[ktallett]

I've had to take a moral stance and move to just playing games on Gog that I can buy and own the files for. No I can't play the latest and greatest but it's not the end of the world as I've so many classics to still play and enjoy. I can't support lockdown and DRM anymore. If I buy I want to own, otherwise I've not bought. It is true, if buying isn't owning, then piracy isn't stealing.

[rpdillon]

Right where I've landed as well. I just won't buy titles with Denuvo DRM, ever, no matter how much I want the game.

Was pleasantly surprised to find Doom Eternal is now on GOG a couple of days ago. If you're willing to wait, some AAA titles show up that previously had draconian DRM.

[mjevans]

I'm willing to buy on Steam, however not with intrusive DRM. Nor with 3rd party store requirements (like EA games on Steam).

E.G. I'd like to own a copy of the modern Persona games. I'm in no particular rush. If the studios want my money when they're on sale for like 50% off launch price, gain some profit per sale and additional sales by axing the useless DRM.

[EspadaV9]

Exactly the same. I haven't played an Persona game but hear it come up on some podcasts and wanted to try it out. In fact, P5R is on sale right now for 80% off and would happily pay the A$20 for it, but it still includes Denuvo.

[merelysounds]

Surprisingly, there were DRM games praised for good UX, only these were hardware releases.

When Switch 1 launched, it got re-releases (eg: Diablo 3) that were: 1. complete editions with DLCs, 2. came on a cartridge that one could swap between devices or sell, 3. supported offline play.

Online game stores were supposed to offer better UX than hardware releases. I find it interesting, and perhaps a sign of how bad the online experience can get, that the opposite can happen too.

[danlitt]

Likewise, I will not even consider paying for games (or music) that don't have an unencumbered download option. If the game is open source I will usually buy it without even thinking very hard about whether I'll play it.

[Ferret7446]

Generally any game you can buy on GoG is also DRM free on Steam. I mention since many people have the incorrect notion that all Steam games have DRM

[pdpi]

There's still a difference — GOG provides you with downloadable installers you can archive, Steam doesn't.

[galleywest200]

You can archive the installed files from Steam though. An example is the pixel art program Aseprite. The devs said just to copy the binary out of the Steam folder and place it elsewhere if you wish.

[tpoacher]

That's still not "archiving" though. It's one thing to download the installer, and quite another to install the game and copy the files hoping it will all still work. Especially on windows when registry entries are involved.

[ray023]

You have no clue what you are talking about. Registry entries that are required by games are like a thing of the past for like 25 years or something.

I am a heavy pirate and I my favorite games come as raw files torrents with the crack pre-applied. Games these days (with DRM removed) simply execute no matter where you copy and move them they just work. The cracks themselves do not modify any registry entries or make the game write them new or differently because they simply do not use the registry. Games write their savegames in AppData or Documents and THAT IS IT. Installers are glorified copy machines with ads on them (GOG) for example. They copy files and put a shortcut in your start menu and desktop and THAT IS IT, they do not write special registry entries for a game to work. Again this has not been a thing for like 25 years. I think it was when SecureROM was a thing.

So yes some steam games actually come DRM free, and you do not even have to move them out of the original steam install folder you just need to execute the EXE without steam running and they work. So indeed it is in fact achieving if you simply keep the files somewhere. For game with basic steam DRM you can use a crack or use steamless that basically removes the steam DRM that is very basic from the exe and use Goldberg Steam Emu to emulate steam. You do all this after the fact so you CAN for all the game that to not have some advanced DRM like Denovo just achieve the games files and make them work later on without Steam.

[h4x0rr]

But it won't launch without being logging into your steam account

[seba_dos1]

It will if it's DRM-free. The login check is an optional call that the developer has to intentionally use. Usually if you're a small developer releasing a DRM-free game you'd make your game degrade gracefully if Steamworks doesn't work, so you can publish the same builds on Steam and on any other store.

[dns_snek]

99% of games that use that sort of protection can be cracked in about 5 minutes by simply copying a steam emulator library into the game folder.

[Oxodao]

thus is not truely DRM free.

I love steam but even if it can barely be called a DRM, it still is. People not into computer science will have no clue how to do it, and that's what matters when talking about owning your own games, you should not require knowledge to keep something you paid for

[Ferret7446]

If you really want an installer, just pack the files into a self extracting archive. But IMO the loose files are easier to work with than an installer.

Or are you misunderstanding the fact that you can just copy/back up the Steam game and play it anywhere. That's why I say many people have that misconception about Steam games

[close04]

The real difference is that for Steam the bulk of the catalog is made up of DRM games and that sends a message. As far as I know Steam isn't actively doing anything to promote "DRM free" in general, they just don't say no to the opportunity to sell those games too.

GOG on the other hand takes an active stance on promoting and supporting DRM-free games. Once storefronts like GOG disappear I don't think Steam will pick up the torch and fight the DRM-free fight. Once Gabe is no longer in charge it might just get overall worse for everyone, although fingers crossed Steam can at least continue as it is.

[Semaphor]

> the bulk of the catalog is made up of DRM games

Is it? Is there even a list of them? I know some are, some aren’t. Sometimes it’s even mixed (e.g. Pathfinder Kingmaker is DRM free, the DLCs use Steamworks DRM). As you say, they aren’t promoting it, but I’m not sure they expose that information at all.

[cardanome]

While Valve isn't the worst company when you buy on GoG you support a company dedicated to keeping things DRM free and preserving older games. Plus fight the Steam monopoly.

[mitkebes]

If GoG starts supporting linux I'll be happy to support them.

[nickserv]

They do, there will be a Linux penguin on the supported OSes list if the game has native support for Linux. If the game doesn't have native support, and you buy the game on a Linux machine, it will warn you about possible incompatibility.

In any case the reality is that every game I've bought on GOG has worked pretty much perfectly on Wine, I use winetricks. The main problem with Windows games these days is the DRM which on Wine will crash. Good thing GOG games don't come with any.

[aidenn0]

It's a website; it works just fine on Linux.

If you want a fancy launcher, there's always Heroic.

[Oxodao]

Note that they recently were hiring someone to work on the Galaxy launcher for Linux

[ray023]

GOG and CDPR are not the good guys. They released a complete disaster of an unfinished game with CP2077, and they KNEW it was broken and still shipped this gigantic pile of trash. Their promo also included a bunch of made up hype trash that was completely just artificially created in video, and they made it seem like it was gameplay. So they LIED to hype their unfinished trash game. Much of that never made it to the game.

Also even the fixed game now is just a silly boring sandbox game, what makes it good is the story, but It's for sure overrated. I enjoyed it but still overrated.

They also censor for the CCP, the removed the game Devotion because it had a JOKE inside that was not even visible to the normal player you needed to get out of your way to see some devroom or something with it. The BLACKLISTED a game simply because they make a JOKE of the Chinese president.

All big companies are EVIL by definition. Do not act like they are the good guys because they grift of selling games without DRM, they sell them at higher prices to make big money. They grew into this immoral dirt megacorp.

[Dilettante_]

>Also even the fixed game now is just a silly boring sandbox game, what makes it good is the story

Insane statement

[fl0ki]

It's even weirder than that sometimes. For example, Subnautica on Steam has a hard dependency on Steam (whether or not you would call this DRM), but the exact same version number of Subnautica on Epic Game Store only checks for a command line flag and can easily be archived out. Despite that, it's not for sale on GOG.