Posted July 27, 2017
mechmouse: The thing is you can't have an organised, controlled and moderated online gaming environment without some kind of account based authentication. Its not Digital Rights Management, but Access Management.
So there has to be a choice: You either accept this reality, like GoG has, and create the least intrusive system they can to support this need or you don't stock the game.
Personally I'd love all games like this to have the option for a private server or LAN option as standard, but for some types of games that's unlikely. I'd also like to see GoG develop some kind of sub account system for families so that family members can have profiles.
But as others have said, this game will have an offline single player option, but at its core it is a online multiplayer experience.
So make your choice.
When a game with multi-player functionality is released without the option to use a non-proprietary client for multi-player, you have a paywall, which is every bit as bad as DRM, and serves to make DRM a moot point -- which renders the notion of "DRM-free" a hollow sham that has no real value. So there has to be a choice: You either accept this reality, like GoG has, and create the least intrusive system they can to support this need or you don't stock the game.
Personally I'd love all games like this to have the option for a private server or LAN option as standard, but for some types of games that's unlikely. I'd also like to see GoG develop some kind of sub account system for families so that family members can have profiles.
But as others have said, this game will have an offline single player option, but at its core it is a online multiplayer experience.
So make your choice.
At this point, I think it's pretty clear that GOG *has* made it's choice, and is not in any way, shape, or form, committed to DRM-free gaming per se.