hedwards: But, OTOH, I backed it so that people would be entitled to have a DRM free option available, and that's the aspect which bothers me the most. I wouldn't mind the Steam option being an option, but it's hard for consumers to vote with their dollars if the option is buy or don't buy, having GOG or a DRM free option would permit people to say that they want the game, but don't want the DRM.
You know how I feel about DRM, I won't lie, I would love everyone in the world to get it DRM free. I hoped that'd be true, it turned out it never could have been. Perhaps I was non-observant of a promise made that they'd sell DRM free, but since I never noticed such a promise, I'm just thrilled that I'm getting a brand new game, with amazing tools, that is DRM free.
That alone is a big step forward in my book. If DRM proponents are to be believed this will mean the end of all Steam sales anyway (we both know that's not true, of course). Instead it's going to stand as an example of a game that went out DRM free and sold anyway.
I don't know why an IP agreement would specify something like "must be sold with DRM". If I really had to guess I'd guess someone from MS legal pointed this out to them after KS launch. But hey, maybe they did fib, I really don't know. I do know they took a pretty big risk on KS this game anyway and I never thought we'd get another Shadowrun game.
The final thing that I kind of like about this, even if it's not ideal, is it proves that KS is not a pre-order system. Backers really do sometimes get more stuff, and I think that's kind of cool.
Sorry you're having a rotten week or whatever, hate those myself. I can see why you're disappointed about the fact there will be no DRM purchase channel. That does suck. I do think the DRM free backer game will be just fine. I could be totally wrong about that, but I think the odds are good that it'll be great.
Anecdote since I've actually been through this before. Backers for Project Giana (which became Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams) got a couple of extra costumes. The devs gave us DRM free copies of the game, but they could only deliver the DLC costumes via Steam (we got Steam codes too). It took maybe a week before a user ported the files over and wrote simple instructions. The devs made a new KS Update and shared it with everyone, it worked, it was easy. Yeah an executable would have been easier but in the end we still got our toys in every form. I really think that's easily possible here. Yes, a few mods might make use of non-free DLC assets, even those might get ported by the crafty (again maybe not). I bet if they do HBS will turn a blind eye, I think everyone will.
yinan: I see ur point, but there are some backer who pledged because final game is drm free with support same with steam version...This backer never pledged if HBS told the people this issue..
And I think those people have the right to be upset, even if I disagree on many of their points. I'm mostly nit-picking unjustified entitlement at this point, I'm not really interested in dissecting the rest of it at this time, it's not going to result in anyone changing their mind.