Canuck_Cat: This is fine and dandy, but I'm interested in Galaxy. Android app trackers don't tell me anything about Galaxy's telemetry.

Canuck_Cat: Thank you. I want to assign a numerical impact to all this stuff before denouncing this stuff.

pht: Of course you can for *older* games that don't require things like steam/origin/galaxy. If I need to be specific to make the point clearer:

Games that require those clients can't run without them online. It's a simple truth. How many games with online aspects (coop, multiplayer), especially the bigger more popular ones, don't require you to have steam/origin/galaxy/similar?

I wasn't talking about games built before steam started cutting off gamer's options and ability to control the environment.

Given how GOG is behaving, I expect them to start tying even the older games to galaxy. They already did it with at least one of the stronghold games.

You're telling me what I do and don't know. Pretty amazing, that. You could at least have the decency to say exactly what I said that was wrong so we could all sort that out for ourselves.

The mw5 page *didn't tell people* (and I bet still doesn't as of the time of this post) that it required galaxy. Is that wrong (as of the time of your post)? https://www.gog.com/forum/mechwarrior_5_mercenaries/dont_buy_it_if_youre_looking_for_coop/post3 Seems I wasn't the only one to notice.

Ok, you named ... one game (which I will go check out). Before steam, how many do you think that would have been, as a percentage of all of what was out there on the market? You're concentrating so hard on one tree that you're missing the forest.

Yes, we are being forced, if we want to play games that require galaxy or the like, to accept telemetry, or DON'T play. I have a box quietly rotting away in a drawer with all of the CNC games on it from some years back because it requires origin, for that reason (thankfully there are a decent number of options when it comes to some/most of those games).

You say I should do what I want to do - and when the only way to do that requires me to accept what I wont? Waited from 2002 to 2021 for mw5, only to find out - nope, stuck with galaxy just to do what online the game has. MWO is a whole other ball of wax. I'm taking a wait and see on the whole cauldron group thing. Also my being a joystick player screws me in MWO. This is just one example of what the industry trend towards telemetry/having to have platform clients to play does to people.

You just preached about what you think is true. You're saying I broad brushed. Ok, what? Is it a broad brush to say that steam/epic/origin/galaxy/alikes require you to have those platforms running to play games from those places online? Is it a broad brush to say that game makers have been removing gamer's ability to control games, as compared to the past. As an example, how many new games - popular or otherwise - give you the ability to run your own server, standalone, no outside requirements besides "own the game" (say, RTCW style)? Is that even a small percentage of the whole?

I don't expect a complete universal answer that takes everything possible to know into account, but if you're going to say someone's flat out wrong, well, lay the cards down on the table.

Now to broad brush: I am of the impression game makers and the bureacracy now involved in that process don't need to defend their use of telemetry and removal of player options and control, because steam and the like are so successful that players are now subject to stockholm syndrome. Either you love our lord and master (insert platform) or you're stuck with older games and out on the fringes.

Say something heretical about the platforms; get called a luddite and a phobic. That's what I've usually seen. Meanwhile, any worthwhile discussion is avoided like the plague.

Arcadius-8606: Not telling WHAT "you" should do only that what I (or what one does) is all that you can muster or that matters.

Dusk (2018) is one game but you have others like Barony (2015), Invisigun Reloaded (2017), Melty Blood Community Edition (2007/2016) and more

https://www.gog.com/forum/general/drmfree_multiplayer_list_of_games_that_actually_are_100_drmfree

or

https://itch.io/games/tag-multiplayer

You also have Fightcade, Parsec, Piepacker, RetroArch Cloud (you can play modern ROM based games on it) and other methods to play online with friends coop, vs or a mix of bother as you see fit.

As for the other games you are referring to...If a person does not like telemetry why would get they get involved with those games? Do you feel what I'm saying? If you jumping into those games and getting upset about telemetry one could say you have very little ground to stand on.

pht: "As for the other games ..." I wonder how you can possibly say that after having read the example I gave. It also says "but you're wrong for wanting to play something if it uses telemetry and you don't accept it, Stop it with the wrong-want."

What, I'm *not allowed* to believe telemetry is a stupid unnecessary risk all out of proportion to *playing any game* ...? Is that verboten? Or irrational? Things just are the way they are, I'm not bezos so I can't change it, aw shucks, guess I'll go shuffle off to my closet and be quiet?

If not that, than why tell me I'm wrong to not want that stuff in games I'd like to play otherwise?

For the games that rely on galaxy, GOG could fix this - just strip down and make a lite version, sans anything but the ability to connect games, no other features, no steam connection, no tracking, none of that. If they gave a rip, that is. I doubt they do - not enough money in that (not GOG bashing - this is human bashing, human nature is universal and doesn't change, what's messed up with us is 99.99% banal and norm). They have plenty of history that should have taught them to react otherwise, but they're apparently subverting it.

Arcadius-8606: I don't think you're correct in that you can't change it. You can always select a game that goes online that does not use telemetry.

No one is right or wrong with this topic. It's about what you want vs what you don't want. If you don't want telemetry in your games, don't select games with telemetry.

I can only control my purchasing power and so I (me) choose to buy Launcher Less Linux Native DRM FREE titles that are single player and local MP. If I want a online MP title and it has DRM and/or telemetry then I'll do cloud gaming since I don't want that stuff on my hardware.

Will it change that status quo? IDK, IDC I just want my games the way I want them and that's it.

As for GOG Galaxy, I believe ONLINE MP is out of their hands. I do not think they can offer online MP for all of the supported games without adding telemetry or some form of DRM that the devs of those games either use or request. GOG just made a mistake by going in that direction at all, IMO.

pht: You just told me I can fix "it" by not using it.

That's insulting and not a fix at all.

I see no valid reason to think that online MP cannot be offered without telemetry, because exactly that was done for the ... entire history of the internet since multiplayer was a thing by hordes of makers.

I also "just want my games the way I want them and that's it," except because I don't want to participate in the mother smothers you and helicopters you and reads your diary and won't let you out of sight stuff I get crumbs, if that. Which is entirely unnecessary.

Surveillance as a way of making money and getting more power and not doing QC the "let them be able to consent" way is just to embedded into the games industry and the entire software industry as a whole.

Frankly I don't think any of them care enough to do anything about it.

Arcadius-8606: Why not just support the online MP games that do not do telemetry, though?

pht: Why would you think, based on what I've posted, that I don't or wouldn't?

Arcadius-8606: If you already playing and supporting games that do not use telemetry then you're good. Telemetry in the products you don't support are a non-issue.

GOGuser736: That's like saying saying if people aren't buying drugs then the dealer on the streetcorner dealing heroin to teenagers won't cause you problems.