I totally agree, at the end of the day I don't even care if the evil Disney, Devolver, Gilbert, or the butler are to blame, the fact is that we GOG users have been abandoned without any explanation, on the platform that practically resurrected these games.

I, too, have tried to contact them through every possible channel, but to no avail, and now I certainly don't intend to endorse this behavior. So when and if RtMI comes to GOG, if I get it, it'll be at a huge discount.

By the way, I obviously don't want to give spoilers, but I'm not particularly attached to these games so I had no problem seeing gameplays and the ending turned out to be pretty divisive, with the reviews being pretty much all nostalgic sermons with no real objective value.

The game hasn't even been announced now with Devolver Sale, so I predict that it won't be released on GOG before 6 months/one year. Doing it earlier makes no sense, because at that point they would have planned for a Day 1 release, and there are no technical problems, or they would have said so right away.

I also haven't played any MMO. I remember when they released World of Warcraft. I refused to accept the idea of paying a monthly fee to play a game. It was also the time where I completely lost my interest in the online multiplayer mode. The online servers of several games were full of trolls, assholes or e-Sports wannabe players. It wasn't fun. Thus, I also refused to play a "massively" multiplayer online game.

I doubt that. GOG probably want to focus on the Chasm The Rift re-release which is supposed to be today.

Thanks for doing that.

Please no spoilers, I'm avoiding the TWP forums for instance for this particular reason.
This thread is my safe place.

Well, that's not really a surprise, it's just something Ron likes to do (i.e. ending of MI2, ending of TWP). And it keeps people talking about those.

I ask it all the time, but I don't necessarily always find an answer.

But the statistical odds are actually quite favourable there.
If you get a game on Steam, it is more likely not to have DRM than it is to actually have DRM.

What makes Steam feel like a DRM platform is that the biggest releases most likely have DRM, but if you play indie games or old games, those rarely, if ever, have any DRM.
You can buy any game using DosBox, ScummVM, AGS, and many other engines/emulators/wrappers, and they should run as they are, DRM-free.

Of course if you count using Steam client as DRM, then it's another matter.

And obviously, as stated by Steam DRM description, achievements are DRM (which makes me wonder how so many people want them on GOG?!?!), but in most cases achievements don't prevent running the game outside the client, so even if they are a form of DRM, the games can still be used as if they were DRM-free.

Obviously everyone here prefers GOG for a number of reasons, but I think those who blame Steam for excessive DRM, have never actually researched the topic.

I hate it when there is no other option for a great game, but than on the other hand there are so many other great games that I haven't played, even already in my library, that I just buy or play those and don't give Steam ANY money at all.

There are nearly 1500 games in my GOG library, but there must be also hundreds in my Steam accounts. Partly from before the time I've discovered GOG, and some when I got a Steam key additionally to a DRM option (I supported a lot if games on Kickstarter for example).

Just having the need to track down no-CD-patches every time drove me to strictly buy DRM-free only.
Why do I have to fix their games I bought with my money when those who illegally downloaded them have the better version?

I have looked at such lists in the past, but there is just no way I want to support Steam in any way when I have to do the work for them.
Either they give me DRM-free games without me having to do their work, or they won't see any money from me.

Regarding tracking: if a game is really DRM-free (even on Steam) it should work offline and without any tracking.
Generally I don't like being tracked. It's no ones business how long I play any game.
I think in the past this was optional and you had to manually create a Steam community ID. But maybe (probably...) this may have changed?

I also remember this big black box and redeemed some cod(s?) on Steam. Back then I had to use Steam anyway because I was actively playing Counter-Strike.

When Steam left their beta phase I quickly signed up for a (new, non-beta) account because of CS and I remember having a 4 digit Steam ID on that account (are those IDs still a thing? I remember low ICQ account numbers being a "status symbol" [no, I didn't misspell IQ] :D).

True. It's much more subtle than that. It's how Valve gets to rule the entire PC market with its silly customer loyalty schemes. Valve doesn't build the PC platform like Microsoft or Sony do, and they're still taking 95% of the cut. Valve introduces leaderboards, achievements, game cards, auto-updates, workshops and Goglins practically beg via wishlist that GOG be more like Steam. Valve decides that games in alpha can be sold at full price; Sony attempts the same, gets justly clobbered senseless by their customers. Valve decides on a no-questions-asked return policy; their business clients were not asked about the matter. With billions and billions of investment, another PC games store that gives developers a whopping 88% of the cut is made a reality and customers don't even look at it. Steam is the PC. It's a clear cut monopoly. A benevolent market dictatorship. Wholly undeserved customer loyalty like Steve Jobs squared. Less employees every year, more and more servers. A money printing machine. Literally what's wrong with the industry.

I don't think they would be doing Chasm The Rift a particular favor with this setup though. :|

Anyway, three minutes until Return to Monkey Island releases on GOG.

OR ELSE

That's what I meant.
We both don't want have to look for what bothers us, so it's more about their policy than anything else.
(I do it anyway sometimes, the games I already own and know to be without DRM, I copy aside and remove the Steam dlls if there are any, but for new gams I don't want to have that trouble)

And sadly yes, there is no option to avoid the tracking. All one can do is to hide the information from other players.

As far as I can tell, the setting to disabling game time tracking in Galaxy really does it's job and is not just cosmetic. People who want achievements can get them without their play time being tracked.

Well, among all games i only own on Steam, I found about 10% to be DRM free and yes, I am counting 2d point and click adventures as well. Those in DOSBox and Scumm obviously have no DRM, but the ones running in a native windows environment do most of the time, same for Jump & Runs like Castle of Illusion (2013).
As long as I can a run a game without having steam active, I am happy. It's just not many and finding out which ones is a pita.


ps: Some devs are even too lazy to test a proper GOG version. I think it was the first GOG version of Aragami (sorry if I rember wrong and falsly accuse that dev) that still required a running steam client :) It was patched out later of course, but ...

Some people do, but that's a very strict interpretation. Of course it's not great that you HAVE TO install (at least on Windows) a Windows service with superuser rights just to download a game.
Having additional installers available via web would be preferable, but most people won't have that much an issue with the Steam client itself and also won't count it as DRM.

Then we are talking about the actual game:
You can have really shitty DRM like Denuvo, or you can have other 3rd party DRM.
But using Steam DRM (Steamworks) would be also DRM of course. Just because it's easy to circumvent doesn't make it acceptable DRM.

I'm sure a lot of people like achievements. It may give them more out of a game. And that's fine. It's better for GOG to be able to provide all those convenience related features (like auto-update and achievements etc.) because I think the average gamers likes them and IMHO it's good to make GOG as attractive for customers as possible.
That's why we have GOG Galaxy now. It's just important for me to not require something like this to run or even install the game.

First I blame Steam for not telling me what I'm about to buy.
I'm also very sceptic about your statement that in most cases the game runs without you being logged-in in Steam ("outside the client").
Yes, all those games using DOSbox or ScummVM can easily be run outside, but every indie game I know implements achievements.

Is this really the case that they work without login? Is this something you have tried with at least a couple of games?

Then, the next problem would be to install such games on computers when Steam is long gone. Or your account was blocked for whatever reason.
You need to figure out yourself what dependencies you need, which version etc. (e.g. Visual C++ runtimes).
That's not enough for me, but at least better than not having this possibility at all.

Currently, 913 out of 40430 games (2.26%) in total are DRM-free on Steam, see this page:
https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/List_of_DRM-free_games_on_Steam

To rephrase it: With a probability of 97.74% you buy a game with DRM on Steam.

Return to Monkey Island comes with the Steam DRM:
https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Return_to_Monkey_Island

More information on Steam DRM:
https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/features/drm

"We suggest enhancing the value of legitimate copies of your game by using Steamworks features which won't work on non-legitimate copies (e.g. online multiplayer, achievements, leaderboards, trading cards, etc.).

See Using the Steam Wrapper with Other DRM for more information on combining the Steam DRM wrapper with other DRM or anti-tampering solutions."

Steam's ecosystem encourages the use of DRM. And as you can see above nearly all games on Steam are using a form of DRM. The minimum is the Steam DRM.


Compare this with the EGS:
https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/List_of_DRM-free_games_on_Epic_Games_Store

Total number of DRM-free games: 320 out of 1480 games (21.62%) in total. Or: With a probability of 78.38% you buy a game with DRM on the EGS.


I haven't played Counter-Strike at that point anymore because it was an online multiplayer game. As I said above, I had enough of the online multiplayer mode.

ICQ... AOL... Netscape Navigator... *G*

A small, fun fact: you can make some Steam games client-free by using those old no-disc patches.
Obviously that works for a very small number of games, but in some cases it is like that.


There are thousands of indie games that don't have any achievements, but let's not get stuck to that.

Yes, I have tried that a number of times.
I use one laptop to download stuff from Steam, and another one to actually play games.

It's a completely foolproof way to test whether the game is DRM-free or not, and whether it runs as is, or needs some libraries or such.

And yes, there are many, many cases where you can just copy the game from where Steam client installs it, and put it on another computer, and it runs and works perfectly.

In some cases you may need to tweak something, but usually it's a very clear thing: the game either runs, or it doesn't.


I quickly checked few completely random examples that can be run without Steam client if someone wants to check them out (I'm not saying these are necessarily good games, but simply games that happen to be accessible from the computer that I am using right now):

Babylonia (match3)
Bayou Island - Point and Click Adventure (adventure)
Bunker - The Underground Game (adventure)
Faerie Solitaire (solitaire)
Fairy Tale About Father Frost, Ivan and Nastya (adventure)
The Great Fusion (adventure)
Solitaire Legend of the Pirates (solitaire)

I didn't include a number of games that use some third party applications.
And if I went to actually look for stuff, I would find plenty more.

But I suppose as an example that you asked for, those are enough.

We are in agreement there.

And about the DVD versions: Yeah, sure. Paying twice is no good, but on GOG I did it anyway for the sake of having a convenient offline installer.

And yes, of course I used the No CD patches for steam games as well, if they still run on a modern system.

Thanks for those DRM-free lists, also interesting to have it compared to EGS.
Although EGS is another story, or to be precise: another shop I refuse to use (in this case especially because of how they handled exclusivity deals; also they don't show DRMness, what's so hard about it?).

Many many years ago I used a list on another site with has now moved here: https://steam.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_DRM-free_games
They now have multiple categories which is also interesting (e.g. lauchner-free, appid text file required, DOSBox games, Flash games, ...)

Being able to look up that there is DRM is also good to know (see below :-).


OK. It just wasn't my experience which mostly consists of looking up games released on GOG on Steam to see if they have achievements there. And this was always true for now (I don't necessarily need achievements but I'm not a fan of having a "lesser version" on GOG).

Yes, that's a very good test! (It only has the disadvantage that you don't know dependencies of specific games when that dependency was already installed before; this would require a clean system.)

Yes. I also looked them up on Steam and some of those don't have achievements and also some does.

But I've also made a test on my side: I've looked up a couple of games I've bought on GOG on PCGamingWiki:
20 games total, 6 of those are DRM-free on Steam. That's better than I would have expetected.
I also agree here. Not just having the installer right available, but also being sure it's compatible out-of-the-box to whatever the game page says (I mean, out-of-the-file?).

Y'all have probably gotten my gist in the meantime. I plainly don't think publicly pissing in the developer's or publisher's corn flakes is going to get us Return to Monkey Island (or any other games for that matter).

If I thought that this behavior would help, I'd probably still turn up at the doorstep of former Sir-Tech developers and demand my Amiga version of Wizardry VII.

But I do understand some of the anger right now, because of course people will make the connection from the Devolver Sale to the huuuuge black hole in GOG's catalog at the time.

It's rather safe to assume that this brazen tease will have a happy ending within less than a week, but even I have a limit when it comes to how long this kind of cheese grate edging can go on.

You don't find a lot of anger here, just sadness and a bit of frustration. And by now most is off topic anyway.

You really should read the one or two pages before posting such things.

Hopefully, it will come at some point to GOG and with the Horse Armor. I missed the release campaign as I had a lot of things going on in RL. I learned just yesterday that the game is out on Steam. I was about to instabuy, when I learned that I could only get an incomplete version without the useless horse armor. I know that it is completely useless, but, nevertheless, I lost my interest to the game for now. The collector in me just can't enjoy imperfect version (I know it is kind of insane).