Don't expect that game to be released here any day soon I just got off a 2-week ban of accusing GOG of being what Cleve called them out for. and even a threat if I do anything like that again I get permabanned. Guess GOG praises their approach of DRM but they are now going soviet Russia style on freedom of speech.

GOG is my first choice when buying a game online, always, and if someone's looking to get into PC games, or even just curious, GOG is the first place I recommend. Not only are things DRM-free, a lot of the compatibility guesswork has been taken out of the equation, so nothing's really intimidating to get set up and running. I'm part of the closed beta for Galaxy 2.0, and I am completely floored with the features that it has; it's like they thought of almost everything, and it's not even in open beta yet.

I do, of course, prefer DRM-free, but what sucks is that it isn't an option for every game. Steam is so big that sooner or later, a game that you want is going to be exclusive to them, because people are sheep, and don't really consider what's going on beyond, "Aw, Bruh; it's Steam!" I've made that concession, but unless I get something for free, I don't buy from Steam when I have the choice, no matter how good the sales are. Epic is nice for freebies, too, but if I really like it, you know what I do? Yup: buy a DRM-free copy elsewhere, so I'll be able to play it again in 20 years, if I want to.

The one concession that I WILL NOT make, though, is buying a game with super-aggressive DRM, like Denuvo. I am a huge fan of both Mega Man and Devil May Cry; I've been playing Mega Man for over 20 years, and have played every mainline game across 4 different Mega Man series, but when Mega Man 11 came out with Denuvo, I refused to buy it until it was removed, and the same goes for Devil May Cry 5. Denuvo, for those who don't know, is basically what they were trying to do with the X-Bone before the community freaked out and shut that down: you have to be online every 24 hours, so that the game can call Big Brother, or else every Denuvo game you have gets bricked. Microsoft has the money to withstand the backlash, but they tested the waters and broke the ice for other companies to slip this in without really telling you about it, because who reads EULAs? Well, now, I read every single one. But tell people about it now, and nobody cares; we're only supposed to be mad about loot boxes now, until the next awful thing happens, and loot boxes are okay, and this new thing is to be hated. DLC IS STILL A PROBLEM, GUYS!

I feel like I'm standing on a street corner with a cardboard sign sometimes; a digital Cassandra. Software pirates are doing more to preserve video game history than the actual industry, because it's not profitable. Does everyone want the world to become cyberpunk? Because this is how you get cyberpunk! I'm going to spend most of the day collecting video game music that I rip myself, because if I do all the work, there's no DRM, and that's something that's in danger, too. A big thanks to everyone fighting the good fight on International Day Against DRM!

Streaming is the ultimate DRM.

You read my mind. FCK this "day against _____" shite. Live the life! ;p

I've always been tinkerer, which is one thing fundamentally incompatible with DRM. Another thought I find abhorrent is that something I bought could stop working not because modern computers can't run it anymore, but because it is wrapped in piece highly obfuscated crap that has to deeply integrate into my system to allow it to work against my interests. And which nobody bothered to port when OS vendor changed the way that some undocumented feature works.

As I grow older I can admit that some games are not worth preserving. I have quite a few in my library that I played only once and I can't see myself returning to them, or didn't even finish. But **I'll** be the judge of that, not some killswitch beyond my control. Recently I saw interesting theory - people have irrational fear of things they can't control. It explains why we fear terrorists way more than car crashes, even if statistics clearly say that anyone is orders of magnitude more likely do die in a car crash than by terrorist action. I suppose my relation to DRM has similar explanation. If I loose something because I didn't make backup of the installer - that's on me. If I loose something because someone else decides to turn off their always-online DRM servers, that makes me mad. However unlikely that is, the potential is still there. Since I don't like being mad, I just avoid paying for anything with DRM. There are few titles I'd like to play not available here, but even GOG's catalog is larger than something I can realistically consume in my lifetime. Their loss.

First game I ever BOUGHT was Stonekeep, here, on Oct 8, 2010. Followed by many others. For me, finding GOG was when I started paying for my digital entertainment, because it was finally offer with terms I found acceptable. Only exception I made since then are few titles from epic store - "bought" for price of $0.00. Which is about the right price for anything with DRM.

DRM pulled me out of PC gaming around 2006. Just the thought that I needed to ask for a third party approbation to play the game I bought was unacceptable. The GOG platform allowed me to go back to PC gaming at a time when I was questioning consoles' ability to provide a durable way to enjoy the games I bought.

You ever get the Lenslok to work? I recall having a game on the Commodore 64 I think The Price of Magik by Level 9 Computing you needed to use the Lenslok to use the save system, I never got it to work.

Both are terrible these days, indie gaming has fallen into the pattern of only producing these cartoony action games and anything that is truly niche isn't made. In fact what has emerged is what I'd call "Big Indie", as in a cartel of independent devs all producing these cartoony metroidvania roguelites made by artsy hipster types, "indie" has become the new mainstream. Games like Grimoire are truly indie because they are niche even in the sea of indie crap. There's a reason that Aeon of Sands or Grimoire haven't got more reviews, it's because complex CRPGs are truly niche and most people don't have the patience or brains to master them.

That's exactly the same as my situation. I got royally burned by DRM on a bunch of Ubisoft and EA games that I bought in 2006 and decided to stop buying games entirely. Never bought a single game after that until 2012 when I made my first purchase at GOG, and ended up buying almost 200 games within a few months during sales. I've bought games on/for Steam as well, but carefully avoiding the most restrictive forms of DRM that some games use, except for a few cases where I didn't do my homework in advance.

When I fully realized what GOG was all about, I shared it with a few friends and told them "This company is doing exactly what I want a game retailer to do as a gaming customer, I just have to support them sometime soon." and I kept perusing the site every few days until I had seen the entire game catalogue and made a list of games I was interested in. A big sale kicked in right away and that's when the GOG addiction kicked in. :)

Some years ago I gave up buying game discs from my favorite store because I don't want to connect my gaming PC to the net for DRM only. The last game I bought there was Far Cry 2 AFTER Ubisoft provided a patch that removed the need of connect on install. Now that store sells DVD-like boxes containing no discs but a download code with DRM... Nonsense!

I remember how sceptic was I when first tried GoG. But there were some freebies to test the system, so why not? I was very surprised that it worked so easily and really and fully DRM free. It was even better than discs with protection craps consuming extra resources and causing compatibility issues.

Now GoG is the only store where I pay for a game.

So just keep all games DRM free and let download offline installers without any client forever!

I play games DRM-free as much i can and i love GOG. Here are some exceptions too.

My thoughts and stories about some DRM:s:

Starforce: It ruined my windows long time ago, when i installed X game. You can not uninstall starforce from your windows system without re-installing windows itself. God thanks starforce is history now.

SecuROM 7.x: Re-Activation every 10 days and product activation limits. EA is famous using it and angered lot of players too. Because of SecuROM 7.x, i have to give up playing lot of PC games and playing with PS2 sounded good. Windows 10 prevents Securom to install, which is good thing.

EA origin: Long time ago, Origin client did not only scan installed origin games folder, but also scanned many other folders on your windows computer. Ea got caught using Origin to spy human computers. Ea knows, how to make dirty business and is also greedy with lootboxes. I don´t know origin status now, but i am not fan of origin.

Denuvo: It lowers game performance, increases game loading times and causes stuttering too. Games just works better without it. Denuvo represents capitalism and greedy. Shortly said, game developers loves it but players don´t.

Steam: I tolerate Steam. For two years, i haven´t bought any games from steam. I lost interest for steam and too much denuvo infested games.

Battlenet: I tolerate Battlenet. For two years, i haven´t bought any games from battlenet. Starcraft 2 was last game, which i bought. Blizzard doesn´t have any new games to buy. Overwatch and WOW not interest me.
That Diablo Immortal is still unpublished. It is unlikely to be released this year. Blizzard suffers some sort of depression and uncreativity too. I think blizzard golden days are over, unless they start releasing new ip for PC or console.

Uplay: Rootkit accusations!! I don´t know much about those accusations. After Heroes of might and magic 5 I stopped buying Ubisoft games. I angered Ubisoft published unfinished games. I do know, that you need to maintain a constant connection to the internet to play Uplay-enabled games. Losing connection halt the game process, sending users back to their last checkpoint or save depending on the specific game. I just hate a constant connection to the internet order to play games.

Bonus:

Epic game service aka EGS: I just grap free games. I know that here are some sort of Tencent/Epic marriage. I heard rumors about Steam-account data is leaked or sold to china, if epic and steam accounts are linked. I am not sure about epic client spyware accusations. It may or may not be American conspiracy theory.
Epic is about big business, Phoenic point, The Outer World, Metro exodus, Mechwarrior 5 and Shenmue 3. People are just angry, because they can not play certain games on steam.

Sony BMG copy protection rootkit: Long time ago, Sony BMG used to install copy protection rootkit to music cd:s to prevet music track copying. My barber's have a friend, who bought music and converted cd tracks to mp3, order to listen it in mp3 player. When barber friend bought Sony bmg published music cd, he could not copy music tracks to hard drive and his PC started to behave strangely. When he figured, what was wrong with PC and what caused it, he started to talk people in village, not to buy any Sony BMG published products. He also got radio publicity too.

I hate DRM with a passion from the lenslock sstem on the 8 bit 16 bit era (Could never play my spectrum version of Tomahawk thanks to it) to the more stupid DRM systems of the last few years which can totally bugger up your operating system. DRM should not be in games but the big AAA spend millions on those stupid systems so newer games are mostly not worh buying due to them.

Been with GOG since the original beta when i saw Fallout series with no DRM it was like instant buy and i have never looked back.

I have seen a slight shift with some companies such as THQNOrdic being very open with their games even their new releases which i am gratefull and hope in time al lot more companies will release their new releases 100% DRM free.

My order of purchase is like this...

news of new game coming up... is it on GOG?
no? -> go to Steam store if available -> no? -> get it from dev store, or where available. else buy on Steam.
yes? -> Buy it on Gog

At this time I have many more games on Gog than on Steam. Simply because I like to own
what I buy.

A similar approach is taken to all software I own as well. Sadly... subs are becoming worryingly
common.

Thank you CD project / Gog for being the ones you are. Please don't change.

^This^
I believe they would sell even better than Diablo. xD

DRM will only get worse if gamers cave in (or give in) to the next gen of gaming. like cloud gaming will us take a step closer to loose every control over your games you normally would own.