No, it was about me trying to find out where exactly he disagreed with me.

Ah ok, so the Steam "client" is also a server as it serves data to Steam users. Figures.

Yes I know that (that is why I used conditional form, "if a GOG game required...), but that is irrelevant when I point out that the client being a proprietary client, or a multipurpose client by a third-party vendor (= a web browser), does not matter to the discussion about whether the game has DRM or not.

So yeah, you don't need to log in to your GOG account with a web browser client in order to play your installed GOG game, neither do you need to log into your proprietary Steam client in order to play those DRM-free Steam games that can be played without the client.

So what exactly was the difference again, regarding the DRM-freeness of those games? The Steam version required you to use a proprietary client to download the game (deliver it to yourself from the store), but I think we established already that that is irrelevant to discussion about DRM. The downloaded game is still DRM-free, regardless if it was delivered to you with a web browser, a Steam client, or a pigeon called Jack (who wouldn't deliver it to you until you give it your GOG username and password).

None of that is relevant when we are talking about Steam games that don't need that gaming client to run the game. Sure you lose cloud saves and achievements then, but then that is true also for GOG games which you don't run with the Galaxy client.

Please read carefully:

For many Steam games, the Steam client can used only as a downloader client. You don't have to run those games with the client, you can run them fully standalone by running the game executable file. Those are what people refer to as "DRM-free Steam games". All this talk about a "gaming client" is irrelevant to those games.

I hope I now broke the language barrier. Yes it is possible we are completely talking past each other. I am talking about whether or not there are DRM-free games on Steam or not.

If this is some kind of discussion of "yeah there may be DRM-free games on Steam, but the Steam client itself is "DRM"", then I have no clue what the heck that is supposed to even mean, and I don't find it that interesting discussion anyway, as I only care about the games themselves (whether they have DRM or not), and not about what someone feels about the client I used to download the DRM-free games, saying the downloader client in itself is somehow "DRM", apparently in the same way like the truck that brought me my coffee table was "DRM" while the coffee table itself is DRM-free. I don't care about the fucking truck, I care about my coffee table.

I participated in this discussion by replying to this claim:

"Clients are DRM when they aren't optional, as is the case with Steam."

Which implied that a Steam game can't be DRM-free, apparently because Steam games can't be downloaded with a web browser. Or then the maker of the claim didn't know that many Steam games can be run without the Steam client.

The only discussion where I participated was whether there are DRM-free games on Steam. Do you agree or disagree with that there are DRM-free Steam games?

I agree with it. For those DRM-free games the Steam client can be used only as a downloader client, as the end result is a fully portable game installation that you can move to another PC and run there, without the Steam client present.

Considering I'm speaking as someone who's contributed to that Steam DRM-Free list multiple times, as well as being the person who set up the Epic Store equivalent list, I'm very definitely aware of what can be run client-less and how to test for it so no point trying to "educate" me on that. I never said that unprotected Steam / Epic games weren't DRM-Free, just that everyone laughs at those who play dumb word games like "If you don't like having to use the Steam client to download unprotected Steam games due to no option of an Steam offline installer, then that must mean that all GOG games have DRM too and all web browsers are game clients just like uPlay, Steam, Galaxy!" which is what you wrote in post #7 and is the same hyperbolic False Equivalence logical fallacy it's always been...

Of course there are games that are DRM Free on GOG but not Steam. Publishers are generally lazy. They have no problem uploading a DRM free build here for a little extra cash while leaving the DRM build on Steam.

Not really. I mean based purely on the technical definition a of client timppu is more correct. A client (in terms of networking) is a piece of computer hardware or software that accesses a service made available by a server. So going strictly by that definition web browsers and game clients are both clients. Every other distinction here is irrelevant.

But the entire argument is rather moot, the original point was "Clients are DRM when they aren't optional, as is the case with Steam." which is without a doubt false. It's not the client that deploys DRM. If I drop a game on Steam and do nothing else it's not going to inherently have DRM. I can copy the game files anywhere, and assuming they don't do some weird registry stuff that should work anywhere. The game client is nothing more then a delivery method, same as the GOG.com is a delivery method. One could argue that one does a better job of offering a complete standalone package, and they would have a point.

But I have to go out of my way and add Steamworks, then enable the DRM check, and then code that within my game files so it calls home to Steam's servers. Then the DRM comes into play.

So the original point, clients that aren't optional are DRM is wrong, no matter how one tries to spin what a client is or isn't. Just my 2 cents.

Then you misread me.

I said: "Some games on Steam don't need the client for playing the game. Those are DRM-free. If you are arguing that you need a client to download Steam games, in that case all GOG games have DRM too as they need a client (that you need to log into) for a download as well."

This was a reply to person who suggested there are no DRM-free games on Steam, because the Steam client in itself is "DRM". So that you also understand what I was actually replying to, here is a slightly modified, fuller, version of my original sentence which hopefully makes it clearer:

"Some games on Steam don't need the client for playing the game. Those are DRM-free. If you are arguing there are no DRM-free games on Steam because you need a client to download Steam games, in that case all GOG games have DRM too as they need a client (that you need to log into) for a download as well."

If your only argument to this was that it is more convenient that a game can be downloaded with various methods and clients, not restricted to only one official client, no disagreement there. Heck, I should know as I use an unofficial gogrepo.py client to download my GOG games. Yeah it is more convenient I can choose a different client.

But that has nothing to do with what I was was replying to, which was the suggestion that there are no DRM-free Steam games because of the Steam client, which in itself is allegedly "DRM", whatever that means.

So as I suspected, you didn't even understand what I was replying to. That's ok, this just wasn't your day, mistakes happen.

There's nothing there to "misread" and it's still the same dumb factually incorrect logical fallacy. "If you need a client (Steam) to download Steam games" (objectively true, there's simply no other way of getting Steam games) "then all GOG games have DRM too as they need a client that you need to log into for a download as well" (objectively false, as GOG does provide an alternative client-less way of getting them (direct-downloads via a web browser which is not a "game client", does not have any features of a real game client (cloud saves, auto updates, achievements, etc) and is just your personal contorted redefinition churned out over & over intermixed with a completely different secondary argument (not all games on Steam have Steam's DRM that I never disagreed with in the first place).

You can call web browsers whatever you want - "clients", "aardvarks", "light filaments", etc, but no-one else has to share your personal false redefinitions. And let's see what GOG have to say on their own About page - "An optional gaming client. GOG Galaxy is the tailor-made optional client" - so even GOG don't call general browsers like Firefox or Chrome "clients" either, at which point there's nothing left to argue about and I'm done with these childish word games...

Did you even read my earlier message to you? I already explained to you it was nothing about that. It is like you keep replying to me without reading my replies, and you have your own twisted idea what I said and meant, which is false.

You just took one single sentence out of context, misunderstood what I meant by it, and then keep whining about it.

Here it is, one more time, although I am sure you still will not, or refuse to, understand it:

1. Person A implies that Steam has no DRM-free games because the Steam client is "DRM".

2. I point out that if he feels the (Steam) games can't be DRM-free because they need to be downloaded with a "client", in that case GOG games can't be DRM-free either as they need to be downloaded with a "client" as well. That is of course silly, the GOG games and certain Steam games are DRM-free, regardless of what kind of client you use to download them.

You somehow managed to twist that as if I had claimed "web browsers and Steam/Galaxy have exactly the same feature-sets and purposes", which I never did and which misses the whole point altogether, what I was actually replying to.

They are not my "false" definitions. It is really basic terminology in the client-server model networking. A web browser is a client that makes requests to server(s). A Steam-client makes requests to Steam servers, and the Galaxy client makes requests to GOG servers. That is why they are called clients, making requests to servers.

https://www.webopedia.com/TERM/B/browser.html But you are right, what we call them is not that important to what I was actually replying to. You may call them e.g. "software that allows you to log into a service like Steam or gog.com in order to access certain services", but that doesn't change the matter in hand: both with GOG and Steam, you have to log into your account in the service (using that aforementioned software), in order to e.g. download your purchased games to your computer.

To this discussion, it is completely irrelevant that on Steam there is only one such software application which you can use to do that (the Steam log-in software), while GOG provides two alternatives, either the Galaxy log-in software, or logging into the service with a web browser (in which case the web browser acts as the "log-in software"). Yes that is indeed different with the two services, but it doesn't change the original argument, which was whether Steam has DRM-free games.

So GOG correctly calls Galaxy a (gaming) client, not a (gaming) server? Good for them.

Nowhere did they say though that a web browser is not a client.

Nope nope nope.

:)

Dude, stop trolling. You're like a broken, stuck record with "GOG is DRM and Chrome is like Steam, GOG is DRM and Chrome is like Steam, GOG is DRM and Chrome is like Steam" over & over because you have to login to a browser to download a game. I have to login to Amazon to download my unprotected MP3's too but that doesn't make Chrome a "DRM'd Amazon music client" nor the MP3's "DRM" either. You're posting on GOG.com. A digital game distribution site in a topic called "DRM-Free GOG, DRM Steam". Not a network topology design site where client also means "A 1980's IBM thin client connecting to a Cray Mainframe Server". It's extremely obvious what the context of "Client vs browser" is.

You have to be the most irredeemably dense person on this board if you can't figure this basic difference out, why you need to login to GOG to use a credit card / Paypal, etc, or more likely you're pretending to be more stupid than you are because you have no other argument beyond "if I keep watering down the definition of a Steam-like gaming client to being nothing more than any app which goes online and connects to a server then I can pretend everything everywhere is a 'gaming client' to prop up my original failed analogy". Let's see, I have 15 "gaming clients" on my PC, there's Steam, and Galaxy, and a weather app, an MP3 Tagger, a Youtube Downloader, there's MSI Afterburner auto-update check, etc, and they must all be exactly like Steam on the sole criteria that they all "connect to a server". This isn't an argument, it's trolling and is not how anyone describes Galaxy, Steam, uPlay, etc, and their obviously different features far beyond "connecting to a server" vs browsers outside of your own fantasy bubble world.

I really wouldn't want to get involved in this never ending argument, but just pointing out that you login to GOG to access GOG, which is not directly related to any payment methods.

1) You need to have a GOG account to download even free games.

2) You can purchase games, for instance from many bundle sites, without an account, but you need to enter your payment information all the same.

So the two things are completely separate. For pragmatic reasons, some stores allow storing your payment information for convenience, so the checkout procedure is faster and you don't need to enter many passwords and such.

Nope, never claimed any of those things. Please don't reply if you can't read.

And those mp3s would remain DRM-free even if you performed the login+download with a separate Amazon client that is not a web browser client of your choice. That is the whole point.

Nope, that was never my point. Instead, it was:

YES, STEAM HAS (some) DRM-FREE GAMES, EVEN IF YOU HAVE TO USE A DEDICATED STEAM "GAMING" CLIENT TO DOWNLOAD THOSE GAMES. THE FACT THAT YOU CAN DOWNLOAD YOUR GOG GAMES WITH A WEB BROWSER INSTEAD DOES NOT MAKE THEM ANY MORE DRM-FREE.

Period. Rest of your rambling is just inane and irrelevant.

Yet, nowhere I claimed all those clients have exactly the same features and purposes, even if they are all clients (including web browsers).