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GOG: How an Indie Game Store Took On the Pirates and Won

An anonymous reader writes "As if we needed further proof that DRM really is more trouble for publishers and consumers than it's worth, Good Old Games, the DRM-free download store that specializes in retro games, has yet more damning evidence. In an interview this week, the store's managing director says that its first venture into day one releases earlier this year with Witcher 2 was a storming success — and the version that hit the torrent sites was a cracked DRM version bought from a shop. The very definition of irony."

9 of 397 comments (clear)

  1. Love GoG by dywolf · · Score: 3, Informative

    Found a lot of my lost collection and favorites there. Love em.

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  2. Re:Dropping DRM is a step in the right direction by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    When talking about games, the "assets" are 3d models, textures, scripting and dialog.

    Source code isn't playable without data

  3. Re:Dropping DRM is a step in the right direction by BobPaul · · Score: 4, Informative

    Doom is open source. You still need the level file (*.wad) to play the game. You have to pay for that.

  4. Re:Addressing only half the battle. by dywolf · · Score: 5, Informative

    Probably detected a break in the HDCP chain. The Anydvd driver is essential for HTPCs even when you own the bluray disc.

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  5. Re:But without DRM ... by Hatta · · Score: 4, Informative

    The crackers would be more likely to crack the one with DRM, because there's nothing to crack on the DRM free copy. Cracking is a game to these people, with nothing to crack there's no fun.

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  6. Re:Article is Misleading by Anubis+IV · · Score: 5, Informative

    What? No. Utterly false.

    In fact, the parent company of GOG is the company that developed the game in the first place, so of course they made it available on GOG. It was available on launch day from GOG back in May 2011. In fact, it was available from them for pre-order before it was available anywhere else. The reason you're probably confused is because GOG replaced the regular edition of the game with the enhanced edition in April 2012, hence why it shows as having a release date of April 2012 on GOG's site.

    Sorry to rain on your ill-researched drivel with some actual facts.

  7. Re:Dropping DRM is a step in the right direction by Nimey · · Score: 3, Informative

    They did. I read that back in the Wolf3D/Doom days that one of id's company jokes was the "$50,000 XCOPY"; they'd have another dev license the Wolf3D engine for $50k and then they'd xcopy the source onto a tape.

    Doom hit the scene in December '93 and the source was released in '97 - at first under the non-commercial id Software license, and a few years later it was dual-licensed with GPLv2 as well, so some of the older sourceports are closed-source.

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  8. Re:Addressing only half the battle. by cbhacking · · Score: 3, Informative

    DVD video actually has plenty of DRM (both content scrambling to prevent unlicensed playback and region coding to prevent geographic redistribution). The "problem" is that they're both trivial to bypass. DeCSS doesn't bother to pretend to be legit; it simply brute-forces the scramble. Region unlocking has existed for over a decade.

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  9. Re:Dropping DRM is a step in the right direction by hairyfeet · · Score: 3, Informative

    Once upon a time I agreed with you...until treasonous bribery turned copyrights into "forever minus a single day" and art that was made by artists long dead will be still held behind a tollbooth by rich old fuckers long after I have joined them in wormy earth. I would also add this is why we have so many great games in this legal limbo, as nobody even knows who has the rights to what anymore because a LOT of those 80s-90s shareware companies passed through so many hands, but thanks to forever minus a single day those games WILL be lost forever.

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