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high rated
I own 170 games on GOG, and I only made these purchases because of how well the DRM free GOG games work in Wine on Linux. Having access to DRM-free installers made it possible for me to play a lot of games that I love on Linux.

With this development, I'll be prevented from doing that.

Furthermore, no matter how you try to argue for this change, it is DRM. This is limiting me in how I want to use the game I have purchased. Implementing DRM into your installers goes against your own principles, with this change you are no longer an alternative for me when it comes to digital purchases.

You sneak in DRM, the one thing you promised you would never do. I used to think very highly of GOG, but I can't say that anymore.
high rated
As a little hint for the sales representative at GOG:
Selling windows games to non-windows customers is a good thing for GOG, because those customers will not ask for support nor will they make use of the money-back-guarantee that GOG promises.
Therefore keeping games accessible for non-windows users is a benefit for all - GOG, their paying customers and GOG's reputation as being truly DRM-free.
In a way, I get the reason for trying to protect the files. I don't want to come across like I'm blinded with rage. However, I don't think this is a good solution.

One reason some of us hate DRM is because it inconveniences the legitimate customer while doing very little to affect the pirates in any way. While encrypting the installer may not technically be DRM (it doesn't require communicating with anything), it still has the same negative effect as DRM. This thread has shown two things; this change is inconveniencing some of GOG's customers, and it appears that this pirating deterrent isn't even really effective.

From what I've read, CD Projekt Red had decided to not waste any time on pirates, and instead focus on their paying customers. It seems whoever is involved in the decision to change the installers missed that memo. Maybe some people at GOG haven't read this http://www.forbes.com/sites/danielnyegriffiths/2012/05/18/the-truth-is-it-doesnt-work-cd-projekt-on-drm/.

For the record, I hate when I see GOG games on torrent sites. GOG has been the one company to do things right by boycotting DRM, and the prices have been reasonable to cheap. I really don't care if a software pirate gets infected with malware if they are pirating GOG games. All my legit purchases are available here for me to download as many times as I need.

I do like the idea of providing multiple checksums for the downloads. That has seemed to work well for many open sources programs.
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jalister: While encrypting the installer may not technically be DRM (it doesn't require communicating with anything),
Communicating with anything is not a property of DRM. The old style copy protection is still DRM. If it tries to control what you do with it, it's DRM. Telling anybody about it is purely optional.
What bugs me most about this is that there was no announcement anywhere. They just silently started this, which is nothing but a huge inconvenience for their paying customers. To me this just seems like silently sneaking in something that is nothing else than a form of DRM.
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jalister: While encrypting the installer may not technically be DRM (it doesn't require communicating with anything),
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sqlrob: Communicating with anything is not a property of DRM. The old style copy protection is still DRM. If it tries to control what you do with it, it's DRM. Telling anybody about it is purely optional.
Good point. I think the only type of copy protection I don't have a problem with are installation keys that do not need activation.
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Daerandin: What bugs me most about this is that there was no announcement anywhere. They just silently started this, which is nothing but a huge inconvenience for their paying customers. To me this just seems like silently sneaking in something that is nothing else than a form of DRM.
They changed the Windows installer and it doesn't impact the Windows users in any way; why make an "announcement" about it ?

They never guarantee anywhere that the installer would remain extractable by "alternate" means (i.e. by not executing it), they could have also moved to something totally different than InnoSetup (e.g. Wix or Advanced Installer) that doesn't have extracting tools, and even in that case they would't have needed to make any announcement.
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Gersen: They changed the Windows installer and it doesn't impact the Windows users in any way; why make an "announcement" about it ?
Maybe because GOG isn't like any other store, and the relationship between GOG and GOG customers seems to be more involved than the average store. Maybe because GOG has known for a long time that Linux users have been willing to do the work to get the Windows releases working on Linux. Even though GOG can't be responsible for supporting Windows on Linux, they don't have to place a major roadblock in the way.
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Gowor: While I'm open to ideas (and I implemented some requested changes before, like the way Foxit is installed), I'm only a programmer, not a PR person. I'm afraid in this situation I cannot continue this discussion. Sorry, it doesn't mean I don't care about this issue, but I’m here to write code and I wouldn’t like to be misunderstood.
I opened another thread for technical discussions:
https://www.gog.com/forum/general/tech_gog_new_windows_installer_a_technical_thread

To everyone: please leave the political stuff and the discussion about the validity of this new packaging method here, and let the other thread focus on technical questions only.

While I’m at it, I updated the opening post with a quick summary of the matter at hand, seeing how a lot of people noticed this place recently I think a quick way to understand the topic without reading dozen of posts is a nice welcoming touch ;)
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Gersen: They never guarantee anywhere that the installer would remain extractable by "alternate" means (i.e. by not executing it), they could have also moved to something totally different than InnoSetup (e.g. Wix or Advanced Installer) that doesn't have extracting tools, and even in that case they would't have needed to make any announcement.
7-zip can extract stuff made by Wix.
I ignored this thread until now because I'm not using Linux, but now that I understand better what's it about, I think it would be nice to provide easily extractable archives for all OS's. GOG Galaxy would give users an easy way to install and update, so the web downloads could be for more advanced users, and there should be no problem supplying a zip/rar file for those.

My personal reason for wanting them is that I sometimes want to transfer the game to my Android tablet, and having to install on a PC then transfer the files to the tablet is a lot more hassle than downloading the game on the tablet directly and extracting it there.
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jalister: Even though GOG can't be responsible for supporting Windows on Linux, they don't have to place a major roadblock in the way.
The thing, "not supporting" doesn't simply means that you cannot open support ticket about it; it also means that when they have to make technical decision they don't necessarily take into account all the "not supported" scenarios.

That's basically what apparently happened here, they made a technical decision (we can argue whenever it's a good or bad one all we want) on the Windows installer, checked that their various supported scenarios were working correctly, and didn't cared whenever or not it was still possible to use some unsupported third party tool on an unsupported OS to extract the files manually.
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ET3D: I ignored this thread until now because I'm not using Linux, but now that I understand better what's it about, I think it would be nice to provide easily extractable archives for all OS's. GOG Galaxy would give users an easy way to install and update, so the web downloads could be for more advanced users, and there should be no problem supplying a zip/rar file for those.

My personal reason for wanting them is that I sometimes want to transfer the game to my Android tablet, and having to install on a PC then transfer the files to the tablet is a lot more hassle than downloading the game on the tablet directly and extracting it there.
Good idea.
Galaxy for people that want full automatism and 7zips for the freedom of everything/everyone else. Problem solved.

Edit:
But this will not please GoG because Gowor's reasoning for the password protection is "pirates" and when this topic comes up, all common sense and usual principles immediately shut down, as we all know.
Usually means: Creating inconvenience for paying customers and making pirated versions more desirable... oh damn, that's exactly what happened here! What a coincidence.

This should be pinned on every wall in GoG headquarters.
Post edited December 30, 2014 by Klumpen0815
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ET3D: GOG Galaxy would give users an easy way to install and update, so the web downloads could be for more advanced users, and there should be no problem supplying a zip/rar file for those.
Not sure that all the right owners (or even GoG legal team) would agree if there was an official way to install a game without having to accept the EULA first. Not to mention that I am sure there are plenty of users who will download the web downloads for backup purposes but still want a functional installer.
7-zip is awesome. I dumped RAR a long time ago.