ZOMG Pyrite.

Out of curiosity I have searched multiple torrents before to look for gog games and consistantly find the same 4 or 5 games and thats it. And even then they arent in abundance.

I chaulk it up as several reasons why.

1) Gog games are cheap, as in cheap as hell. PLus they consistantly have deals on multiple games which make them even cheaper. So a lot of people arent breaking their wallets just buying 1 single game for 60 bucks. You can come here and get 6 or 7 or more games for the price of one new one which to me is amazing and I am grateful for gog's great pricing.

2) There is no DRM with gog. That makes me personally be more of a fan of this site because I F'ing hate drm. I hate paying so much for a game that has a cd check, a registration code, online activation, online internet connection required to play, limited amounts of instals and all this other intrusive stuff that is basically a legal malware. I dont like paying 60 bucks for a game with that shit, it doesnt make me a loyal customer. But gog's constant stand again drm makes me respect them more and makes me more willing to give them my money.

3) Gog actually seems to give a toss about games. Yes gog is in business to make money, thats what a business does and I have no illusions about it. But, gog like I said has cheap pricing, no drm and they dont intrude on me to try and sell me on stuff as they seem to have this relaxed and groovy style of "Hey, we got some good games here if your interested. Talk to you later". They never came off as out for my money or done anything strictly for the sake of money. I mean hell no one in their right mind would re-release 50% of gogs selection for the sake of "just trying to make money", they released that 50% because they want to get games out most of us normally couldnt get. Yeah the whole site is down publicity stunt back fired but aside from that they have always been about the games first and foremost.

4) I see them reply on the forums actually replying to posts and they shockingly address the topic, I sent them a email about a problem once and the reply to it didnt sound like some asshole from india sending me a pre-written and pre-approved response pulled from a pre-selected list of responses based on my questions keywords and had the personality of a dvd player instruction manual.

Gog probablly has a low piracy rate because people like them. I mean if acitivion wasnt constantly raping wallets and bobby kotick didnt constantly sound like a greedy, shameless and condescending prick people wouldnt pirate their stuff as much.

When gog releases a game I want I have no problems what so ever of giving them my money because I know its going to a good place and my money will help fund even more good game releases by them.

This place cares about us playing games on our own terms and they get their returns. When we see how well and what items they have we support them. That's why I think this place is so great and their items are not circling the net like other major company software are.

Nuff said.

I agree with many things you said, but just want to point out that they are probably not so important. You and me and all other customers of GOG probably have enough money to spend freely and don't want to do too many illegal things. So we buy the games.

In order to get a real pirate's opinion you probably have to ask somewhere else. Why paying if you can get something for free.

The big companies have a bad reputation and GOG being small has a good reputation. That helps too but it's partly artificial, i.e. not backed up by facts. E.g. I don't remember using a single extra of one of my GOG games although it's nice to have them and the customer support is from all I've heard and seen of average quality.

That we talk about piracy or that the games on GOG are pirateable?

If the former, maybe, though it's not like sweeping it under the rug will do anything.
If the later, it's not like EA games aren't already pirateable.

No, it is not. The reason you're not getting EA games, is the way EA is structured. EA US is in charge for US releases, EA UK is for UK releases, and so on.

GOG have to get permission from EVERY EA branch out there.
You don't know where to look for, then. Every GOG game is available at X. ;)

And yet you used your post to complain that you couldnt do that instead of doing it.

Allow me to add this on your behalf my good man

C'mon, with a lot of abandonware sites around, why would it be a problem for someone to download some oldgame if GoG versions would not be available. Surely, a lot of people here played the same games they later purchased from GoG, and let's be honest - not all of them and not always bought them legally.

When watching the YT video of the press conference there was this link to the answer for one of the christmas question contest (Does the Witcher 2 Preorder mean that GOG will start offering more new games?). The answer was along the lines that bringing TW2 to GOG is an opportunity that cannot be missed, that they would be open for other AAA titles if the publishers could accept the 'GOG philosophy', but that it also could be that TW2 will be the only AAA title ever being released DRM free, and that they are told very often that TW2 will probably be pirated like hell.

The release date of TW2 is coming nearer and this will be a big test for the DRM free model on the AAA scale. The interest in TW2 will probably be higher than even Baldurs Gate or any other title on GOG so far and the price is much higher - it's not a bargain like GOG's titles. More incentives for piracy.

I am convinced that the DRM free property of TW2 will not make much difference in offering a non-copyrighted version of TW2 on a torrent -breaking the SecuRom will not be impossible. However piracy cannot be made any more easier than downloading here and starting to distribute. But in the end, the difference is maybe only a couple of hours.

However the question is: will TW2 be pirated like hell?

Even if it is not the fault of the DRM free approach, a high piracy occurence will surely be used as an argument against DRM free. I don't comply with it, I just say what I think will happen.

If you say that piracy cannot be stopped effectively now, than anyway only the paying customers matter. TW2 is so rich with additional content - this seems like the best they can do against piracy. It would be so interesting to get to know how sales are distributed relatively on the DRM free and DRM full channel.

The Witcher 2 will be pirated regardless of if it has DRM or not. In very general terms as far as piracy goes: At most you'll get a day or two before some guy named =xXx=DaRkFiRe=xXx= strips out the protection, writes a .NFO trashing other warez groups and giving props to his buddies, and sticks it up on Usenet, where it's downloaded and distributed to torrent sites and cyberlockers by other pirates, who may or may not re-brand it as their own release or add viruses to it.

That is, If it didn't get leaked before the release date.

You're right. Here you can skip the first part and directly distribute the DRM free version, giving props to GOG. In this way, a relatively known virus free version should be available almost instantaneously. And since TW2 will get pirated, somebody will state that the DRM free model isn't funtional. I don't comply with it, but I am sure, it will happen.

Hmm... can't remember the last time I got a virus from using a crack... Oh wait, I can!

Never! :p

And then when you say "Ah! But it would be pirated regardless of DRM, Why punish the consumer?" they go right back to "It will be pirated therefore it needs DRM to protect it." It's like talking to hippies about nuclear power.

Probably because you get them from a site that checks their files before uploading them.

And I was mainly referring to actual software piracy instead of cracks. Basically what some people do is they take a regular release from a warez group, add a virus, trojan, etc, to it and then re-upload it to a public torrent site or wherever where plenty of fools can download it. The main reasons I've heard of for doing this are either to build up a botnet or to make other release groups look bad.

I actually learned about GOGs existence after seeing more than 30 of their games on a usenet indexing site.

Anyway I am glad to have found the site and gladly pay for the superior service offered (even though I have bought most of the games once earlier)

I would assume the primary reason is since they're old games, the games already have torrents for them.

*shrug*

Though I'm sure there are people who simply post torrents for things that already have torrents as some sort of metaphorical penis pump replacement, but that's an entirely different topic.