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DRM-free approach in games has been at the heart of GOG.COM from day one. We strongly believe that if you buy a game, it should be yours, and you can play it the way it’s convenient for you, and not how others want you to use it.

The landscape has changed since 2008, and today many people don’t realize what DRM even means. And still the DRM issue in games remains – you’re never sure when and why you can be blocked from accessing them. And it’s not only games that are affected, but your favourite books, music, movies and apps as well.

To help understand what DRM means, how it influences your games and other digital media, and what benefits come with DRM-free approach, we’re launching the FCK DRM initiative. The goal is to educate people and ignite a discussion about DRM. To learn more visit https://fckdrm.com, and share your opinions and stories about DRM and how it affects you.
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BreOl72: Yeah, I didn't want to point to that, because I kinda understand why GOG wouldn't want to advertise for a competitor.
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ReynardFox: If GOG is trying to be properly altruistic about DRM free, then it should be mentioning the competition, because it should be about the bigger picture, not just a publicity stunt.
"Just a publicity stunt."

That's their moto for years and years now. And gamers lap it up everytime.
Fantastic idea GoG good on you.

I had so many problems with DRM in the past I refused to support anything with it.
GoG saved my life :)

Thank you thank you thank you GoG
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ZFR: One can find DRM-ed games on torrents too. Nicely cracked. Thus rendering buying 'em completely pointless.

Tell me. If buying games here is completely pointless how has GOG survived 10 years? No one bought games from them (it's completely pointless) so what did they get money from? Selling lemonade?
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Kanashe: Yeah, about nicely cracked as a bad burrito bought at a gas station. Since most of the cracks are either busted or don't work properly.

I dunno, get a bunch of idiots and suckers with their good PR or people who find themselves as "rebels" by supporting all this DRM-Free BS, there's also your local hipsters. An besides, how the eff do you think their games end up on torrents? People buy and then torrent 'em, simple.
You're on a roll, dewd!
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Post edited August 22, 2018 by richlind33
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nickgog: You do realize that if you guys make a site called FCK DRM and use a quote by gabe newell is pretty much the same as making a site called FCK COCAINE and use a quote by pablo escobar, yes?
Which actually wouldn't be a bad idea.

Some years ago, there was an anti-drugs campaign that featured drug dealers expressing their contempt for users. Actually, they used actors because the actual footage from actual dealers was too over the top to be "believable".
So, in 2008 we had the dissidents who eschewed the customer-unfriendly practice of DRM

in 2018 we find ourselves with this contrarian's contrarian--just for the sake of being contrary...

everyone wants to be a rebel, eh?

(but, isn't a rebel who rebels against rebellion simply establishing the status quo?)
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eric5h5: The point obviously went miles over your head. It's actually simple if you bother to think about it for a second or two: games get pirated regardless of DRM, DRM harms consumers by making it difficult and sometimes impossible to run games that were legitimately purchased, therefore no DRM is better for consumers and doesn't really affect sales. It's nothing to do with "hipsters" or "rebels" or anything, that's just something you made up for some reason.
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Kanashe: Uh-huh, sure it doesn't. You keep telling yourself that, trust me when I say a good portion of GoG users are either hipsters or so called "rebels" who consider themselves special snowflakes by buying games on this place. Yeah, sure it is tell that to GoG and how much money they probably lose because of people easily using pirated games from torrents they sell, thus costing them money.
It may surprise you to learn that I don't consider myself to be a 'hipster' or a 'rebel' in any shape or form. What I simply do is vote with my wallet, when considering purchases of any product. Be that a computer game, a kettle, or anything else.

Insofar as my purchasing of PC games is concerned, I made a conscious decision to only buy from GOG back in 2015. Why? Simple really, I wasn't happy with the quality or service provided elsewhere. I had a Steam account and wasn't happy with the 'service' they provided, principally due to problems accessing what I'd paid for offline. Their customer service, to use the term loosely, was also atrocious and uncaring.

I can buy games that interest me from GOG without any hassle whatsoever. They accept my preferred online payment method and whenever I have encountered any issues, customer support has always been friendly, helpful and responsive.

I can honestly tell you that prior to 2015, all the problems I had with games not working or installing properly were directly related to DRM. Repeated bad luck perhaps, but they are personal experiences that led me change how I purchase games. Indeed, I still have boxed games that didn't work because of DRM problems, which still haven't been resolved to this day. No refunds were offered by either the stores or the developers/publishers.

For sure, I could quite easily pirate games I might fancy playing, but I choose not to. I choose to support a company that provides me with a quality level of service I'm happy with, and developers who also offer their products DRM free via GOG. I have backups of all the games I own - and that's the operative word here.

I trust them, they trust me. It's a win-win situation I'm entirely happy with.
I have always been geared towards archiving media as young as I can remember. I had no idea what DRM stood for at the time but I knew that if it was possible to have books, movies, shows, games etc. potentially be deleted then I knew that I had to collect what I could whether it be physical or digital as in the end the next generation should be able to enjoy what we have all loved in our life times. It really, really sucks that "AAA" companies like EA, Activision and the like can do shitty things like sell the crap they do and people love them. Bethesda can release buggy, broken games (Fallout 4 was total crap) and because of the modding community people love them. Nintendo makes awesome games but total shits on their fans when they pull fan made games that are not insulting but giving much praise to Nintendo. The only reason that Nintendo made a remake to Metroid 2 was with the wonderful fan game AM2R. All I am saying is that these companies care far more about profit then what they are selling so when the game disappears they will not bat an eyelid. I am incredibly grateful for GOG.com and all of CD Projekt for what they stand for and even though I do not have as many games as you guys do I am very happy with my 253+ gaming library as I know that as long as the internet stays intact and we can still play games because my GOG games are DRM free I have no fear of losing them.

P.S. I do wish I would have bought the Duke Nukem collection before they were taken off of GOG (thanks gearbox >:( )
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BreOl72: Yeah, I didn't want to point to that, because I kinda understand why GOG wouldn't want to advertise for a competitor.
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ReynardFox: If GOG is trying to be properly altruistic about DRM free, then it should be mentioning the competition, because it should be about the bigger picture, not just a publicity stunt.
I agree.
low rated
I like where this is going but there's one major problem I have with it. One of the affiliate links was promoting Linux. Why is this a problem. While it's true that Windows is both closed source and uses DRM while GNU/Linux id open source and DRM free it shares the same weakness as DRM software


Backup, copy, use anywhere
Backups from a Linux repository will not work in future release of the kernel

Access offline
Without Internet Linux will not be able to install any drivers, programs or much of anything. Without internet Linux is useless.

Support digital preservation
Linux suffers from severe deprecation preventing backwards compatibility for a lot of games and programs.
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Telika: Some years ago, there was an anti-drugs campaign that featured drug dealers expressing their contempt for users. Actually, they used actors because the actual footage from actual dealers was too over the top to be "believable".
Nothing new... :P


PS: Yeah, I guess that Gaben jab/joke/meme went over many heads.
I'm a little confused here... If I wanted to FCK DRM, should I use protection? Or could that be considered a form of DRM? Is it OK to FCK DRM with DRM? Does it mean you're basically FCKing DRM, while you're FCKing DRM? Yo dawg, we heard you like FCKing DRM...
I don't have time for a vastly detailed comment at this time, but just wanted to say THANK YOU GOG for taking a vocal stand against DRM and advancing this battle further! It is also a very nice and welcome touch to point out DRM-free avenues of music and books. Also, while I am an avid Galaxy NON-user, and agree with some earlier points raised in this topic that Gwent and some other examples stretch the definition of "DRM-free", I am appreciative a vocal stance against DRM is being made nonetheless. It is sorely needed now more than ever. Mobile gaming apps, games as service, music and movie-streaming as service, comics-as-service...I have seen it all get so much worse in the last decade. All hail "convenience!", at the expense of ownership and the true convenience of having control over what you're paying for. Of course there are some people who can't be reached and for whom this message falls on deaf ears. So be it. The question "why" needs to be encouraged to people at large. For many it will begin to not fall on deaf ears. Currently, not enough people are asking why Scheme is the way it is. Let alone, "why on earth would anyone want to accept that as the standard"?
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HeathGCF: Insofar as my purchasing of PC games is concerned, I made a conscious decision to only buy from GOG back in 2015. Why? Simple really, I wasn't happy with the quality or service provided elsewhere. I had a Steam account and wasn't happy with the 'service' they provided, principally due to problems accessing what I'd paid for offline. Their customer service, to use the term loosely, was also atrocious and uncaring.
Until you're like me and you buy a game on GOG and find that it's missing key patches that included fixing game breaking bugs and you reach out to the developers and publishers and hear nothing but silence... this problem is rampant on GOG and nothing ever seems to be done about it... GOG has really been a Catch 22 for me in one too many instances... got me some no-DRM and at the same time got me some outdated, unsupported garbage


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rjbuffchix: I don't have time for a vastly detailed comment at this time, but just wanted to say THANK YOU GOG for taking a vocal stand against DRM and advancing this battle further! It is also a very nice and welcome touch to point out DRM-free avenues of music and books. Also, while I am an avid Galaxy NON-user, and agree with some earlier points raised in this topic that Gwent and some other examples stretch the definition of "DRM-free", I am appreciative a vocal stance against DRM is being made nonetheless. It is sorely needed now more than ever. Mobile gaming apps, games as service, music and movie-streaming as service, comics-as-service...I have seen it all get so much worse in the last decade. All hail "convenience!", at the expense of ownership and the true convenience of having control over what you're paying for. Of course there are some people who can't be reached and for whom this message falls on deaf ears. So be it. The question "why" needs to be encouraged to people at large. For many it will begin to not fall on deaf ears. Currently, not enough people are asking why Scheme is the way it is. Let alone, "why on earth would anyone want to accept that as the standard"?
Agree with all of that, but the fact is... GOG still has a problem getting developers to fully commit to their releases here and see all the necessary patches through to the last one, not cut out halfway or nothing at all... so many games in my GOG library I still have to play the Steam versions because the GOG versions are wildly out of date
Post edited August 22, 2018 by Mawthra
Good on GOG for this, I fully support it. DRM is a factor when I decide how to spend my money, I only only extremely reluctantly purchase a game if it includes intrusive always-on DRM.

There has yet to be DRM invented that stops piracy. It's anti-consumer nonsense that objectively lowers the quality and value of a game.
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Mr.Caine: What a juvenile marketting stunt. But it's perfect for GOG's audience who only wants to be pandered to.
It isn't though. At a LAN with friends, can't play a game together in the same room as we need to log into an online account first and this is rural Australia. Blackout? Can't boot up a laptop and play a game without signing in to Steam/UPlay/etc. Out in an area that simply doesn't have internet? No game. These days I have access to a reasonably stable connection so that particular problem matters less, but blackouts are still a thing in summer (everyone turns on the air con at once, there goes the grid) so that will still cause a hassle.

I've even been at LANs with an internet connection but because I signed in from a different location I was kicked out of Steam. Couldn't access the games so we ended up using cracked versions. Literally right now my Steam is all screwy after I disabled an authenticator on an old phone and then got a new phone. Naturally Steam waited till the old phone service was cut before it then re-added the authenticator and demanded I use the old phone number to verify.

So now I need to find the serial number for the first game I bought which had a Steam key, take a picture of the physical copy, send it to their help desk, and then they'll allow my use my account again. For a screw up on their end.

And the absurd part Is that I like strategy games, a lot of which don't even have multiplayer, yet Steam will still screw with me even when I don't need a connection. It may be a marketing stunt (they've left a few sites out) but it isn't juvenile as I will literally go out of my way to acquire a DRM free copy, even at a higher price, simply to be able to access the product on my own terms. Or I'll buy the game and then use a cracked version. An old RPG, Two Worlds II, was really fun to play. Unfortunately it came with DRM that would require authorising a computer in a set configuration. Change a graphics card? New configuration. Change a network card? New configuration. Fresh install of Windows? Oops, out of configurations, if only you'd de-authorised them before the graphics card caught fire, or the network card was fried, or Windows got a virus bad enough to just format.

It's fine, they did have a way of getting those authorisations back, all I had to do was email information, wait, send emails back and forth, more information, more waiting, more correspondence... Never did get them back.

My copy of Morrowind didn't have that sort of rubbish though so I ended up playing that instead and haven't bought another game from the dev or publisher that made Two Worlds II (Earth 2150 is on GOG but it's the principle of the thing).

If I hand over money in order to play a game then I want to be able to play the bloody game. Anything less is theft.