Stop being pedantic.... What does GOG stand for and what did it come from? End of...gee whiz....sigh
Early Access; you are just out for an arguement. Can't be bothered with forum's full of 'you' types.

More to the point; GoG is in trouble regardless of what you think it stands for -fat lot of good it is, eh?

I'm not being pedantic. GOG doesn't stand for anything. It is no longer an acronym for anything. If you still think of this store as what it was before it rebranded and clearly changed it's fundamental "mission statement" and business strategy, then you are fundamentally wrong. This is not a nitpick. And the fact that years later I keep seeing people who still make that mistake may actually speak to a failure on GOG's part to reach a broader audience with their strategy.

And I still have no idea why you brought up Early Access, or why not understanding that means I'm just out for an argument. You are not making any sense.

And therein lies the root cause. Why carry the logo of GoG then if you don't want to carry the past? Rebrand yourself and leave the past behind. Otherwise you stay in the past. GoG like steam, do Early Access. It can and has been a failure due to games not being completed (yeah you sign up for a game that may or not be finished) That leaves a very bad taste. Like the saying ''Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me'. GoG is in a market that is saturated -to say the least. The 'Old Games' i refered to is what defined them. Maybe DRM free isn't the way to go? Younger gamers will have little appreciation of Shareware days. Therefore buy one game and give it to all their school friends -just like piracy. Maybe GoG ( CD Projekt) needs to go the way of steam/Ubi/Origin and Epic and be an online platform with DRM but with a better way that steam (like Epic Games) allow family members to play all games under one account. Obviously with steam my wife has to sign out to play offline while i play. Well, GoG can do it better?

Steam is only DRM if you refer to it as a totum pro parte.
And if that doesn't end this discussion... well, have fun arguing semantics!

Not really seeing the same "appeal" there for these younger gamers, as, what "piracy" requires logging into an online client? Whether as one person or as a group?

And, again, I will ask why all the "maybe GOG needs to abandon DRM-free" advocates are beginning from this position, instead of suggesting something like "GOG should have a big DRM game like Fortnite, alongside DRM-free".

Well obviously I, and I'm pretty sure many people, disagree with you. I consider DRM to be about the end result. A game with no further strings or control attached, which you could play in a bunker after the world has ended. That's perfectly possible with a DRM-Free game (like on the list here on GOG) on Steam.

I get that downloading from a client is annoying and 'not required' but it's baffling to me how stubbornly people are calling this DRM. Even *if* you want to call it DRM, it's temporary DRM at best. Extremely temporary DRM that's only valid the first time you download the game. Then, how is that different from say, Witcher 2(or was it 3?) on DVD requiring that you downloaded something from the internet before you were even able to play what you had purchased on disk? If you'd read my posts in this topic you should've known how dumb you look for saying this. I've stated multiple times already that Steam can be used as DRM but it doesn't have to be, as exemplified by the list of games that don't.

As for why I'm here. I came here back when GOG started for the classic games, not for the DRM-Free, and I've stayed for the forums. I don't see why that's any of your concern though. I can see being annoyed by broken achievements but that's not something that's necessarily broken with Steam? It depends on the game and if they implemented them properly. I'm not saying it's not possible some are broken on Steam's side but I doubt it's all or probably even most of them.

Further, you're annoyed you can't remove some achievements from your profile for games that aren't available anymore. Mostly I see this argument from people who are trying to achieve high completion percentages for their total games list.
That's not so much broken as it is a missing feature since what it's supposed to do is record and show your achievements and that's what it does. I agree I'd like an easy way to remove them though, my preference being that I think it's nice if I replay a game that I can re-experience the achievements as well. (kind of like progress meters in some way) Setting your profile to private should prevent this from what I can tell, unless you're arguing for a setting where you can have it public yet somehow not share certain data among certain people not in your friendslist? As for harassment, That's something you report.

Until it needs patching... About the only games I view on Steam as truly "DRM-Free" are the older completed ones, eg, Portal, Half Life 2, etc, that are now years old and for which patching has long finished. That stuff you can download once, zip up and uninstall the client as you described then call the zip files you made "my DRM-Free game". But no-one can seriously say with a straight face that a store that requires the client to be permanently installed to buy, install and update games on a regular basis makes the store itself "a DRM-Free shopping experience" remotely comparable to using offline installers, as regular patching via a compulsory client clearly doesn't involve a one-off check limited to just the initial download.

Is buying Doom 2 on Steam, ripping out the .WAD file and shoving it into GZDoom, "DRM-Free"? Yes. Does needing to have the client installed for games like Divinity Origin Sin - theoretically "DRM-Free" on Steam - but in reality, those games needed something like 16x patches following by an Enhanced Edition remake, followed by another 12 DOS:EE patches "DRM-Free"? Years later maybe, but during the actual period where your "choice" was keeping a client installed for 3.5 years or repeatedly installing then uninstalling the client then zipping up the files 28x times in a row for one game? Not a chance in hell. No-one who wanted a DRM-Free copy of DOS:EE bought it like that. What's laughable is people were saying "Look at Larian as an example of DRM-Free on Steam". I guess these same people have very selective memories of the 3.5 years it took from D:OS launch to D:OS-EE final patch and the literally dozens of patches that were involved... ;-)

Your argument there is that it's fine once patching is over, which is all games eventually. Nor do you need it 'permanently installed' to play that game *unless* you want a patch, and then only for the time you need it to download that patch.

Who in their right mind is arguing 'the store itself' is a DRM-Free shopping experience? I'm not?

Yes, offline installers are more convenient. I doubt anyone is arguing that. That *still* doesn't mean the games, once downloaded aren't DRM-Free.

And again

https://twitter.com/icculus/status/471441666419990528?lang=en

A better strategy than screaming "steam is DRM"

Is instead to say "hey devs please make your game dRM free on steam by not doing the above"

You are actively sabotaging your own message by ignoring the fact that steam is the dominant platform and that you can actually use that platform to your advantage to get what you want. Rather than insist devs stop using steam or insisting stema is 'drm' when its not.

There's an entire reason why Good Old Gaming was rebranded to GOG years ago

The company found that catering for old games, while good initially, had its limits in scope and appeal. The naming necessarily made potential customers think only 'old' games were on the platform and likley avoided it. Thus they rebranded to GOG.

They've been branching out by again allowing for newer games on the platform, allowing for their version of Early Access, etc. Their focus on 'good old games' was lost long ago. Its certainly a giant repository of old games, but honestly steam has about 80% of what GOG has making that a fairly weak unique selling point. which is why its not really the core focus of the company and hasn't been for a while

Sounds like a personal thing. None of my games, including some recent ones from 2018, NEED patching. But I'm sure it's a thing if you buy games that aren't in a fine playable condition at the moment of purchase.

As long as Steam is the "dominant platform" and comprises nearly the entire PC market, the pleas of DRM-free gamers are unlikely to have much bearing. After all, we're a "vocal minority", remember? These devs couldn't care less. Maybe about a decade ago your suggestion would've worked, but lo and behold, "the market changed".

Sure in theory the devs could make a few extra bucks, but there will always be Steam whales to buy their games regardless. Don't ask me why the devs are behaving economically irrationally, but it's clear that they are, since they would only stand to gain money by also including DRM-free gamers.

Regardless, your argument for GOG to "succeed" has been to abandon DRM-free. In other words, you are making the argument that if there is a battle of 100 against 10,000, not only should the 100 charge headlong into the 10,000, but that this would be the optimal strategy. Is your view colored by you being a Steam moderator?

and again

Steam is DRM

https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/features/drm

A Steam DRM protected executable is modified such that when it starts, the first code that gets executed is the DRM code. This code is responsible for checking ownership. Once complete, the game code is decrypted (if the code was encrypted) and control is passed to the original game code. This "stub" code resides in a PE section named ".bind" tacked on to the end of the executable. The executable is modified to start in this section instead of its original start address. Some games may contain overlay data. Those are changed to a new PE section named ".extra". No changes to any data sections are made. Note code encryption is optional in all versions and there are numerous Steam DRM protected executables that do not have the original code encrypted. Executable checksum is recalculated after wrapping if it existed originally. Sometimes a Valve custom signature is applied in the executable header to ensure authenticity.

People are missing the whole thing here. GOG is in trouble, why? Sales are clearly terrible regardless of what people go on and on about steam, it's the most succesfull DRM platform ever and it's never going to go away. Whereas GOG will. You buy one game on GOG and that's the sum total for GOG, yet people can and will give the game away to dozens of friends - is that clever as a business... Keep the games on a client that is signed in by everyone in the family is at least a start (galaxy) even if on offline mode. As i have said you can play stem games in offline mode for as long as you want - i have said i do it and will from sat for two weeks again with no internet. Its not an issue.

GOG are going to have to do something pretty soon. Tell that to the 12 or so GOG staff that lost their jobs....

What does the price of apples have to do with the colour of oranges?

Did you seriously make the case of "Steam's better than GOG" by contrasting unhindered access to some installed on your computer Steam games to potential denial of access to not even downloaded GOG games?

I'm reasonably certaom that Steam has some clauses in their ToS that give them the right to prevent you from getting access to your account if they find you in breach of said ToS.



Perhaps you could follow your own advice, and acknowledge that the links posted by AB2012 https://www.gog.com/forum/general/stop_supporting_steam_it_is_drm/post393 do prove that he is a Steam Moderator?




I'm only loosely following this thread - where did he claim that?