Dude it's fairly obvious that people who want to check their scores / achievements online and compare their profiles with others are obviously happy to log into a client and go online and check. That ain't remotely what the topic is about at all. Sorry, but he's right. You're now just thread-crapping in the most cringey way possible...

nah, can't be bothered. I am not welcomed here, so I will leave you lot in peace in your echo chamber. DRM is officially now everyrhing I do not like. All games should be on the list becasue of reasons

Perhaps DRM is not a good term for these kinds of situations. But having to be online can turn into not being able to play a game partially or at all if the developers decide to kill the servers hosting said functionality.

If you want to call it a dependency while the service is available, sure - I would perhaps not call it DRM either, because it's not that per se. But there's no insanity in considering it something akin to DRM, because it's not up to the developers to provide you electricity, whereas they are in fact responsible for adding/maintaining the online components of a game - to that end it's a purposely-generated dependency which can be avoided. Or at least alternatives can be provided.

Let's then call it the ability to fully enjoy a game in single player on a desert island, 10.000 years in the future. Or even in multi-player, if you're stranded with someone else and you happen to find a network cable.

Then I officially declare motion blur, vignetting and lens flares are DRM :).

Sorry if I came over dismissive. But in the end, yes. I see online achievements as something, that only concerns people who actually want them. Offline achievements, however, should not need Galaxy or any other form of forced online connectivity.

So if you know of single-player games that need Galaxy (or similar) for offline achievements, please let me know. You're right. That's on the same level as ship designs or other cosmetics.

I just had to be back for this.... how do the desert island get electricity? how do you get spare parts when your powersupply blows? how do you install the correct version of Java when you find out the game needs it, and you had not presinstalled it? and so on.... and so on....

... but then I am out again.... just made that point....

If you would just try to look at this objectively, you'd realize it doesn't matter. These are not limitation imposed by the game developers, while online components are. You can have an offline version of Java saved and working in 10.000 years, but you'll never be able to "procure" servers that provide the online components of a game.

Well, it's a completely obtuse point. Electricity is a necessary requirement for playing a video game (for bleeding obvious reasons). An internet connection is not, and should not ever be, a necessary requirement for a single-player game. There is no legitimate reason for requiring people to have to connect to a server to play a single-player game. Doing so would be adding an unnecessary 'dependency', which most people would view as something that would restrict their ability to do what they want with the game (i.e. play it offline, if they want to).

Your example of claiming equivalence between the internet and electricity is nonsensical. You seem to be unable to distinguish between something that is necessary and something else that is not.

It seems strange that the vast majority of people on here can distinguish what DRM is, yet you are the only one that can't.

if you really want to look at it objectivly - in 10.000 years, none of the games will be workin, Windows will be extinkt for many 1000nds of years, humanity will be different, and we might not even have computers anymore

anyway, this 10.000 years is a sidepoint, and by then if we still have computers, your desert island would have the tech to run servers as well, especially as you had the forsight to make sure you have all the other correct dependenices pre-loaded

You are always welcome here Amok.

But it has to be said that Litfthrasils OP is of huge benefit and AB2012 amongst others have made very important points that I believe should be documented now.

Whatever your definition of DRM is, GOGs storepage definition is absolutely clear. This is the definition that cannot be denied.

This is why this thread exists- because GOGs definition has been made unclear or rendered completely redundant.

The simple fact is that once GOG allowed one single game into its catalogue that can get away with breaching GOGs own definition of DRM, then it is up to heroic action by people like Lifthrasil to point it out. It is probably the only constructive way that I can see to do this. And I believe it will be effective in one of two ways:

1. GOG will stop endorsing DRM (unlikely)
2. GOG will be forced to drop its DRM free pledge (a matter of time in my opinion)

Optional bonus content available by registration or optional bonus content made available with additional patches available only with online connectivity after the game is release is NOT ACCEPTABLE for a store that denounces DRM.

You must see the danger here: a backdoor to DRM once it has been established on GOG, the so called home of DRM free.

There are damn good reasons why these unscrupulous devs/pubs choose this path.

I hope I have made things a bit clearer but I also want to stress that you are a valuable community member and should not feel that you are not welcome. Rational argument is always good.

Fair enough :). But projects like RetroPie should prove that while humanity is around, there will always be a way to emulate old games, as long as they are stand-alone pieces of software and you don't have to emulate various internet endpoints along with them.

In any case, just wanted to say that you should not feel excluded, sidelined or lynch-mobbed, though people on this thread will be vocal, I'm sure, because I sort of get what you are trying to say with regards to DRM. The term is perhaps used too loosely to encompass other bad practices in the industry. Yet I had hoped you would see the long-term problem with having "online" components in games, naming conventions aside.

if you want to look at it like this, almsot everything do with computers do have long term problems, be it with software or hardware. this is esepcially a problem with any dependency, not only online.

Yes, it's not like what you are saying is untrue, but the difference here would be that the server side of things, the code/binaries handling the online components of a game, will only ever be in the hands of the game developers.

While you can get a game and potentially reverse engineer some parts of it or do some introspection for emulation purposes, emulating a separate server component you'll probably never be able to dissect is orders of magnitude harder, if even at all possible.

To exaggerate the point, imagine trying to reconstruct an MMO server while only having access to your local game client.

If we consider game preservation a goal, online components are literally one of the worst things you can encounter.

but everything is in the hands of the developers, not only online thingies, but all other dependencies as well. if the developers base the game on a version of DirectX, which then afterwards become defunct and you are then not able to get again, that is the same problem.

No, it's not. DirectX is a set of APIs, most of which are documented and can be re-implemented. There are various projects doing that already, like dxvk to get D3D9-D3D11 onto Vulkan.

You can't compare something like a set of APIs the game depends on with a specific online module that only the developers of said game have developed and have access to.

Well if the first post of this thread is to be believed having to click on "play as guest" to start a game is apparently now considered as being a "DRM" so I wouldn't be so sure...