I interpret that quotation as diplomatic PR speak which says Cyberpunk will probably be full of microstransaction bull crap.

1. Okay, here's a question. How exactly would you deal with Gwent's multiplayer that doesn't somehow require a server/client situation? Friend codes?
2. Online features could be as mundane as leaderboards (Even the newest Mario game has these) to deep story and plot integration with cooperation between players encouraged or required. (Uru Online)

1. Easy: Host a server on your own PCs and your friends can then join the multiplayer game that you host. Used to be standard for all multiplayer games, before the publishers started to force players to use their proprietary servers only.

2. Of course, with a private server the results of your game wouldn't be entered into the global Galaxy leaderboards. It would just be to play with friends, without any leaderboards and achievments and micro-transactions.

The point is: I want to have a choice whether to play on the official server with all those "benefits" or whether I want to play only with a few friends on a private server or in a LAN (if someone still remembers what a LAN is). If a publisher takes away that choice and forces everyone who wants to play a game to use their proprietary client - then that is DRM.

Those games also used to fit on a floppy disk, too. Or didn't fill all of a CD. Or could be crammed with several others on a shareware CD.

Those days are long over, as I somehow doubt the required data for a CyberPunk server would fit in a sensible manner, considering the likely support for 4K textures.

Actually that's not a limitation. You don't have to stream all of the graphics. You have the game running on each computer and all that the computers have to share (in the case of Cyberpunk or some FPS) via the network is the position and movement of each player. It is totally irrelevant how many terabytes of fancy SuperHDgraphix you put on top of that on your local machine. The necessary data transfer for a working multiplayer game is minimal, compared to today's internet speeds.

The only thing preventing private multiplayer nowadays is the unwillingness of publishers/devs to implement it in their games.

GWENT is designed for multiplayer, to play it you need galaxy, that was known from day one its never meant to be singleplayer or lan/etc. It's also Free, i don't see the problem here, being free there should be zero expectations.

GWENT having DRM make sense, and regardless of my feelings i support the decision. Now if you had to pay for it, and it only worked on galaxy I would have issues with that.

No. That's a fallacy that publishers want you to believe. You don't need a client software for multiplayer.
And the argument 'it's free, so deal with it' does not mean that I cannot wish for a non-free, non-DRM-ed version. I don't like free-to-pay, let's-scam-our-customers-with-microtransactions games.

Commercially for the modern GOG, yes. But compared to the ideals that GOG once stood and fought for, not. DRM on GOG is very, very sad but it is becoming the norm for multiplayer games.

To be clear: I am not against the option of having a central server with ranking etc, that is account bound. I'm not against the option to play multiplayer via Galaxy. The important word here is: option. If Galaxy is the only option that works, it isn't optional any more. GOG promised, that Galaxy would remain optional, but for multiplayer it isn't.

So, back to topic: I am quite worried that Cyberpunk will have online elements that make Galaxy de-facto 'necessary' and that those who insist on playing offline will only get a heavily castrated version. And multiplayer without Galaxy will surely not be included. Not because that wouldn't be possible, but because GOG does want to enforce Galaxy on everyone, if they can get away with it. But we will have to wait and see until Cyberpunk is released.

If they release Cyberpunk 2077 as a single player game in a similar fashion than Witcher 3, I'm perfectly okay with them also releasing a World of Cyberpunk, or whatever they want to call it, as a Galaxy F2P with microtransactions and all sort of shit. In this day and age, perhaps it's better to make two different products focused on different elements and targeted at different audiences, rather than shoehorning an MP element to the SP product, or worse, let the SP campaign be a tutorial to the MP game. Just my 2eurocents (more than I've ever spent on microtransactions :P)

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From that very same PC gamer article:

"CD Projekt Red's statement doesn't fully clarify what the multiplayer will look like—will it contain microtransactions?—but the developer is clearly determined to stay on fans' good sides."

To be fair though, nothing as of yet pointed to microtransactions specifically.

I heard GOG makes money with GWENT, so it cannot be totally free, can it? There must be at least some sort of microtransactions inbuilt and they above all probably require some sort of DRM. I don't think that multiplayer online games must require DRM as such.

Its free to download, free to play, there is no monetary purchases needed to play it. That said it cant be "drm free" you need galaxy, and this is a non issue as its an optional game that costs you nothing, all add-ons are optional. Now if you had to buy gwent and they forced galaxy there would be an issue. If they charged money and had micro transactions in a "pay to win" aspect there would be an issue (See two Worlds 2) but they dont, and it's a completely optional free game.

oh look! another post which just contains a link to a random youtube person explaining/complaining about something which needs 15 minutes of my life to watch when what he is saying could be typed and read in 2 minutes... no, not going to click any of these random link and give a random person views he/she can monetize.

And why is galaxy DRM? I can download galaxy for free, I use it for free, I don't need to buy it? Probably because I have to authenticate but the rest of Galaxy is not more DRM than any other small utility. Then simply remove that authentification (if possible) and galaxy is not DRM anymore. I don't think it has to be like this.

Also how is GOG making money with GWENT if everything about it seems to be free? I didn't play it, so I don't know.