Exactly- Games like Doom 3 will not be released here because it has DRM.

The games Bethesda released on gog had no drm to begin with.

I actually feel somewhat vindicated by this new development. When New Vegas came out I had an email exchange with a Bethesda employee about the possibility of a DRM free release. He never outright said so, but I got the distinct impression that Bethsoft had signed some sort of exclusivity agreement with Valve/Steam. Later when Skyrim was retroactivley patched to require the Steam client, I assumed it was more of a contractual obligation than a business decision. Skyrim was also the first non Valve game to get full Steam Workshop intergration, which was of course the precusor to the whole paid mods fiasco. So when GOGgers asked about Bethesda games on GOG, my stance wasn't "never gonna happen" it was more "it depends on the terms of their agreement". My gut feeling is that any contract would be for 3, 5, or 10 years, with 5 being the most likely, and also that the agreements would have been finalized just prior to the release of New Vegas. If my assumptions were correct then a Bethesda/Steam contract would be up for renewal in the summer of either 2013, 2015 or 2020. I'm guessing that it was 5 year contract and after the Skyrim paid mods idea blew up Bethesda decided not to renew which is why they started working on their own Bethsoft distribution site. Getting these games here, at this time, backs up my theory even further.

Ahem...:

https://github.com/id-Software/DOOM-3
https://github.com/id-Software/DOOM-3-BFG

True... and false, at the same time.

Morrowind didn't have DRM. Source: my original, physical copy coming straight from 2002.
Bethesda added it only when the game was published through Steam a couple of years ago. So no: Morriwind, a game that has been exclusively DRM free for years, is not a valid proof of their intentions.
I surely hope you are right and now Bethesda has become the best company ever -something I would reward with an insane amount of purchases- but once again, I will believe that only when I see a post-Fallout 3 Bethesda game, not a second before. Right now, they are on the same level of EA, Square Enix and Actvision, trating GOG as a last chance bargain bin for all those who would neither pirate nor buy a DRM'd game.
Also, their plans for the future don't promise anything good under the DRM point of view or regarding their severe lack of respect for the customer -disclaimer, before the usual Bethsoft restless paladins show up: that is just my perception, no real facts and only impressions.

I agree, but i'm meaning a huge mount of Square Enix games have been lack luster and underwhelming, so much they've run out of credit from past titles and long fans are now just refusing to buy games... which i am sure is why they pushed the FF7 remake after trolling everyone with the PC port on PS4 :P


Which is one of the big reasons i'm not really that impressed with what we got. I'll be honest, i'm glad they are here, although the price point on most of them is a little high... If they released Oblivion or Skyrim or other new ones, then i'd say their stance on DRM changed, but not on these titles...
Hmm i got Morrowind around the same time, but i think it required the CD to run... of course it only needed to verify something simple (not sure what) so it never got in the way, plus harddrive limits... So maybe during one of the updates or later versions they added SafeDisc, but that DRM never got in my way from enjoying it.

To be honest bethesda openning their rather old IP, and claiming they're not opposed to DRM Free, is a bit like a Billionaire giving some old shirts to charity, and peoplevsaying he's going to give away all his wealth.

These games made their money on first release, and through various bundles and hypes done so several times over.

Dropping all these title into Abandonware would have almost no impact on their bottom line.

It might, hopefully be them testing the waters. Enough sales, may convince them to release something newer. but thats just a hope.

Maybe... But the prices they've set for the games... $10 per fallout, and $20 for Morrowind... Seems a bit high, like getting a new Xbox copy of the GOTY version of Morrowind... I'd say the prices should be half of what they are to be honest. Although we'll see during the Fall/Winter DRM-Free sales if the discounts make them worth getting.

I find this draconian anti-DRM stance just as vapid as any pro-DRM stance.
Games with multiplayer MUST have some form of DRM or you can kiss any sort of organized and fun multiplayer experience out the window. Since most of you rapid anti DRMs consider Steam to be DRM (for some ridiculous reasons) I don't really understand how you could possibly keep the hackers and trollers out of multiplayer games without requiring SOME form of steamguard/DRM.

Hmmm... Not sure if i agree with that. There are definitely a lot of cheaters, but i have to look at myself and wonder if i should cheat, and when i do i notice it's not as much fun...

It's said that although we are more connected than ever before in history, we are also lonelier than ever.

So...? Throw Multiplayer out the window and do something with family and friends for a while. If you aren't accessible by the trolls and cheaters, then they won't affect you at all. But that's just my personal naive opinion :P

Bethesda flip floppers! No integrity! Pick a side and stick to it!

Must say, happened quicker than I thought it would. I thought they'd be gone for a year or two even. Maybe more.

I think a lot of people are opposed to platforms like Steam because of the power the companies behind them have over the customer's game library; the actual DRM is bad in its own right. I look at it like this: Between the DRM, the notoriously bad Steam support, Valve's questionable business decisions, and the horror stories I've heard regarding bans it makes no sense to risk losing everything you've paid for when an alternative distributor exists for many games. Especially when said alternatives allow you to safely back up your purchases. Obviously most bans are justified but mistakes happen and seeing them rectified with their F-rated support is a gamble.

Steam (and other clients like it) just seem insane to me. It's like buying a physical copy of a game and not being allowed to take it home with you. In order to play it you have to go back to the place of purchase each time and have them record the amount of time you spend on it all the while surrounding you with ads. That analogy always makes me get a kick out of articles that talk about Steam's "captive market". Sorry to any Valve fanboys, just using them as an example.

I don't play games very often so I can't really speak from the perspective of someone with 500 Steam games who is extremely invested in their platform but at the same time I can't bring myself to knowingly opt-in to DRM and restrictions when there are better options available.

Correct, steam is not only about DRM. I had been using steam for years before some fault lock me out of my games for weeks in an endless loop with steam support. That drives me to GoG and I have more than 1K games on GoG now.

I still use steam for my previous games and cheap new games from bundle as I consider I can take a gamble with such a low investment. New games I purchase from steam are few and rare.

I can see the hold out on Shadow of Mordor, but where the hell is Batman? We are 4(ish) games deep and he was on HB forever ago. They clearly don't care about making top dollar for the early games so bring him here. There is even a "nosteam" argument for Asylum that runs the game without steam so what's the hold up there? An argument could be made that it would be better to bring it in now that achievements could be wired up in Galaxy, but for years GoG's big publishers have given us a number of old titles and disappeared. Personally I don't think it has anything to do with a perception of GoG being a old title store. I don't think anyone at WB said "what if we gave AA to GoG?" and someone else said "Oh I don' t think Gog or their customers would be interested in Batman." Someone made a calculated decision on what they were going to allow us to have.

I think it just comes down to a lot of publishers looking at us as a shareware strategy. Ubi releases Assassins Creed games like crazy and how many to we have? One. If you try it here then you have to go through their preferred distribution method to get the others. Of course that fails with Batman because shouldn't we be getting the first one?

Whatever the reason I don't think publishers really like putting stuff on here which is why most of the good stuff is withheld. That's not always true, and if enough of these guys keep putting stuff on here then they may accidentally make us relevant enough that they can't withhold the good stuff as long. So sure I'll Take your Morrowind if it means 5000 people ask you where Oblivion is at, and then that leads to 10,000 asking where is Fallout 3 and Dishonored.

Welcome to the forums. ;)

Ditto. 'Tis why I never bought a game from Steam. It always looked like so much hassle. And now, as I've aged, I disagree even more with such concepts.


Agreed. Even a cursory glance around GOG.com would show it is not an 'old games only' store any longer.