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Raincoats are awesome!

Surely you can try to intercept all data streams and simulate them. But then you either have to reverse engineer all the hidden away game logic or catch all possibilities and normally there too many possibilities. I guess in this case the game did nothing except an occasional check and maybe some simple login information. However when half the game is hidden on a server this interception method should normally fail and mean a huge effort. Stealing the game server would probably be the only viable option. While streaming everything would surely kill piracy instantly I guess you don't have to go that far.

And for good old games you cannot use this technology because they weren't programmed in this way and that's why GOG can as well not bothering with DRM at all. After all it's a unique feature and distinguishes them from others.

You missed another option. Write new game logic! :)

EDIT: By the way, I think with the example I gave, it actually transferred game assets on demand (i.e. meshes, audio etc).

And steal your kidney.

As said in many threads lately, those "AAA titles" choosing Steam and the like over GOG has very little to do with DRM.

I think I missed that, then. Is it because, even though GOG has decent sales, Steam is still the King of sales, and they don't want to bother with GOG in general as a distributor of big new stuff?

it's Steamworks, those games are deeply integrated into Steam for features like Achivements o rmultiplayer. It's not like you could just remove the DRM parts and call it a day, you would have to replace the functionality provided by Steamworks with your own. It's the same reason why the not-so-Humble THQ Bundle is Steam-only.

And yet, Alan Wake was a Steamworks title before being added to the GOG catalogue.

It's not impossible, but it's work. How much work it is depends on how deeply Steam is integrated.

Not everywhere. In some parts of the world, you can pirate for personal use. Some restrict what you are allowed to pirate legally, but it is out there, and there are groups trying to legalize it in other countries as well.

As for the topic at hand / My two cents:

As said earlier, you will never win against piracy, there are a magnitude of reasons people pirate; from games not being released in their region, not having money to buy, wanting to "try a game first", getting a uncensored version (ie. Aussies get screwed a lot by that), because they can, ect, ect.

I do commend GoG for what they're doing and how they're going about it. DRM-Free is actually a really good method of doing things. I've had friends who bought games, then pirated them (the ones they bought) because of DRM issues. DRM doesn't bother pirates, it just screws over consumers. Remove the DRM, you remove the reason -some- people pirate. A lot of pirates, not all, do have respect for that type of model, and this site. Which can contribute to why there are less using this than the disc.

As for the disc part, that can also be contributed by the Scene groups who crack those discs. Why? Scene groups are like collectibles to some pirates, they like to grab all of there releases like they're some rarity, so even if there are other versions, they still grab that. Heck, they still would if the cracked version was so broken it was unplayable, to some of them that is like finding a double headed coin. I have known people who try to collect every release from a group they can like a bad habit.

I actually think because of some company practices it will be worse for some games than others. Witcher 2 for example, I bought the boxed version because I thought how much they offered for the price was brilliant, and it made me get it over the Steam version in a heartbeat. Free DLC? Heck yea, that is a deal I can easily support. Now look at games from other companies. On average now you'll pay around $60 for a new game, then another $10-60 (or more) on DLC, including a lot of crap like clothing and other useless stuff that should have been there from the get-go, or added for free. On a lot of pirates eyes, that is like a big neon sign saying "Pirate me", because the companies are getting greedier and also adding nastier DRM to drive more people to want to pirate and not buy. So that constant screw-over shows a huge lack of respect to customers and will most likely end up having more people pirate.

So pretty much the actions they took with Witcher 2, and GoG in general (CD Projekt RED), is one of the better ways of combating piracy. Not lawsuits or other crap that just adds a minor distraction, but actually showing you care about your customers and trying to cater to them and not just your wallet. It won't kill piracy, but it can dent it some.

Let me clear this up before someone tries to tear me a new one. I am not trying to justify piracy by saying it is moral or anything like that, just explaining a bit of why and whatnot.

I am sorry if a lot of this reads weird, I am tired and it sounded alright in my head, and I know it may not come that way in text.

tl;dr - Did they win? No. But they're taking a step in the right direction.

HiPhish explained it pretty well. Steamworks offers tons of modern things gamers and publishers both want. Achievements, a built-in DLC store, multiplayer support, friends list, photo taking, in-game chat, and on and on and on. It makes their job easier and 90% of consumers want it, why say no?

Borderlands is a great example. They didn't want to use Steamworks and everyone hated them for it. Fucking gamespy? Buying DLC from a web page and it has activations on it? No friends list? No achievements? What the fuck? FUCKING GAMESPY?? That was more or less the reaction.

Borderlands 2 comes out, full Steamworks, easier for the developers and better for the consumer.

I suspect gaming will become cloudware anyway in the next 10 years. From a corporate point of view, there are zero downsides:

- people never own anything
- patches are applied for everyone everywhere
- cheating is going to be non-existent
- no reselling games
- no piracy since everything is being streamed
- full control from the side of the publishers

It's a nightmare for us gamers though. While cheating may be gone, so will modding be, you won't ever own anything, they'll be able to charge an access fee, you have zero control, etc. etc. etc.

So what is the official reason why there aren't much more AAA titles on GOG?

GOG is well known by now and they surely would like to have AAA titles while on the other hand most AAAs come out with DRM. This hints that GOG's strict DRM free policy might be limiting them.
Maybe they are nice and open up the system so you can have your own servers running your own mods. Or after a certain time, like two years, they uncloud the game and offer it then standalone. Of if not, maybe gamers just don't buy these things are so they will continue offer games without a cloud. And prices might go down, because no piracy, no reselling ... they also might go up if somebody obtains a monopoly on cloud gaming.

I am not extremely pessimistic but just curious at the moment where this will all lead.

Maybe as a more and more common option but not as standard, not in that timeframe.

AAAAAAHHHHHHHhhhhh, thanks. EDIT: Hopefully I'll remember that reasoning. :P