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DRM-Free Classic Games Store Opens To Public
arcticstoat writes "With all the controversy surrounding DRM in games at the moment, one games store has decided to buck the trend, proudly proclaiming that all its games are DRM-free. First announced back in July, Good Old Games is now in the public beta stage, which means that anyone can now access the site's archive of classic PC games, and you can do what you want with your game when you've bought it, too. 'You won't find any intrusive copy protection in our games; we hate draconian DRM schemes just as much as you do,' says the site. 'Once you download a game, you can install it on any PC and re-download it whenever you want, as many times as you need, and you can play it without an internet connection.'"
In related news, Stardock, the company responsible for the Gamer's Bill of Rights, is apparently working on a new copy-protection solution that will be friendlier to consumers than current schemes.
You can probably download most of these games anyway. And it's not like DRM ever stopped pirates.
No DRM? Good news for pirates!
No, good news for honest buyers.
Let's divide people into three groups: those who buy, those who make the pirated (DRM-free) version, and those who pirate.
Those who buy will now get a better product.
Those who pirate never see the DRM in the first place.
Those who make the pirated version will have an easier time; this benefits the pirates ever so slightly, but DRM is often defeated faster than you can say Yo-Ho, so the benefit is ever so slight.
The real winners, whenever DRM is removed, are the honest consumers.
Yes, but how well will the pirated versions play on XP or Vista? They might do ok on XP, but it seems with each newer iteration of Windows, compatibility mode works less and less. With GOG, you don't have to worry about downloading a few programs just to get them to work. You can pay a small fee and just have the game work. That's the intent. A cheap classic without DRM that will be guaranteed to work on Vista? Yes please!
And how would they make a profit from that price? I imagine the publisher / developer needs to get a slice of the pie too. And then there's the cost of the servers, etc... That $3 would be eaten up fast with likely little to not profit being made.
I wonder who the money goes to, though... In the case of Fallout 1 and 2, certainly not the developer, since Black Isle is long gone. So.. whoever hold distribution rights now, is that sill Interplay or did they sell everything to Bethesda? My point being, if your rationale for paying for games is supporting the devs, then buying some of these classics may not do that at all.
Could be. Supporting the devs is probably best done by buying within a year of release. But by buying you might still give a signal that there's a demand for this kind of game.
Since when did one need a rationale for paying for things that cost money?
It's pirates who have to go to extra lengths to justify their behaviour, not purchasers.
That really does depend on the DRM, though. I quite agree that the best option is no DRM, but that's not to say that all DRM is equally bad.
The DRM in Mass Effect was a right pain. Forget the limited-activations issue -- it nearly prevented me from activating the game once, thanks to a locale-related bug that suggests that the underlying code is incredibly poorly written. I shall never play another game that uses SecuROM, period.
On the other hand, the only way I know Valve's games have DRM is because I've been told it. I'd never have noticed otherwise, because buying from Steam has been completely hassle-free.
How about this rationale: By increasing the profit potential for really good games (even a decade after their original release!), we encourage game companies to make more really good games. Otherwise they'll just focus on short-term gains with yet another Sims expansion pack.
Cynicism, like dogmatism, can be an excuse for intellectual laziness. - Susan Shirk
Looks good so far, but their library is still a little limited. I still have copies of most of the games I'd want to buy.
Now if they get access to Sierra and LucasArts' back catalogue, then we're in business.
Soylens viridis homines es
Because piracy is not proper an alternative to purchasing. Not buying is a good alternative. Pirating a game - especially one that's available in a convenient form at a more-than-reasonable price - just proves that really no matter what argument you use, you're just a cheap loser who doesn't want to shell out cash and has to come up with stupid arguments to justify your behavior.
Buying on eBay is another story, but really I doubt the prices on there are much better than most of the games on this site.
You'd rather pay $5 (plus shipping) and deal with ebay, paypal, and an unknown seller than pay $6 to download them?
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.