Yep!

People act like Steam and other similar things were forced on a captured populace, but it's just not the case. People opted in, and after a while people demanded Steam take over actually. Trust me, I was there when games like Mass Effect were bashed endlessly for not using Steam rather than SecuROM, and even when CD check games like Dragon Age were bashed for the same reason. "Give me Steam!!!" people shouted, and up until recently Steam was still the golden boy.

It's a little weaker now in hearts and minds I think, but there's still no real competitor for miles around.

Maybe it's partly due to things like this.

I think that's many publishers' fear, but experience has proven that a DRM-free release bears no influence on whether a game is pirated or not. The publisher of Kingdom Come: Deliverance delayed two weeks the release on GOG* - but the game was cracked within 24 hours after being released on Steam.

* Some have speculated that the real reason was to maximize the sales in Steam so that it would be featured as a best-seller during these two weeks, insted of dividing them between two stores. I sincerely don't know to what extent this would or wouldn't affect marketing.

I did what you said, I talked to the Blossom Tales developer on Twitter and apparently he wasn't motivated to submit his second game here after his first, Rex Rocket, was denied by GOG.

https://twitter.com/kqwru/status/1011223964989915136

Have you also happened to ask about Axiom Verge? I remember we had a thread recently, and I think the publisher posted that a version for GOG might be possible. If you got a negative response now, then that's news.

Hmm, that is only a single experience and unfortunately that doesn't prove much. Not every game released on Steam was cracked within the day.

It's not proven that a DRM-free release bears no influence on piracy levels of said game. The influence might be rather small in many cases though, especially the longer it happens since official first release.

A lot of these new games want stringent DRMs. Many of these Publishing Houses will not go without it. If GOG is to stand true to its principles it has to refuse games that insist on using a DRM. Simple.

Good question. I often reach out to developers to ask them about releasing games on gog. Most of the time nothing happens but sometimes it does. I asked playdead to release Inside on gog and a week later they did.

I have constantly praised GOG on here as well as to friends offline. Does it bother you that my comments in support of GOG (as well as my other comments against Scheme) point out the specific things that I like about GOG and about DRM-free gaming? I want to make my voice heard to ensure that things stay this way that is agreeable to me, rather than spiral off in a different direction that I would not be on-board with (for example, if Galaxy were to become mandatory). If customers en masse can make their voice heard, so can I.

Also, the funny thing about those of us with principles is that we don't like to compromise them. Consider that to a gamer like me, games on Scheme may as well not exist. If I can't own it (for all practical purposes...save the licensing rhetoric), I don't want it. Now look at how many games are available on Scheme versus how many games are available DRM-free. You can say it is my choice to miss out on all these games, true. And I will choose that 100 times out of 100 if I can't have my game DRM-free, client-free, and BS-free.

Well, your missing out on this list of games: https://www.gog.com/forum/general/steam_games_you_can_play_without_the_steam_client/page1

1. This list is made and handled by a community. What that means is that regular users literally report their findings to this page after they obtain the game in some way or another. Which means people literally play a guessing game to figure out which games belong on this list. That's not good at all. It also means that the list can be a) far bigger, b) actually smaller or c) has incorrect listings.
2. Point b from the listing above is a dangerous precedent, as developers can update their games to include DRM. With the list being basically hand-made by the community, it could be a while until it's updated to reflect that a game is no longer "DRM-free". And with Steam's auto-updating nature being a mandatory experience, you can only accept the DRM from then on (unless you were lucky to keep a copy of the game).
3. This is not a hard commitment from the developers of these games that the games will remain DRM-free. They did not advertise their games as DRM-free on the store page, and they do not show any guarantee that they will remain so. With GOG, everything on the store is DRM-free, no update could take that away.

In other words, this list, while a noble effort, is only a partial solution for DRM-free.


BONUS: if you say, care about the DRM-free movement, and want to show that DRM-free stores like GOG are doing great, using this list doesn't send that message to the devs. What it does send is "Steam has more users and generates more sales," not "this game was DRM-free so it got more sales."

I 'think' i was a large part of getting Kings of Dragon Pass onto GOG.

I'd had some back and forth emails with one of the devs as i'd been wanting to get hold of the game and it was not easy, and suggested they check out GOG, which they said at the time they were not aware off, or had not considered GOG would be interested in their game (i can't remember the exact details). A while later (six months to a year?) it appeared here and i was very happy. I own KoDP on GOG now.

Now i know there is a segment of the GOG base that hated Indy games coming to GOG, but i'd always argued that at some point old titles will dry up (well the 'Good' ones anyway) and the new wave of indy games (we are talking this last 5 years or so) were getting good enough to be in need of an ethical digital store to better reach the wider public. My view on that has not changed, but sadly Steam is seemingly first choice for most Indy devs these days.

Now i know GOG is curated and Steam is not, and a lot of junk ends up on Steam especially, but whenever i hear of a decent sounding Indy game, i nearly always ask the devs the question if they are thinking of GOG.

Most times they say it is unlikely, and the reasons can vary. Sometimes it is about the resources a small team has to deal with more than one platforms demands, but sometimes I get the reply that they tried but GOG said they were not interested (or just didn't get back to them!).

So in a tight nit community like Indy dev the opinion seems to be forming that chasing the smaller user base on GOG (vs Steam) is not worth having to deal with the negativity a refusal (or non reply) can give an already 'fragile' development situation (which is 90% of most Indy games).

I think maybe the GOG team could up their game here, especially if they want to carry on getting the best Indy games to appear here. Better communication and more positive feedback will go a long way and really you want to be first choice for Indy games rather than 2nd or 3rd or not at all.

As someone that does not use Steam (and likely won't without huge changes from Steam) it is sad to hear about all the cool new indy games friends are playing that i probably never will.

Those games are not even DRM-free in the first place, unless they give the customer the option to download a standalone-backup installer that can be used without them ever needing to log-on to Steam again in order to reinstall the game in the future.

Pretty sure a requirement on the list (at least used to be) that you could zip up the folder and move it to another computer and be able to play it without needing Steam.

Even if that isn't the case, even then I believe all the information you'd need to get it running is in the folder, just not in an easy installer format. That doesn't mean it's not drm-free, since you still don't need Steam anymore, but is more of a convenience argument. (think registry entries having to manually be added, things like that I think)