It wouldn't any be harder than it already is. The same possibility for "piracy" already exists.

Also, anyone else find it funny that the term copyright supporters use for copyright violation is "piracy" while they're the ones that disrupt communication and trade?

Hey everyone! I am the big guy over at Gaming Irresponsibly. I hope no one took offense to Immortal Phoenix's opinions on electronic game copies. With that being said, I am glad to see the GoG community popping in to send a few comments about GoG, the service they provide is a great one and we work with them regularly.

IP's opinion is just that, an opinion. As flawed as his logic is, you've done a great job of pointing out his critical flaw. Hopefully, people see that and decide to check out what GoG is all about!

Stay classy folks!

So they're mad that they're (Steam) not reducing the prices. But then other articles claim to cheapen digitally-distributed games by offering them at teeny tiny prices.

You get what you pay for. $10 Skyrim that you may lose at some point (consider it a long-term rental) or $5.99 for an old classic like Might and Magic 7, DRM free. Take your pick, you know?

Hey, - Welcome to GOG!

Don't worry, I don't think anyone took offense at his comments, we just wished he'd talked about GOG :)

In actual fact, I agreed with most of what he said.

Use Quickpar and do an off site back up, if you lose access to your copies after you do that, then you're probably eating cockroaches and spiders for sustenance and have better things to worry about.

Mmmm, spiders.

Thanks for all the kind words everyone! I responded to the comments in that article at the bottom of the page.

I've heard of GOG but since hearing about how great the community is, I've decided to finally register.

I've got a bunch of other articles on my site btw where I try to delve into Gaming culture.

I'm really happy to hear people can sell their digital games and if that gets fully implemented I wouldn't mind paying full price for a digital download of a new game.

At this point though, paying full price is just simply unfair. Companies are pocketing that extra profit at our expense.

Thanks again for all the awesome comments btw everyone. I LOVE interaction! :)

...What does that have to do with what I just posted? I said nothing about backups.

No it doesn't. Currently you couldn't put a sales ad in a magazine or web site that you want to sell all your digital GOG games $2 a piece (while secretly keeping copies of them to yourself as well). You'd get caught.

It is just yet another reason for publishers not to release their games DRM-free. The only sensible way to make the second-hand market for digital items to work is very heavy DRM and closed ecosystems that try to make sure no one can keep a copy of items (licenses) they've sold to someone else. E.g. Steam could already have means to achieve something like this, but even they might have to strengthen their DRM more (and stop delivering any of their games DRM-free).

In the long run, being able to sell digital items could steer the publishers towards releasing games mostly just in streaming services like OnLive or Spotify, where such second hand sales are not possible at all.

It's DRM free, the only way that they can lose it is if the copies are destroyed or deleted. Short of a court order they can't take it back.

Making it physical doesn't mean it's any less DRM free or that they're any less able to control what you do with it.
Technically not software, but O'reilly let's you sell your ebooks second hand if you like to. It's just that anybody buying said copies doesn't get the benefits that come with buying them directly.

But, I'm sure it's easily abused and O'reilly doesn't actually know how many copies there are out there as a result of such sales.

The fact is you can do the exact scenario you just mentioned with physical games. Generally even if they do have DRM, you can keep a runnable copy of the program on your computer.

And if someone tries to prevent people from reselling their games, boycott them. If you don't, you're hurting everyone, yourself included.

No, if it has some stringent Starforce copy protection which makes it quite hard for you to make a working 1:1 copy, while selling the original.

Also, almost all retail games have had online DRM for years already.

Everyone has to make their own mind what they want to support. I prefer getting my digital games DRM-free, even if it means I cannot sell or trade those games legit.

Even games with online DRM are still crackable. Look at Spore; people were talking about how intrusive its DRM was, and yet it was cracked within one day. Does anyone else remember that fiasco?

This is the main reason why I don't support DRM.

DRM is supposed to protect against piracy.

Everyone complains there is too much Piracy on computers and they always complained even when DRM was everywhere and amazingly powerful. This is because DRM never stopped piracy and it has always been stable.

The untold truth is simple, DRM does nothing to stop piracy.

So then if it can't stop piracy what is it good for? Investor confidence; ignorant people that feel better thinking their product is secure rather than saying, "This is DRM free", which scares companies like EA.

ImmortalPhoenix, sorry to digress, but out of curiosity, have you played Sacrifice before?