Lest this fall by the wayside -- I too want direct-IP multiplayer. Multiplayer APIs are great, because they provide easy multiplayer hooks for devs that otherwise might not have multiplayer at all. Depending exclusively on multiplayer APIs, though, means multiplayer dies one day, never to be revived. It's service as a software substitute, which isn't DRM, but has many of the same implications. I love the convenience provided by multiplayer APIs, but direct-IP should not be left out -- both for the sake of player choice and for the sake of long-term preservation.
Frankly, GOG should require that any game that uses Galaxy for multiplayer also have a non-Galaxy multiplayer option -- if not immediately, then within a certain time frame after launch.
(And since I'm tired of seeing GOG users label anything that disables parts of a product "DRM", let me be clear:
no, multiplayer APIs are not DRM. They have many of DRM's long-term effects -- namely, loss of functionality and prevention of preservation -- but they aren't devised as digital locks to prevent you from playing if you can't continually prove you made a legal purchase. Rather, they are convenient middleware: useful in the short term, ugly in the long term. Long-term loss of functionality is simply what happens when you depend on middleware during development. When the middleware goes poof, so do parts of your product. Yes, this is bad for the users, and yes, we should oppose middleware-exclusivity at all points, but it is
not DRM. It is
SaaSS.)
