The idea of anybody owning words is ridiculous. Race has nothing to do with it.

You're right...

So back to topic: The (once) vanguard store for DRM-free gaming wants to make money by selling DRM'd games of the competition, shamefully hidden in a corner of their totally unrelated client GOG Galaxy...

How do we stop this madness?

Yes. I think we totally shouldn't go into things that SOME people could see as "political".
That would probably quickly lead to GOG taking the liberty to just shut this thread in excuse of "shutting political discussions" while in reality this would be a great cover up to shut our mouths talking about THE problem of THE deal.

As to how to stop this...
At least we can be extensively vocal about this. This is the least anybody can do.
Maybe also submitting large number of support complaints would give GOG "some" idea.
But given their general direction and unwillingness to listen to community I am not so sure if that would work anymore :/

This company was already going downhill before this thread showed up.
And now it's essentially like pouring gasoline into fire :S

Seeing as they most likely watch this thread. We cannot as they have updates their TOS.

I still don't see how them selling Epic games DRMd is beneficial to them. As people like me see no reason to go through them we will just buy directly, and people that use GOG won't as its DRM.

Same as when they supply support which is what they said they are doing they are selling the games directly. So as its been said the final thing that made GOG stand out is no more.

Sadly, I'm not sure that we can.

If us old-school minded folks (those of us who demand GOG uphold DRM-free values) were all to boycott buying any more games on GOG.com, we would likely be painted as an insignificant minority no matter if this was actually true or not (more on this below).

Consider too that Cyberpunk is advertised everywhere (not just this website) and is set to be a massive seller. Many of those sales will be on GOG.com, where new customers are downloading it and playing it through Galaxy without "knowing any better" to click for the offline installers. Thus, Galaxy's numbers will effectively continue to be padded and offline installer users will be painted even more as a minority.

Even if we could negatively affect GOG's bottom line by boycotting until they go back to their previous DRM-free approach as a company, that does NOT guarantee they would reverse course. Companies have shown to chase after DRM and microtransaction dollars even when it would affect their bottom line and even when they have other singleplayer experiences with a built-in audience. EA is one example of this phenomenon.

If we continue to buy DRM-free games from GOG here and there, then we are effectively saying we are okay enough with their decisions. That said, there is something to be said for the practical argument of buying the DRM-free offline installers now, "while we still can". My thought is to limit this where possible, though...only buy what you consider absolutely a must-have.

I still can't believe GOG was having such an amazing year of releases only to totally go off course now with this embrace of DRM.

If they DO (I have doubts, it's not THEIR official thread) in fact watch this thread then if we show any weakness or unwillingness to fight against them then they will just make yet another "judgement call" and say that "most" people "seem" to be okay with it.
We can show no weakness.
Don't go all "there is nothing we can do" people. That's an easy 1.Way to just accept this BS someday 2.Excuse to be idle and not try to fight.
We must fight for our rights.
That's the only way we can stop this BS.

You and EVERYBODY else on GOG should not forget that TOS doesn't work backwards / aback.
Present TOS doesn't apply to past purchases.
From legal standpoint if TOS at the time of purchase stated that "Galaxy is optional" and the TOS is someday later changing this line then the TOS legally binding and applying to that specific purchase is the one that was live on the page when the purchase was made.
So they cannot legally take away our offline installers for games purchased when that line was existent in TOS.
Don't forget that.
Don't just blindly put up with whatever line they may put in TOS update.
The TOS doesn't override law. Remember that.

The problem is, there's really nothing more to say here. We have all made our points over and over. The thread can only either die or eventually go off-topic in one direction or another, because there is only so many ways we can reiterate the same complaints. I guess the only way to take things further would be to create some kind of social media uproar, as valid criticism on their own forum is not nearly as important these days as upset people on twitter or youtube. But the problem is, if even right here there are so many people willing to defend this, I don't think anyone outisde of the community here would really understand the issues, not to mention give two shits about them.

This seems suspiciously like a bait & switch to me.
Casual user looks on galaxy & sees epic exclusive game & thinks 'oooh gog has X' when in fact gog doesn't & it doesn't stand by their (rapidly declining) ethos.

I'm a long term gogger & most of what they do nowadays is ripping up old principles they used to get us onboard & preferring them to competitors. Sure there'll always be the defenders who will naively argue in mindless defense of gog but they're just another part of the problem.

I tried the whole galaxy with all the other platforms I had & hated it. I'm not much of a fan of galaxy either, it still reeks of DRM & gog's hard push was at the expense of many of us.

How long till people wise up to gog's false claims that they still stand by their principles etc? They are just another fledgling EA or Activision & are employing the same tactics but the wider user base hasn't wised up to it yet.

GOG, if you're not going to bring The Outer Worlds DRM FREE here because of this I'm going to be so pissed off.

I think GOG would make far more money having Outer Worlds here, than they might be getting from Epic keys bought through Galaxy, unless it's part of some long-term thing they believe will ultimately be more profitable. I imagine Private Division just doesn't care much about GOG, but maybe eventually it'll show up here.

Don't forget Obsidian made the game and Microsoft owns them so it could go either way.

I have a confession to make! I've not been 100% faithful to GOG! I've bought a couple of DRM-free games on the Epic Store!

So I suppose I can't expect GOG to remain 100% faithful to me either :(

But to get straight to the point, and in all seriousness, GOG has been a great home for me this past decade, and 99% of my purchases have been from GOG over this time. I certainly hope I'll be able to continue supporting their progressive DRM-free philosophy.

As for the games I bought from the Epic Store:
- they're not on GOG
- they're old
- they're DRM-free
- the installers are backed up
- they're installed on my offline gaming PC so the Epic Store will see 0 hours of playtime, now and forever.
- they're complete and work fine as is, so I knew I would not be dependant on a future mandatory patch required to fix the game, where such patch could also be used to add DRM

So yes, as much as I'm fan of GOG, I'm ultimately more a fan of DRM-free. I wanted to buy Control and would most likely have bought it from the Epic Store a number of years from now (assuming it remained DRM-free), but since Remedy Entertainment/505 Games chose to bring their game to GOG.com now (without tying it exclusively to Galaxy), I got to buy it here and now instead. And I hope more studios bring their games to GOG.com too! DRM-free is not a fad. We value the preservation of games and we value our privacy.

This doesn't need to become a war between client and clientless games. Provide both options, and gamers from both sides of the spectrum will buy your games.

in any case, The Outer Worlds is DRM free already on Epic

https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/List_of_DRM-free_games_on_Epic_Games_Store

Exactly. Business wise it makes only sense if EPIC offered them a considerable amount of money to use Galaxy as a channel to leech off some of the GOG crowd. Maybe it's a fist step in a takeover process. By this time, I don't rule out anything.

But yes, GOG made itself pointless. Anyone who wants pure DRM-free is forced to shop somewhere else. And anyone who is OK with DRM might as well shop directly at Epic or Steam. Why would I use GOG, when they drop the one remaining reason why I bought my games here?