You have to understand from the point of the devs though, this is all technological. I spoke to a dev out in California who told me how useful a cloud is for developers. You can constantly update and expand things without a need for patches. And some game ideas are hampered by the space of a disc, which the cloud eliminates. You can create an entire game just on one a server with as much space as you need. It's because we have this kind of technology now (which people are uploading their entire HD's to in some instances) that game devs and companies are taking advantage of it. Just like most people stream content, yet I work in retail and can tell you that all of that content still flies off the shelf in a physical format. If people want to own it, they do buy it.

To make this easy, I think there will be more cloud gaming in the Netflix/Game Pass model. It will become the norm. But, just like with physical copies still being sold, you should still be able to buy a game to own. It's uncertain, especially if devs want to make a game to run specifically on a server instead of a disc. And no, I am not referring to MMOs here. Also, you can thank the death of the Stadia for this. Now other, much better alternatives will get the limelight and make this the gaming norm.

Question: is GOG going to add "online-only multiplayer games" or also "online-only single (+multi) player games"?
Because I could (begrudgingly) stand the first type, but IMO the second one's SP should be converted to DRM-free or bust.. :\

Also, is GOG fine with microtransactions, lootboxes, and similar practices?

we want and need your DRM approach to change

we need you to actually make sure no games ever will be tainted with DRM while currently some of them are

for online-only games though... we should push for the availability of user-hostable game servers like we used to have in the old days
the server was often built into the game itself!

^ This desperately needs answering as so far there's been an uncomfortable silence in that area. DRM-Free wasn't just a barrier against DRM, it also acts like a superb "curation filter" in keeping trashy lootboxes, pay2win, etc, monetization out of the store. Now GOG can technically "welcome" such content here under the same "always-online multi-player welcome, DRM-Free doesn't matter anymore" rules it seems, and people above are already calling for hyper-monetized garbage like Fallout 76 here (voted 52% by critics, 28% by users for a reason). What on Earth are you planning to turn into GOG?... :-(

If by "bringing new, unique value" and "making games last forever" they mean preserving multiplayer-only aspects of a game by providing players the means of hosting themselves, or entirely offline in LAN/ad-hoc settings, then I don't really mind as long as it's kept true to the core values of DRM-free game preservation. I don't play multiplayer or online-only games at all anymore so labelling them unmistakeably as such and dissecting the requisites of multiplayer in terms of DRM is crucial. We need more categories defining the type of multiplayer; simply listing multiplayer under features won't cut it.

If, however, this is only for bringing more popular and demanded titles to a new customer base, yet not making changes to preserve online-play in a DRM-free way, I can see it opening a whole new floodgate of resistance and opposition in the established customer base while catering to others. Where's the new and unique value in that, aside from monetary, if all that's changing is your reputation and not for the better. Why else would customers choose GOG over other alternatives that offer better feature parity and endorse DRMness, if not for the DRM-free approach and game preservation?

I feel like it's enough researching between checking for missing features, updates, uncertain launch dates and DRM vs other store fronts (the thread of 2nd class citizens is getting depressingly long) and adding another filter on top of that is not going to help me make a decision whether I'll make my purchase here or not.

I have pretty much zero interest in online gaming but, similar to what others have said, if you are providing games that offer people the chance to play via lan and/or by setting up their own servers, that's great! If you're releasing any games that feature any kind of DRM then that's a huge NO WAY from me. This does not fill me with confidence :(

I believe the issue is nuanced.

An online requirement could be considered as both DRM and DRM-free, depending on the context.

Is the game a single player game? If it is, then there should be no online requirement of any kind. Period.

Is the game a multiplayer game? If it is, then needing to be online to play a multiplayer game is fine. It should not count as DRM as long as there are no Account, CD Key, or Launcher requirements. Having a public IP address should be enough. There should be no attempts at authenticating anything. Period. Any authentication attempt will count as DRM. Can this be abused? Sure, but that's the price we pay for DRM-Free content. It's no different from single player abuse. If you wish to ban cheaters, ban their public IP address.

If a game has both single player and multi player content then the above rules should apply for each component respectively.

That being said, I was never a fan of centralised multiplayer. Those games often die with their servers, unless some backbend build gets leaked or reverse-engineered. All games should have LAN and / or player-hosted online games, like in the good old days. Those games never die.

I'm really curious which free-to-play and premium online titles allows users hosting servers (1st quote) and not requires dedicated client.
There is a little difference between a game and a special client application.
Here and in Release: Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory topic you convince that GOG will not go a step further than with Wolfenstein.

If the commitment of the OP is game preservation / making them last forever then I don't really understand the relation between the two.

If the idea was "resurrecting" long dead always online games then I could understand the "preservation / last forever" part even if it would be only temporary, but if the idea is simply put a bunch of F2P games or other MMOs, which are by definition the absolute the anti-thesis of "preservation" as those can and are killed overnight without any possible recourse.

In short it's very strange to use the "game preservation" angle to justify selling more of one of the most impossible to preserve type of games that exists. It would be like using support DRM-free gaming as an excuse to sell more streaming only games.

Unless maybe Gog is trying to say that they hope that they will make enough money out of micro-transactions and loot boxes to allow them to continue offer DRM-free single player games... but if that's the case then I would be getting worried about Gog's future.

Well that doesn't sound good! "Free-to-play" / "Freemium" by definition are not remotely the same as "Free" or "Freeware" or Modded / Source Ports for older games:-

1. Genuine Free / Freeware games where you can play online via direct IP, etc, are often open-source games (eg, Hedgewars) designed without any monetization.

2. Patched / Source-Ports for older games are like GZDoom where the ability to add custom servers / direct IP, etc, was added, also without any monetization.

3. "Free-To-Play" games usually mean Fortnite / DOTA2 or "Freemium" games like on the Google Play Store, designed by a publisher to be "monetized" from the outset often with garbage mechanics, eg, Candy Crush Saga monetized to the tune of $50 per customer renting the same game piecemeal that Bejeweled was sold in full for $5 for a few years prior) and absolutely contain micro-transactions, cr*ppy unlockable "coins" to unlock fake "timers", or PC games with pay2win, pay2degrind, "Booster Packs", loot-boxes, etc).

A great deal more clarification is needed beyond "we just detonated the 'nuclear option' of declaring DRM-Free no longer matters much to our store branding, but we'll talk about 'details' at a later date once the dust has settled", because "we welcome Free To Play" PC games = sounds like GOG is planning to eventually go "full loot-box" on the back of hoping gullible saps here conflate 3. with 1 & 2 above, and with Wolfenstein:ET merely being the "sweetener" to open the door to a policy change that has already enabled the addition of more insidious stuff later on... :-[

I read this post and had to laugh because they thought they needed to "mod" the links out ... I got triggered and wanted to mention how ridiculous this is in my opinion. But rant is already over so we can stay on topic.

Several people corrected my impression about itch.io and I researched myself as well. I really had no idea that itch was also selling DRM'd games - thank you all for correcting me and letting me know.

"Slippery slope" is a lot of people's concern. "You can play Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory" (2022) -> "Buy our Apex Legends 2 pay2win lootboxes (2024)" are ultimately both enabled by the same "we now accept online-only games that may contain DRM" policy-change wording here, with the only "step" between them beyond some discretionary "curation" that may or may not take place.

Also still no clarification on compulsory invasive anti-cheat technologies that plague other DRM'd stores "always-online" games? Is the future of GOG going to consist of releasing a single-player DRM-Free game on Monday and a "in addition to being online-only and DRM'd, you must also agree to game's included Anti-Cheat EULA which requires you to let us inject a Ring 0 Rootkit driver into your kernel, randomly scan your registry, comb through files on your HDD, harvest visited websites in your DNS cache and take then upload random screenshots for 'anti-cheat' reasons" on Tuesday? I don't think "The Home of DRM-Free" branding value is going to last long at all like that...

You just justified all kinds of DRM releases with that. Hitman 2016 can basically enter the fray because you can somewhat justify it as a multiplayer game because all the elements that involve player created contents. Or, you can just mark it as whatever and let us "decide whether [we] want to play them."

Hi Clownski, could you please offer a quick clarification? I'm trying to see how the new Wolfenstein release, and thus future releases in this mode, compares to an older multiplayer game here Crysis Wars (a bonus packed in with Crysis Warhead). My recollection of Crysis Wars is that a player can open the game and, technically, "start" a session without needing connection to internet, but that when doing so the world/map in the game will simply be unpopulated other than the player. The player can thus essentially walk around a ghost town, as it were, but there are no other characters to encounter since it is meant to be populated with other players, and there are no bots programmed into the game to play against. Does Wolfenstein fit this mold? Can I boot it up offline and wander around an empty world, or is even that not possible without being connected to internet? Note: it could be that my recollection of Crysis Wars is faulty and that it did actually need a computer connected to "cyberspace", so please correct me if I'm wrong.

Followup I just noticed:
I would like to call attention to something. The way your comment is presented notes GOG Galaxy is not required, while the original post of this topic (accessed just now, at the time of me making this comment) says "some might question 'since online-only games require an internet connection, how is this DRM-free?'. It is not – online-only games that are designed to be played with others are a separate category of games." Now obviously, to use Galaxy to play a mode or game also requires internet, and your comment's wording reads to me as though Wolfenstein is of a "lesser"/"looser" requirement, that is, Wolfenstein doesn't require Galaxy + internet; rather, it only requires internet. It seems that logically, the synthesis of OP and your statement functions as an admission of what I and others have been proposing for years: that Galaxy requirements are DRM.