Tricking the DRM does not equal DRM free and there is no excuse.

Gog are advertising DRM free, clearly this is not the case with this game or FEAR.

That's one big principle to mess with.

It was known for that long and left active all along... sorry, I stand corrected, I was foolish enough to disbelieve they'd leave it for so long intentionally.

Then many games would probably end up not being sold here, disabling DRM takes time and it's time devs won't waist on old games. GOG however says they will do this themselves and make the games compatible with new OS's. In most cases completely getting rid of the DRM won't happen without direct access to the code and GOG wouldn't have that in most cases.

I willing to bet there are many games on GOG where the DRM is simply tricked into believing it's either disabled or that your complying with it, & you won't ever know if it's done right.

EDIT:

Also I'd argue that this does indeed neutralize the DRM if done right and because of that the games are DRM free. Yes the DRM files might still be there, but if they have no effect on the games operation then it really doesn't matter.

I appreciate what you are saying.

But who cares if many games are not sold here? DRM free is just that. If a game doesn't meet that requirement it should simply not be here.

If we are now obliged to individually check whether or not Gog has taken artistic license with what is and what is not DRM then it will become just another distribution service with the added bonus that their core principle amounts to nothing. Tricking again? I hope you see my point.

What do you mean? GOG started selling the game in 2012?

The game was released in Summer 2012 and its DRM problems have existed ever since November 2012. It's only now that SirPrimalForm raised the issue, that more people are aware of the game's DRM.

That's the case already.
And they already are just another distribution service whose principles amount to nothing.
The only core principle they have left is DRM-free which apparently is a bit questionable as well ;)

Thank you.

The store would probably not survive then. DRM Free is like DRM, there is not clear cut definition. GOG says, "DRM free means no copy protection, online checks or any other annoyances". This is true even with tricking the DRM and leaving the files intact, so as I said the issue is here is not what they did but how they did it. They make it clear on there homepage what DRM Free means to them.

As I said in most cases you wouldn't even know, this is clearly not something they would like to happen. Neutralized DRM is way way better than active DRM any day of the week so long as it permanent and and it does not go against their core principle, see above. I see your point, I just don't agree with it. :P

Actually, someone raised the issue a few weeks back. I investigated it decided to write to support to try and get it fixed. I've only now publicly complained after getting a complete lack of acknowledgement of the problem from support.

Earlier than the time you bought Defcon or at the same time?

Have you by chance checked their other games? Just curios...

Please tell me you're kidding...
It was during the sale and I actually ended up buying DEFCON in order to investigate, I wrote to support once I'd worked out exactly was going on. After getting the email quoted in the OP I asked for a refund (that's the entirety of the email I got by the way, minus the "Hi" and the support guy's name).

In my experience, everything indicates that everyone who bought Multiwinia here has a different cd-key used to play in multiplayer mode.
If that wasn't the case (i.e. everyone had the same key), it would mean that nobody would be able to play in multiplayer which we would have heard of by now. Moreover, as far as I remember it doesn't 'phone home' when you play online but I wouldn't bet on that.
Point is : yes there is a cd key for multiplayer, but no it's isn't a 'universal workaround that got kaput' like in DEFCON.

How can I tell if they are nothing to worry about? The reason I ask is that currently I've got seven games from GOG installed that try to connect to somewhere, luckily I get a firewall warning and so I blocked them all straight away and have not allowed them any access at all. They seem to work OK without internet access but I've always wondered at this behaviour and how to tell if it is innocent or not.