This is what I'm hoping for.

The thing that keeps me from investing into online games is the fact that it's just like renting. Suddenly they will close down the servers and then everything is gone forever.

But if we would be allowed to set up our own servers and play forever that would be really nice.

I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who for years and years have been here on the forums writing posts about DRM and politely and strongly pushing back whenever GOG feels pressured by game companies to allow things they really shouldn't if they are to get their games.

I believe that your continuous good arguments and knowledgeable post on the matter is what is helping GOG stay on their good path, and that any movement away from it is going slow.

The time you spend fighting for our DRM-free gaming is much appreciated!

To those who feel like there's no point in posting about it because there have been so few DRM-ish things anyway: we might have had a lot more if these forum posters hadn't been here to remind GOG of their roots :) Many big game companies are scared of DRM-free and GOG has to struggle getting games from them so I understand it can be difficult to stay the path without a lil bit of support and reminding :)


So thank you all for commenting and discussing the very important subject of DRM-free, and thank you GOG for all the DRM-free games you have brought us! :)

This is another problem entirely. If achievements or multi-player require DRM exclusively to work then what's the point? It seems like GOG's hands are tied here.

That'd be nice.

I know my opinion probably does not matter much but Great post. Not Joking

You're right and I agree with this sentiment. Mine was a combination of feeling nice and not being clear. That is, I have abandoned hope long ago that we could have a thriving world of DRM-free stores, so I concede the fact that these games are going to exist elsewhere (barring something like a videogame industry crash, essentially). This of course isn't to say DRM-free can't be a successful business model; to the contrary, niche markets can be very successful and, as you have seen, I have advocated for years GOG embrace such an approach instead of trying to be "Scheme Jr". I am just saying that when it comes to things like Scheme, outright rental services, etc, there's no putting the toothpaste back in the tube with them, so they're completely hopeless. By contrast, a place like GOG had hope. But, now I think that is gone entirely, and I'm surprised no one is making a bigger deal of it. I may make a new topic along these lines if I am able. Seriously, if GOG is saying they're accepting games that are not in the category of "DRM-free", this is a huge deal with ramifications for customers going forward. This is bigger news than the Hitman release/removal.

Apologies for late response. There is a forum topic you may be aware of which lists various offending releases on this store; e.g. online requirement for multiplayer, online requirement and third party account requirement for multiplayer, Cyberpunk content "bonus" locked behind Galaxy client requirement, etc. So, already there are releases that don't pass a "100% DRM-free" standard. But yes, I am primarily looking to the future, as opening the floodgates to such online requirement releases would make it even harder to find actual DRM-free games.

I suppose whether or not you see this as an issue depends on how you look at it. When I read "Why buy on GOG.COM?", I interpret the message to be a general statement applicable to all of GOG, not as a statement describing the specific game on whose page it is printed.

If the message were "Why buy GAME TITLE on GOG.COM?", then it would be clear that the message was applicable to only that specific game, but "Why buy on GOG.COM?" at the very least implies that it applies to the entire website.

Having multiplayer-only games on the store that have self-hosted server options I think is pretty non-controversial. That way the game is not reliant on official servers, which inevitably get discontinued or players who may want a custom/controlled experience.

The framing of the subject I think gets a little muddied when the distinction is drawn at 'online-only' vs not. To me a more useful distinction to whether a game can 'last forever' (a goal mentioned twice in GOG's news post) is if it allows for self-hosted, non-official server options. Staff in the comments here have highlighted Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory as such a title and used it to make a useful point, which is nice to see.

It probably tricky for GOG to write about though since Gwent afaict also relies on official servers (I can already hear someone typing that so do our GOG libraries themselves, even if it's a bit irrelevant when offline installers exist :p).

Staff have indicated they're also looking into whether some F2P games would be viable for the store. I'd be curious if anyone knows of examples which allow for self-hosting. Otherwise I think it'd be fair to say the concerns/critique some have about it going against the stated goals of game preservation and lasting forever seem valid (hyperbolic posts aside).

There are already other platforms available for multiplayer online-only games. GOG is *the* place for DRM-free games on the internet. It's the main reason I buy games here. I think it's reasonable for GOG to require any company that wants to sell games here to remove any and all DRM before making a game available here. If that is not something the publisher is willing to do, then they don't have to sell it here on GOG.

Frankly, one of the biggest problems with online games (both in terms of stability and in terms of portability between and within OS versions) is DRM. Further, all forms of DRM are eventually abandoned, which makes porting and ongoing maintenance even more of a headache. The people who've worked tirelessly to preserve older games know this better than anyone! There is no reason for GOG to make a DRM exception for online-only games.

There are plenty of games in the past that had LAN support to enable multiplayer support. That is still a viable option for even modern games, given both the power of modern hardware and the availability of cloud-based VMs and containers to act as host servers. With the proper IP routing configuration, any of these so-called "online-only" games could be made to work in this way. Even Fortnite limits matches to 100 players. :)

So when I say "DRM-free", I'm not hand-waving about the "online-only" requirement. The server piece required for an "online-only" game could easily be packaged as a separate executable to be hosted by players using whatever "conventional" (i.e. LAN server behind home firewall) or "modern" (VM/container hosted on a cloud provider) platform they wish. In fact, it is easier than ever to imagine a scenario in which players could host so-called "online-only" games for the community.

All games eventually reach a point where the dev or the publisher doesn't want to support it anymore. That's fine, as long as they open it up so that we in the community can support it ourselves. GOG should continue to stand firm as the home of FRM-free games of all kinds.

It would be interesting to have something like reviving old multiplayer games however, I don't know if it is sustainable but there are so many old games that needed gamespy to play and now you can only play with using dedicated IP to connect.

Maybe some reverse engineering to use some GoG based server discovery service? That would be nice.

This is a step in the right direction for GoG caused by the general steps in all the wrong directions that the industry is doing as a whole.
As others have pointed out, this will increase the number of games released here and will decrease the number of games released here in a timeless state. Overall, an ugly compromise. I do not like it but GoG's market share is just too low to bring about serious change in the industry, that has become clear by now. Unless a dev wants to implement LAN, splitscreen or custom-servers, no GoG store policy in the world will enable this.

So yes, I agree with this. With a heavy heart, but I agree. I rather want to have the ability to buy some games DRM-free than none.

Yeah the gaming industry is pretty broken, but the majority of Gamers wanted it this way or they wouldn't have gobbled up all the crap thrown at them from Devs, Publishers and big Platforms for years.
Sad times.

GOG has already brought about quite a change. Without GOG it would have been unthinkable even for 10 year old AA/AAA titles to become DRM-free. The fact that Bethesda games are on GOG, or Dishonored or even LEGO games is incredible. Even indie devs wouldn't have had an excuse to release DRM-free if not for GOG. GOG has thousands of DRM-free games, many of them quite good and quite high profile, and that's a huge achievement.

There's still a lot of work to be done, but that's precisely why GOG needs to remain as DRM-free as possible. If publishers can sell their games on GOG without doing any work to cater to DRM-free (and so to game longevity) then all the hard work will just go down the drain.

Indeed. If GOG had started accepting DRM'd online-only games 6 months ago, then would Bethesda developers have quietly said to themselves "You know, now that 'anything goes' on GOG it's much less effort to just copy / paste Fallout 76 Lootbox Edition than put in the effort to do a proper port of Skyrim minus Creation Club. Let's do that instead..." I wonder how many future single-player AAA games will suffer the same "it's now become so easy to dump DRM'd multi-player games on GOG that we'll do that in place of decent DRM-Free single-player AAA's rather than in addition to..."

GOG really need to spell out exactly what DRM, hostile monetization and invasive anti-cheat 'content' they are "thinking" about tolerating rather than continue with silent treatment vs many calls for clarity of their new policy change, because I do not believe for one second there is any "free lunch" here regarding long-term unintentional knock-on effects of single player DRM-Free games for the sake of "more titles at any cost, loot-boxes, 'surprise mechanics' anything goes!"