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DRM-free doesn't mean piracy. GOGs whole business model is built around selling games DRM free. I don't pirate but I do use GOG where possible as I hate DRM - it punishes and inconveniences legitimate users for piracy and doesn't even solve the problem. DRM is just an expensive waste of money for everyone involved.
Make the pay option less shitty than pirating. That’s all it takes.
Gaben taught you well
Half-Life Free confirmed!
The drm-free marketing that gog does has been successful, but it is just marketing. While It's true that games sold on gog are drm-free, every game sold on gog that I've looked into is also drm-free on steam. The only real benefit is that the gog installers are more convenient for backups than using a steam back up tool.
Not saying you're wrong, but there's a lot of peace of mind in knowing everything on the platform is drm free, rather than having to do some research. So it is marketing, but it's also a promise of curation so to speak.
GOG is also a filter too. Everything in the whole store you know is DRM free when with other stores you have to check each game individually.
Steam is also a form of DRM in most cases though either way.
How would you play a DRM-free game bought through steam without steam? (Genuine question)
You just run the executable
So it's possible to download the installer through steam, store it somewhere and ten years later I can just start the installer without having steam on my system?
Asking out of curiosity, I don't use steam, I never thought that would be possible?
You can copy the entire game folder and run it that way, as long as the game is actually DRM free it should work just fine.
So no installer then? Or can you download that separately?
You would use Steam as the installer, or you can buy it on GoG and they will give you an installer for the game. Entirely depends on what game you're trying to copy.
Thank you! I have about 5 games on steam, so I haven't installed it on my system. The only interesting one is Doom 2016, so for a moment I thought I could download the installer as a backup without having to use steam anymore in the future when I do want to play it again. Would have been nice. Thanks for clarifying!
I don't think it is because even Steam games without DRM are still modified to work with Steam for things like achievements. There may be games without DRM and without achievements but if a game has either of them it will not work without it.
I think they'll still work without Steam, otherwise you couldn't play them offline either
They work without reaching the Steam online service, but they need Steam installed.
Yeah, that makes sense. Does kinda suck.
Steam isn't DRM. They offer a (very weak and basic) DRM for free for developers to use but they don't have too.
For a lot of games you can just install them using steam and then uninstall steam and the games will continue to work.
You mustn't have looked at many games then. As someone who 95% only buys games from GOG, and has a wishlist of 190+ games, the vast majority of the games on the wishlist have DRM in their Steam versions.
No, Baldur's Gate 3 is a cracked release on the steam version.
it's a weird case where it only uses steam API and does not hard check it. It attempts to check if the currently associated steam account is allowed to play it and shuts down if you don't, but does not do anything else if it can't detect an account (such as if you have no steam) and launch normally.
it punishes and inconveniences legitimate users for piracy and doesn't even solve the problem.
IDK about that, the only person who can crack denuvo is empress and she doesn't crack all games, so I guess it atleast reduces piracy for a while. I agree however that DRM shouldn't exist.
Enshitification of DRM with denuvo going subscription model has become an unexpected ally in DRM getting removed even if it doesn't get cracked.
Yeah, from the leaked Crytek contract it revealed that devs have to pay again every year or remove it, which means Sega is extremely hostile since they still pay for denuvo on years old games like Persona 5 Royal.
AFAIK there are devs who remove Denuvo as soon as their game gets cracked, and tbh I don't have too many complaints about that system. That being said, I don't own any games with Denuvo, so I don't know why it's hated so much.
Because it reduces performance. There is no benefit to the consumer. Your game experience is measurably worse because of it.
Get a steam deck and you'll see why.
How? Does the Steam Deck force Denuvo on everything or something?
I like to use steam deck when I travel. Denuvo can refuse to launch without internet connection to reactivate a license. Also if you exceed 5 activations in a day you can't play the game for 24 hours. This includes switching which proton version you use to launch the game, which is sometimes necessary if something like the audio doesn't work properly on the default.
https://www.reddit.com/r/SteamDeck/comments/wymoi9/psa_for_denuvo/
Makes more sense. I had no idea that Denuvo was that unreasonable
Yeah, it's something you shouldn't notice if you always have internet connection, but if you start playing where you won't always have internet connection that's when problems pop up. That's when you appreciate the DRM free games.
No, and it runs denuvo games fine. It's things like EAC or EA Anti-Cheat that break on Deck/Linux.
I think most people understand that DRM and Anti Cheat are done for 2 completely different reasons.
Well, in the context of the Steam Deck, DRM works fine and anti-cheats often don't.
I have no idea why you're talking about the Steam Deck and anti-cheat when the comment I replied to was strictly about Denuvo.
Because Stardust said "Get a Steam Deck and then you'll see why" which makes no sense in the context of Denuvo DRM, hence it is most likely Stardust confusing anti cheat issues for DRM ones. Not that hard to figure out.
DRM exists for more than just games.
Yeah, anytime someone mentions just punishes users, I'm reminded of the time this was really driven home for me.
I was working for a company that did developed tools that worked adjacent to other software and needed to install one piece of software to test my component intended for that program. After using that software at work, I decided to also use it to generate data for a personal project I was doing for fun at home and pirated it.
At work, we obviously used a legit copy and had a business partnership with the company. Their DRM required a dongle and running server software on the machine with the dongle that would issue licenses to clients. I forget the specifics, but we had some problems and it took a few weeks of emailing back and forth with someone from support before I was actually able to get the software running.
At home, I just ran a crack and had it running the same day I decided to use it.
All their fancy DRM just turned into a pain in the ass for the legitimate use and a complete non-issue for those doing what it was intended to prevent in the first place.
To me, the meme acknowledges that GOG installers are shared in groups, which is piracy since the other people didn't pay for it. (That doesn't mean it's bad btw.)
Why wouldn't the friends like it then?
How is the meme acknowledging that GOG installers are shared in groups? This doesn't say anything about sharing anything in a group, other than "My game has no DRM, and yours does"