It is a big fate lie as GOG most certainly has lead me to stop downloading games without paying.

If anything, being able to buy a game without built-in limitations is a reason not to pirate.

Being made to pay for DRM infected crap is a reason to pirate.

To me GOG was more like the end of pirating (including the so-called abandonware sites).

Damn, double-ninja'ed.

Right, because piracy hardly existed at all before GOG existed.

As you said, most anti-piracy arguments look kinda dorky. People who can buy very expensive PC (say $5000) or equivalent level TV may pirate games and films. Especially in digital form (those from East Europe whould remember our markets where we actually paid for bootleg content:)). They easily can afford buying them (sometimes ALL of them). Does it stops them from pirating? Nope. Guess what those people also may be doing? Avoiding various fees and taxes, looking for a loophole. Like trying to not to pay for a ticket or parking. They clearly have money to buy travel cards or parking spot for their entire life, yet they don't. It is just a nature of some humans.

There are people who are not going to pay for a product no matter what. Looking at GoG as a source of a problem?

I may be wrong, but my best solution to fight piracy - make content available and easy to purchase (making good content people would want to throw their money into their monitors for also helps). People are lazy, they want one huge button "make it awesome right fokking now". That's "game as service" not the nonsense companies are trying to sell us. Steam could be first digital market, but using Galaxy 2.0 I see how much CDPR pushed the envelope now.

Reminds me a lot of other prohibitive measures... that don't work. And the only category of people who is harmed - are legitimate buyers who have problems accessing items they need.

All in all - outstanding post, ReynardFox, worths every letter cast in gold.
P.S. Really like that book about you.;)

My brain to mouth filter is off, so this is going to get insulting and offensive, so rev up those downvotes.

This developer is a moron, a dishonest person or at worst, just plain greedy.
Yes, Piracy is an issue, a concern, a problem especially for smaller indie developers, but no GOG is not a source or a cause for piracy, yes it offers DRM free downloads of games and that makes distribution much easier, but as others have stated, everything can be cracked and has been cracked, even once holy grail of DRM Denuvo has now been cracked, DRM vendors are in a losing battle with pirates.

What causes piracy? there is a lot of talk about how to fight it, but not enough about what causes it so lets compile a small sampling list of maybe why piracy happens.

1. some people just feel like not paying for stuff
2. some people just want to try the game out and intend to purchase it later.
3. some want to "own" their software and keep it on hand for when they want it.
4. some people are just assholes and do it because they can.
5. they feel the product isnt worth the purchase.
This can go on and on.

GOG does not cause piracy, yes GOG copies are pirated and made available for open download, but GOG is not responsible for this. WE are, the USERS, why this dev blames GOG for human free will is frankly stunning and dishonest, his game is going to get pirated WHERE EVER HE BLOODY CHOOSES TO PUT IT, ITCH.IO, STEAM, EGS, HUMBLE OR GOG.

Correlation is not Causation. GOG is not causing the games it offers here to be pirated. that is user choice.

In other words the Dev just doesn't want to put his game on GOG and instead of being honest and saying "I dont fucking want to" he or she has made up a straw man argument to explain this decision and force a purchase from you anyways from a place where he or she feels they have control (which they don't).

I will now get off my rickety soap box and commence being surly and mad somewhere else.
Have a good day ladies and gents.

On the contrary, GOG has made piracy less attractive. With GOG existing, it's no longer needed to use cracks to use games without DRM-interference, now you can just buy them on GOG. Since I know GOG exists and I became a customer here, I didn't get games no more from usenet, I just bought them on GOG.

It's all lies I tell you!

A couple of years ago I've read in one of the polish magazines (back then there were more of them than now) article about DRMs and big publishers/developers. There was quote of one of the "big players" (don't remember if it was EA, Ubisoft or Sega), that DRMs are necessary, otherwhise anyone could copy the game on hard drive/DVD. Completely ignoring fact that most people who are pirating game are downloading version with cracked any security method.

Seems that "preferring" DRMs has long history not connected with empirical arguments (

To be honest, I remember I've seen only one place where I saw a bit "more" GOG installers - polish service "chomikuj" (but it was yeaaars ago), and even then it wasn't something especially popular amongst "pirating players".

(I was looking back then on chomikuj some old, recorded with VHS polish versions of cartoons for siblings, which weren't recorded in any other way, and by pure accident I've found some single accounts with uploaded GOG installers).

So, to conclude - the only way how GOG could "cause" pirating is the fact that someone can use downloaded from GOG installers (best part of it - probably he bought them first :P) to "upload" them on some file hosting service. And looking how rarely this happens (uploading them plus "popularity" of those installers amongst "pirate players"), I wouldn't tell that GOG at any point made "piracy" stronger.

Speaking for myself:

When I was a kid I was an hardcore pirate. Because I had no money, games were expensive and I was forced to play pirated games, which were given to me by my friends.
As I started to earn my own money I began purchasing my games.

Then Steam appeared... And since 2005 I was "forced" to play pirate copies of games I wanted to play.

And then I discovered GOG. And ever since not only have I stopped pirating games, as I've bought hundreds of games here. So I think GOG has helped to at least stop 1 pirate :)

As for the game dev you first mentioned: the man is an obvious retard or he's indeed full of bull$h!t. As many previous posters very well pointed out, it just takes a torrent or a warez search to understand that no software is free from pirating, regardless of the DRM.

Why go through all the issues involved with a cracked game, if you can get it DRM Free at GOG.

Even if the game doesn't need to be cracked because it was a DRM-Free version, you still need to consider any embedded nasties.

Buy the game from GOG and feel good about the world and yourself, and rest assured it is clean and likely to run much better than any version with DRM .... any need for patches aside.

If GOG encouraged pirating of their versions, then they would not have survived this long and those versions would be readily available all over the place.

Piracy is often as much about respect as it is about disrespect.

There would be many who shop at GOG, that in the past obtained pirated games, but now no longer do so. Even if they just did so, to get a cracked version with no overhead and a No CD requirement. Not all piracy was about saving a buck or being a stinge, it was often about the practical side of game that ran smoother and did not require a physical CD to be in the drive or constantly risk being scratched etc.

So if you ask me, GOG has severely reduced piracy ... at least for the games it makes available ... but even beyond, because for many of us, AAA games are just ignored until they come here eventually or just totally altogether. There are more than enough great games at GOG to keep you entertained for a very long time.

Games get pirated(barring those using the toughest newest DRM) within a matter of days. If you talk to that dev. again, tell him that he'd make more money releasing to other platforms first for a week or two then dropping it here as well, or asking Gog to not drop it until two weeks after other stores. That way he can DRM the copies on other stores and make some sales while people try cracking it and then also make money from Gog's user base while making us happy as well. :)

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I wonder if this is possible with some limited use(business/personal/etc use only) software.

That dev has no idea what he is talking about. GOG is NOT the cause of piracy. It's quite the opposite. Plus any form of DRM like Denuvo is cracked in like a few days. The dev is just making excuses.

Not fully....there are many games not available anywhere legally and/or drm free, and many abandonware sites which are left host those games Gog doesn't carry.


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This bit aside, the rest was very much a very good post.

By this I mean that/would like to point out that the dev could also stupidly think DRM works well/stops piracy for long(he might have bought into the hype/propaganda), and might not be dishonest/greedy or harbor any ill intent.

having the life experience I have had Rager, I always assume ill intent.