anticheat method, as you tend to personally know the people you allow to play with you.

The title is misleading, there no DRM added to X4 the difference is that before you could login using your username and that for version 4.0 you will need to login using your e-mail.

The "multiplayer" (if you can really call what exists currently "multiplayer") was already locked through Galaxy, nothing change that. It has no impact on single player.