I agree with your sentiment :)

You make the wrong assumption there that all those who have games also on Steam are totally fine with DRM, and don't care about GoG's DRM-free policies.

I have several hundred games on Steam (mostly from Humble Bundles though where they throw Steam keys like candy besides their own DRM-free and Android releases), yet GoG's stance on DRM-free gaming is the biggest pulling factor for me. After all, the reason I originally came to GoG was when I heard you can get The Witcher (and TW2) DRM-free here. Old classics are a nice bonus too, especially as now it includes also a bit newer "oldies" from the 2000s.

At least GoG itself seems to believe many of its customers are here for DRM-free, considering how much they mention it in their marketing. They probably know it better than any of us.

I guess the gist is that they are seeing the anti-piracy measures coming increasingly so difficult that it becomes near impossible to crack them, taking months or maybe even years to crack?

After all, it isn't like some other pirate group has cracked the same protection in the meantime either?

Thanks for the correction.
Last time I looked, which was just before Christmas, the only Denuvo game to be cracked was Dragon Age.

All the other remained uncracked.

The simple fact it has took months to break other games, in spite having already broken Dragon Age, and Just Cause 3 still remains uncracked.

I believe Just Cause will be cracked, just not sure how long.

The real test of the technology is the next release of Denuvo protected games.

If they get cracked in weeks, the there is a repeated method to decipher any Denuvo game.

If it takes about the same time, then it means each game is unique and has to be manually investigated but there is an available vector of attack.

If it takes longer, then Denuvo have been able to move the goal posts making the vector of attack more illusive.


If its either of the last two then Piracy may be on the rocks.

those are the vast majority, ~90%. These guys will rain monies even if the dev/publisher sells them martian shit.
and don't forget the generations to come, educated from fragile age to treat drm as a normal thing.
the future is not bright at all.

This is a list I found on a pirate site, it's a list of games with modern DRM, and their cracked status:

Batman: Arkham Knight / Steamworks+Denuvo - fully cracked by CPY
Battlefield Hardline / Origin+Denuvo - fully cracked by CPY
Civilization Beyond Earth / Steam + cpuid CEG - - fully cracked by RLD
Civilization V / Steam + CEG + custom triggers- latest version fully cracked on RIN
Company of Heroes 2 - Ardennes Assault / Steam + cpuid CEG - fully cracked by RLD , some MP patches after that with no universal crack (cpu specific)
Dark Matter/ Steam + Custom - v1.1 not cracked yet, invincible enemy
Dirt Rally [Early Access] / Steam + cpuid CEG - early access , no universal crack(cpu specific)
Dragon Age Inquisition / Origin+Denuvo - crack solution by 3DM for last version , not stable, problem on Phenoms,
F1 2015 / Steam + cpuid CEG - - fully cracked by CPY
FIFA 15 / Origin+Denuvo - crack solution by 3DM for update 4 , not universal, supports wide range of CPUs, problems on Win10
Grand Theft Auto V / RGSC + custom triggers + timelimited offline mode - v1.0.350.1 cracked by RLD , v1.0.372.4 no crack yet
GRID: Autosport / Steam + cpuid CEG - v1.0.100.5260 fully , upd10+DLC cracked with CPUID patcher, rare problems
Lords of the Fallen / Steamworks+Denuvo - fully cracked by CPY
Mad Max / Steam+Denuvo - no crack yet
Metal Gear Solid 5: Phantom Pain / Steam+Denuvo - no crack yet
Saint's Row IV / Steam + cpuid CEG - fully cracked by RLD
Pro Cycling Simulator 2015 /Steam+Actcontrol/Starforce - fully cracked by CODEX
Saint's Row - Gat out of Hell / Steam + cpuid CEG - fully cracked by RLD
Serious Sam 3 / Steam + CEG + custom triggers - fully cracked by CPY
Sims 4/ Origin + Custom - fully cracked by RLD, latest version not cracked
Sniper Elite III / Steam + cpuid CEG - fully cracked by RLD
]Talos Principle + DLC / Steam + cpuid CEG + custom triggers - fully cracked by CPY/RLD
Total War: Attila / Steam + CEG + custom triggers - fully cracked by CPY/RLD, latest version cracked with CPUID patcher, rare problems
Total War: Rome 2 / Steam + CEG + custom triggers - fully cracked by PPT, latest version cracked with CPUID patcher, rare problems
Total War: Shogun 2 / Steam + CEG + custom triggers - fully cracked by PPT
Toy Soldiers: War Chest - DLC Armies/ Uplay + custom? - base fully game cracked, no crack for all 4 DLC Armies
Typing of The Dead: Overkill / Steam + CEG + custom triggers - fully cracked by CPY
XCOM : Enemy Within / Steam + cpuid CEG - - fully cracked by PPT

Yes, that much I understood from their message. I can understand copy protection methods are getting harder to crack all the time, but so far every one of them got bypassed sooner or later. I think it's far too early to say whether some form of protection will be a definite "it", because, long term, nothing has come even close to that. Find an exploit and it's back to the drawing board - crackers have the overall advantage I think.

I just hope they wont jacked up the price for this year release.

Massive online games like WoW are inherently difficult to pirate and for years I expected that publishers put more parts of the game logic onto their servers only even for single player games but so far they are still not there.

It's surely too early to tell for sure but people just love to speculate. This thread is a big "What If piracy would not exist anymore" discussion.

On the other hand we all know that you cannot judge the future just by the past. Technologies sometimes change. For many things there is a first time.

I believe that one day we will have unbreakable DRM and that we are not so far from it. Actually since the advent of always online I was kind of waiting for it. And I see more advantages on the side of the devs. They have the source code, they can put part of the game logic on the server, they can encrypt. And they just need to buy time (some months without crack and everything is good). Maybe what they still need to be really unbeatable is some hardware DRM inbuilt into the processor.

Actually they're not. Private servers where created not long after its official release.
and they're updated with each expansion.

I played WoW on and off over the last 10 years. They've had about 7 years of subscription from me and the wife. and about 3 from my daughter.

I've not set up a private server (based on Wrath of the Lich King) for my family. Its about 99% acurate to the original game.

They mention it in their marketing because lets be honest, it is their main selling point when competing against everyone else. It's just as wrong an assumption that everyone who buys from GoG are here simply for DRM-Free. People forget what this site started as and what led many people here. It wasn't just DRM-Free, it was Good Old Games. Many users use GoG as a compliment to Steam (or anywhere else they buy), not as the only source. GoG themselves said as much way back when (they didn't view Valve as a direct competitor). And to be perfectly honest, they still are not. You cannot compete directly because the playing field is not even and probably never will be. Blame that on Valve, publishers or consumers but the facts are there.

Well, publishers did it before. Its called SimCity. But everyone revolted against the idea. What I'm afraid of is if publishers just keep trying to force it on us that eventually, the "Resistance is futile" crowd will go okay with the idea and suddenly, now I have to have even constant internet in order to play as no cracks or so called 'offline-modes' will save me.

Exactly! This must be some pretentious statement claiming they're the only/best group.

No matter how one choose to put it - there will in my mind ALWAYS a good reason to pirate/crack software. Nr1 being educational, and 2: Give the software new possibilities, perhaps making more people play it again. If it hadn't been for those guys we wouldn't have Witcher or HD patches or ports/mods to games like Diablo 2, Blood or even RA. Then there are those that got "rich/famous" on making movies on Adobe Premiere and music on Reason/FL, we can only hope that they gave back.

Lest not forget that most of the economy behind the digital uprising in the eastern countries were based on piracy, something most people would not admit that they did. These countries didn't even have laws on such things.

I recommend reading the story behind the CD Project as an example:
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-11-06-seeing-red-the-story-of-cd-projekt

"I was many times asked, 'Oh, so you were a pirate - your roots are from the computer games market?' I say, 'Hey, for starters it wasn't illegal and second, look at a lot of the presidents or the founders or the key shareholders of IT companies in Poland now: who are these guys?'" Marcin Iwiński

It's funny that even they had DRM on their first Witcher game... until a patch apparently changed all that.

I remember the first time I was in Poland and got myself a "copy" of GTA3. Still has it somewhere. The guy actually explained the whole situation in Poland to me, quite proudly, and that everything I needed was on the disk. Hmm, I wonder where he is now... Thanks, where ever you are, and today I own a legal copy!

It's like setting restrictions on a thought, eventually someone will break it.

EDIT: Just to clarify: I didn't mean one should gain money on pirated software.

well, if big publisher decide to only create 100% online DRM games... I will just create my own games, DRM-free, offline (and I think many indie will be the same).

Denuvo may be hard to crack, but it's only a matter of time before it's broken. And once that happens they will need to develop some new tricks to continue hindering the efforts of the crack groups.

In the meantime, while it may be successful at stopping piracy the money spent licensing it & royalties spent on it will still essentially be wasted because it won't result in any increase in sales.

And at least in my case it'll cost them sales... any game that uses Denuvo etc. won't ever be purchased by me. I've already stopped buying anything from EA and Ubisoft due to their insistence on Origin and UPlay respectively, and I've also stopped buying anything from Square Enix for a number of reasons (their pro-DRM comments a while back, plus the terrible state of the DXHR Director's Cut & their lack of support for/refusal to fix it, the pre-order bullshit they attempted to pull with DXMD, and so on). With the exception of anything those companies release on GOG that interests me, of course.

As it is I only just tolerate Steam, and that's only with some very deep discounts.