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..

So I'm a Steam "fanboi" for simply stating the obvious fact that it has the best support for indie games AND the obvious fact that a considerable chunk of GOG's userbase riots at the mere thought of ANY DLC (despite the fact that DLC has existed in PC games in the form of expansion packs for two decades). Or even the fact that some of GOG's userbase doesn't want any "new" games at all and some went ballistic at the thought of Defender's Quest "phoning home" (the vast majority of mobile games do this).
Never mind the fact that I've used GOG extensively for numerous older titles that absolutely no other site would bother going through the trouble to make run on current systems. Or the fact that I actually have bought some indies on sale on Steam (Grimrock, FTL). People like you are the reason most people will avoid GOG's community like the plague and how the "elitist" PC gamer sterotype got started.

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.
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.

But that's exactly what a stretch goal is. They reach what they had originally needed, and then put the extra money into making the game better for everyone. I didn't preorder Planetary Annihilation and get the Lava Planets and Water Planets DLC for free because I preordered, I helped to fund the creation of a video game which included lava and water planets and the core game had better include those.
And really, the same thing could be said about DRM-free. People didn't preorder to get an exclusive DRM free copy as a thank you for preordering, they funded a game that said:
"How will this game be distributed when it's released to the public? What about DRM-free?"
"For PC/Mac/Linux, the game will be available DRM-free from our website."
From their FAQ.

http://www.kickstarter.com/blog/kickstarter-is-not-a-store

Since when is buying a game getting it for free? If someone pays $20 or whatever for Planetary Annihilation after release they aren't getting content for free, they are paying for a game.

At least I know have a good example to point out whenever someone claims "Developer's aren't the problem, they are just like us. it's the evil publishers that make them do these things!"

Enough with the hate guys. There are plenty of other negative things to hate in this world like hunger, violence against women and war.

If you want a refund just go email HBS and voice your dissatisfaction to them. Dont spew hatred against us kinsfolk. You have to understand that they wanted to release it without DRM but in the end they had to bow to MS just so that we can play Shadowrun. without them kowtowing with MS we would never have any Shadowrun to play with and that is a sad thing.

Cant we just get along here?

FASA's long gone. Assuming that MS haven't sold any IP, it's all theirs. But a licensing agreement that dictates DRM as a requirement makes no sense. Unless there's more to it than that. Hell if the DRM in question was GFWL it would make more sense. It would be unforgivable, but it would at least make some sense as to why MS would require that.

I'm going to stop responding to you. It's obvious that you're either a troll or too stupid to comprehend the situation. In either case I've wasted too much time on you.

If you can't figure out why I said that, go back and look at how ignorant your posts are. You're flopping back and forth on your arguments and completely ignoring other people's views.

Yeah, I find that part weird too. I don't claim to get it at all, just pointing out that from what the HBS has said this is entirely a licensing agreement contractual issue.

I used your post, but I only did so because I'd seen "publisher" in so many I thought it worthwhile to make the correction.

Sigh, you are of course right.

I agree, I was playing the devils advocate here ;)

There are a few possibilities here. One is that this is a very unique arrangement brought about by Harebrained appearing quite desperate to get the rights and MS seeing just how much they can get away with.

Another possibility is that this is way more like a publishing deal than Harebrained is letting on. Maybe there's a distribution deal like the one Valve has with EA (note the complete lack of EA logo on Valve's boxed games). But even that doesn't explain the DRM as EA doesn't dictate DRM to Valve nor is in a position to.

Whatever's going on it strikes me that Harebrained simply got a shitty deal because they don't have the clout or the lawyers to get a better one.

Personally what I find pretty silly in those kind of discussion is how some peoples oppose DRM vs DRM-free while in reality the opposition is between using Steam-features and not using Steam-features. All the Steam features would be perfectly possible with 100% DRM-free games, even Steam could offer DRM-free games while keeping achievements, auto-patching, cloud saves, etc... if they wanted to.

That's one of the reason why I hope that someday GoG will release a fully featured optional client with as many Steam-like features as possible, maybe it would finally help some peoples understand that playing DRM-free doesn't necessarily means having to code the patches yourself in assembly. Also IMHO doing so is probably the only way for GoG to have a long term chance to survive Steam total take over of PC gaming. (At least until streaming destroy both)


Concerning Shadowrun, that's disappointing even thought a part of me was suspecting that something similar would happen...it's just that SW wasn't the most likely candidate (and sadly it's the second game I backed for which it happened).

Oh well, that's the risk with Kickstarter, sometime you win, sometime you lose... time to write an e-mail to HBS...

That wasn't the best analogy. "People should not pe pissed at crimes then." I mean, really?

I've frequently argued that the features people like about Steam have absolutely nothing to do with the DRM. Steam's DRM could disappear tomorrow and as long as people still got their patches, achievements, friends lists and whatever else, people would still be 100% happy with Steam.

It's sad no one else has managed to do something similar sans DRM, but you kind of need critical mass or money to start, which makes it a catch 22.