GOG update their stance on DRM-free, Galaxy as 'optional' for single-player

Quoting: M@GOidOffline mode for AAA titles is pretty much dead by now, since publishers want to milk anything with the label "game" in it. Is simply out of GOG hands. If they want to survive, they had to bend over for the publishers demands or not have a game to sell.

I really wish they would have just no to games that are not 100% playable offline. It's such a headache to find a modern game to play now since one has to do so much research (feels like work more then fun for me) to see if the game is exactly what you want as a DRM FREE gamer.


Last edited by Mezron on 20 March 2022 at 12:20 am UTC

Quoting: pleasereadthemanual

Quoting: ShabbyX

Quoting: pleasereadthemanual

Quoting: areamanplaysgame

Quoting: Mountain ManThere's just too much pressure on the industry to keep games locked down despite the fact that DRM has done nothing to curb piracy in the slightest and only serves to inconvenience the honest paying customer.

I don't think the data actually bear this out, at least in absolute terms. I think there is *some* deterrent effect to DRM on games, if only for the very brief period before it gets cracked, and that might amount to a relatively small but nonzero number of additional sales. On the whole I still think it is philosophically a shitty way to treat customers, but there is almost certainly a marginally legitimate reason it exists.

The reason publishers pay top dollar for Denuvo is to increase their early sales, which tend to make up the most significant portion of their profits. Denuvo doesn't think that it's possible to prevent a game's copy prevention mechanisms from being circumvented forever, but that they can frustrate reverse engineers long enough to convince more people to buy the game.

It would certainly be effective at convincing people who don't buy because they can get it for free to buy the game, but as for people who want a game unencumbered by Denuvo's anti-tamper software or people who simply don't have the money, I don't think it would have much effect. Perhaps the truth is that the second and third groups of people make up such an insignificant portion of the publisher's target market that it isn't worth attempting to appeal to them. The question might be: "how do we convince more people to buy our game without noticeably degrading the experience for our current customers?"

I think we simply don't have data on this, so both of you are really just speculating. Unless some AAA publishers start publishing DRM-free and sales could be compared with those with DRM, and if enough of them do so to get statistical confidence in the results, best we can say is that we don't know if and how much DRM increases sales.

Unfortunately, it seems to me that AAA companies are also mostly speculating, since no one is releasing DRM free to compare, so this has merely become "standard practice" really rather than something that's properly evaluated.

For example, most AAA games make most of their money from console sales where piracy is not possible (right?), PC itself is a niche in gaming FYI. So that does hint that DRM cannot be *that* important.

Also, DRM-free _could_ theoretically increase sales too. If N% of people pirate the game, but recommend it to others and that leads to M% more sales, there is nothing forcing N>M. If nothing, at least word of mouth from pirates does mean that the actual loss is less than N%.

I'm certainly speculating, but if you want a biased source:

90% of visual novel players don't buy the game (the game was bought 50,000 times, but the patch was downloaded 500,000 times)

Most visual novels today are released without DRM. I can think of only one visual novel localizer today that releases the game encumbered with DRM. MangaGamer previously used Soft-Denchi for its DL releases about a decade ago, but didn't include it in physical releases. Their audience helped change their mind, and many other localization companies also followed suit and now only release DRM-Free editions. Even in Japan, most physical releases are unencumbered by DRM today, with some exceptions.

Johren, on the other hand, also localizes games into English but only releases them with always-online DRM for which you only get 3 activations, after which they tell you to purchase another license. They haven't released any numbers, and I doubt they will, but they're a much larger company than most localizers as a DMM operation. Many people openly express distaste for Johren for how badly they feel they're treated as a customer, however. Limited activation, always-online DRM is something that will incense most-everyone, I suppose.

These sources are clearly biased, but do with this information what you will. I think the only thing you can conclude is that it depends on the game. I've always thought the games that don't end up having their DRM circumvented are games that few people are interested in playing.

For what it's worth, visual novels are mostly released on Windows, but there are some console and mobile releases, so PC sales make up most of the overall sales.

So 50k people bought the game and 450k pirated. Your example shows that piracy exists, ok.

But there is no data about what those numbers could have been with DRM; 100k sales and fewer pirates? 50k sales and fewer pirates? 40k sales and whatever pirates? Or did I misunderstand your comment?

Quoting: ShabbyX

Quoting: pleasereadthemanual

Quoting: ShabbyX

Quoting: pleasereadthemanual

Quoting: areamanplaysgame

Quoting: Mountain ManThere's just too much pressure on the industry to keep games locked down despite the fact that DRM has done nothing to curb piracy in the slightest and only serves to inconvenience the honest paying customer.

I don't think the data actually bear this out, at least in absolute terms. I think there is *some* deterrent effect to DRM on games, if only for the very brief period before it gets cracked, and that might amount to a relatively small but nonzero number of additional sales. On the whole I still think it is philosophically a shitty way to treat customers, but there is almost certainly a marginally legitimate reason it exists.

The reason publishers pay top dollar for Denuvo is to increase their early sales, which tend to make up the most significant portion of their profits. Denuvo doesn't think that it's possible to prevent a game's copy prevention mechanisms from being circumvented forever, but that they can frustrate reverse engineers long enough to convince more people to buy the game.

It would certainly be effective at convincing people who don't buy because they can get it for free to buy the game, but as for people who want a game unencumbered by Denuvo's anti-tamper software or people who simply don't have the money, I don't think it would have much effect. Perhaps the truth is that the second and third groups of people make up such an insignificant portion of the publisher's target market that it isn't worth attempting to appeal to them. The question might be: "how do we convince more people to buy our game without noticeably degrading the experience for our current customers?"

I think we simply don't have data on this, so both of you are really just speculating. Unless some AAA publishers start publishing DRM-free and sales could be compared with those with DRM, and if enough of them do so to get statistical confidence in the results, best we can say is that we don't know if and how much DRM increases sales.

Unfortunately, it seems to me that AAA companies are also mostly speculating, since no one is releasing DRM free to compare, so this has merely become "standard practice" really rather than something that's properly evaluated.

For example, most AAA games make most of their money from console sales where piracy is not possible (right?), PC itself is a niche in gaming FYI. So that does hint that DRM cannot be *that* important.

Also, DRM-free _could_ theoretically increase sales too. If N% of people pirate the game, but recommend it to others and that leads to M% more sales, there is nothing forcing N>M. If nothing, at least word of mouth from pirates does mean that the actual loss is less than N%.

I'm certainly speculating, but if you want a biased source:

90% of visual novel players don't buy the game (the game was bought 50,000 times, but the patch was downloaded 500,000 times)

Most visual novels today are released without DRM. I can think of only one visual novel localizer today that releases the game encumbered with DRM. MangaGamer previously used Soft-Denchi for its DL releases about a decade ago, but didn't include it in physical releases. Their audience helped change their mind, and many other localization companies also followed suit and now only release DRM-Free editions. Even in Japan, most physical releases are unencumbered by DRM today, with some exceptions.

Johren, on the other hand, also localizes games into English but only releases them with always-online DRM for which you only get 3 activations, after which they tell you to purchase another license. They haven't released any numbers, and I doubt they will, but they're a much larger company than most localizers as a DMM operation. Many people openly express distaste for Johren for how badly they feel they're treated as a customer, however. Limited activation, always-online DRM is something that will incense most-everyone, I suppose.

These sources are clearly biased, but do with this information what you will. I think the only thing you can conclude is that it depends on the game. I've always thought the games that don't end up having their DRM circumvented are games that few people are interested in playing.

For what it's worth, visual novels are mostly released on Windows, but there are some console and mobile releases, so PC sales make up most of the overall sales.

So 50k people bought the game and 450k pirated. Your example shows that piracy exists, ok.

But there is no data about what those numbers could have been with DRM; 100k sales and fewer pirates? 50k sales and fewer pirates? 40k sales and whatever pirates? Or did I misunderstand your comment?

Sorry; not sure how I misinterpreted your response like that initially or what point I was trying to argue. If there were any point of comparison I'd try to draw, it would probably be between Mangagamer before and after they dropped their DRM. I don't have the numbers from before, but I'd surmise that making all of their releases DRM-Free resulted in an insignificant difference in sales.

The reason I bought up Johren and every other English localizer is because it certainly illustrates the trend that you were talking about with larger publishers installing DRM (likely because it costs money, and they have more of it) and smaller publishers forgoing it.

I certainly have no idea how you would test the effects DRM versus DRM-Free, as it varies by industry and likely by game. I would speculate that for Visual Novels, DRM or DRM-Free makes very little impact on sales. But for popular AAA games, I would speculate that it makes a significant difference, at least for early sales.

You're right; I don't know. The publishers might know, but I'd guess they're using DRM because they instinctively want to protect their "intellectual property". The conversation shifted at some point from "protecting intellectual property" to "increasing early sales", at least for large publishers, but I wonder if that instinct ever went away.

At least a lot of smaller publishers no longer see much of a need for it anymore.

i tgink the last point ShabbyX was trying to make is that those 90% that pirated the game wouldn't necessarily have bought the game instead...

it's one thing to get it for free, another to have to pay for it (and yet another to have to pay a lot, like for AAA games, and for gamers in poorer regions) if you're not that strongly interested

there are gamers who pirate a game to test it, then end up buying it later, or the sequels, etc... I'm not claiming to know if that's proportionally big or small, just that it exists and that we don't know how it affects the "with vs. without DRM" scenarios for a single game

there are also clever f...cks like Blizzard (I have to curse them given the current news), who used CD-key and CD-detection DRM on games like Starcraft, then years later released an official patch removing the DRM features from it (~ 1 decade after the initial sales, iirc?)

mother of all conjectures: would PC gaming even have become such a big thing in so many countries if there was no way to pirate software back when it started?! or would it have been just prohibitively expensive for too long?

ps: from personal experience, demos and a couple pirated games got me into it, now I have several hundred games just on steam, all legally purchased

pps: migrating to linux got me into not risking shady software sources on my PC, and that got me out of viruses and into steam for games

Quoting: Marlocki tgink the last point ShabbyX was trying to make is that those 90% that pirated the game wouldn't necessarily have bought the game instead...

it's one thing to get it for free, another to have to pay for it (and yet another to have to pay a lot, like for AAA games, and for gamers in poorer regions) if you're not that strongly interested

there are gamers who pirate a game to test it, then end up buying it later, or the sequels, etc... I'm not claiming to know if that's proportionally big or small, just that it exists and that we don't know how it affects the "with vs. without DRM" scenarios for a single game

there are also clever f...cks like Blizzard (I have to curse them given the current news), who used CD-key and CD-detection DRM on games like Starcraft, then years later released an official patch removing the DRM features from it (~ 1 decade after the initial sales, iirc?)

mother of all conjectures: would PC gaming even have become such a big thing in so many countries if there was no way to pirate software back when it started?! or would it have been just prohibitively expensive for too long?

ps: from personal experience, demos and a couple pirated games got me into it, now I have several hundred games just on steam, all legally purchased

pps: migrating to linux got me into not risking shady software sources on my PC, and that got me out of viruses and into steam for games

Yes. More formally:

* A people buy the game regardless
* B people buy only if they can't pirate
* C people only play if they can pirate
* D people *can't* buy the game due to price or embargo, so can only play if they can pirate (I was one of those when I was small)
* E people buy the game after trying the demo (that they may have to pirate)
* F people buy the game on recommendation of a pirate
* G people become gamers due to piracy (e.g. myself) and then buy other games years later when they grow up

I'm gonna go ahead and claim that the effect of DRM on the above variables has not seen enough research, so everyone is just speculating about whether it helps, doesn't do anything, or it's harmful (to devs' income, no debate here on its harm to users)

---

And on your conjecture, I think we can all agree that windows and ms office would definitely not have been ubiquitous if it weren't for piracy. As for gaming itself, I know I wouldn't have been a gamer if it weren't for piracy, and I'm sure that applies to many others. Can't really say if gaming wouldn't have thrived without it though, it clearly thrives on consoles without piracy.

Tbh, I'm going to continue supporting GOG and purchasing from them.

I'm sorry but that's my decision. Of course I also use Steam because I support all the work they are and have been doing for the tux community.

Now, technically GOG is still DRM free.

Remember what DRM actually is for a moment:
Digital Rights Management

Aka, controlling what you can or cannot do with the files you've downloaded.

Multiplayer features are not a DRM, even if they require online. Because it doesn't change your rights with what you can or cannot do with the games files.

Now I understand Hitman apparently required online to use some single player features from what I have heard. Technically that was a form of DRM but also not at the same time. Since you could still freely copy and run the game on any computer.

With that said, I noticed earlier someone in the thread mentioned point 2 featuring the text "and downloaded".

This isn't a restriction or threat so to speak, it's just the simple reality. The fact is, unless you downloaded it then nobody can guarantee your access to it. For example if GOG fails as a business, and you can't play the game because you can't download it anymore, that's not a DRM nor GOGs fault, it's just a sad cost of losing a business.

Arguably you don't really have access to the game until you've downloaded it anyway, so it's your responsibility to do that.

Anyway, GOG is arguably our last chance to have games without heavy DRM. So I'm going to support them.

For example, most GOG games for years you could load up in Wine without needing some random NoCD patch. That's a great feature within itself. (Remember years ago, even if you had the CD, the CD check would fail in wine)

Additionally if you use Lutris you really don't need the galaxy client. Now if Lutris didn't require me to open my steam game library publicly, I might use it for my steam games more often too 😀

Unfortunately I prefer having my libraries private, so Lutris's steam integration is a little cumbersome.

Quoting: pleasereadthemanualIt would certainly be effective at convincing people who don't buy because they can get it for free to buy the game, but as for people who want a game unencumbered by Denuvo's anti-tamper software or people who simply don't have the money, I don't think it would have much effect.

I don't know. Maybe I'm not the typical case, but while I think DRM is generally bullshit, I am too old to download cracked games or tools to crack games. I have no clue where that shit comes from and I don't trust it.

Quoting: pleasereadthemanualI've personally never had DRM preventing me from playing a game—assuming I was using Windows, of course. Singleplayer games that require an internet connection to play are something everyone is willing to raise their pitchforks over, but these are far and few between.

The problem is no longer that DRM is ineffective and inconveniences customers.

I have had this issue, and recently (though it was an older game). I bought one of the older Assassin's Creed games on Steam and the damned Ubisoft launcher kept prompting me for a CD key. I assume there is a workaround for this, but it was not worth it to me to find out how, and I returned the game instead.

Quoting: areamanplaysgame

Quoting: pleasereadthemanualIt would certainly be effective at convincing people who don't buy because they can get it for free to buy the game, but as for people who want a game unencumbered by Denuvo's anti-tamper software or people who simply don't have the money, I don't think it would have much effect.

I don't know. Maybe I'm not the typical case, but while I think DRM is generally bullshit, I am too old to download cracked games or tools to crack games. I have no clue where that shit comes from and I don't trust it.

From what I've heard, you're an exception. But I agree with you. You can't trust any executable binary unless you have some amazing reverse engineering skills. Random executables you find on a torrent site should be the least trustworthy. But this isn't just about downloading a cracked version of the game—it's about increasing sales. The goal of DRM is to increase sales by preventing customers from sharing files. Would you buy the game if the only option was DRM? If you only want games that are unencumbered, probably not.

Quoting: areamanplaysgame

Quoting: pleasereadthemanualI've personally never had DRM preventing me from playing a game—assuming I was using Windows, of course. Singleplayer games that require an internet connection to play are something everyone is willing to raise their pitchforks over, but these are far and few between.

The problem is no longer that DRM is ineffective and inconveniences customers.

I have had this issue, and recently (though it was an older game). I bought one of the older Assassin's Creed games on Steam and the damned Ubisoft launcher kept prompting me for a CD key. I assume there is a workaround for this, but it was not worth it to me to find out how, and I returned the game instead.

For Windows? I face these issues with DRM regularly for visual novels on GNU/Linux through WINE, but never have on Windows. Though I've only been playing games for ~10 years.

Quoting: pleasereadthemanualFor Windows? I face these issues with DRM regularly for visual novels on GNU/Linux through WINE, but never have on Windows. Though I've only been playing games for ~10 years.

It was in Steam on Linux, using Proton, but when looking for a solution, I learned that people attempting to play several Ubisoft games on Windows have experienced the same issue.

Quoting: areamanplaysgame

Quoting: pleasereadthemanualFor Windows? I face these issues with DRM regularly for visual novels on GNU/Linux through WINE, but never have on Windows. Though I've only been playing games for ~10 years.

It was in Steam on Linux, using Proton, but when looking for a solution, I learned that people attempting to play several Ubisoft games on Windows have experienced the same issue.

Well, that's embarrassing. I suppose I should say that most publishers are able to ship games with DRM that does work for all intended customers today.