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The Witcher 3 and Projekt Red's DRM-Free Stand
An anonymous reader writes "This article goes into the making of upcoming fantasy title The Witcher 3. The studio, CD Projekt Red, reveals that, unusually, it'll be releasing the game as a DRM-free download. 'We believe that DRM does more harm to legit gamers than good for the gaming industry, that's why the game will also be completely DRM-free,' says the game's level designer, Miles Tost. The game will build on the strengths of The Witcher 2 while attempting to broaden its scope. 'We want to combine the strong pull of closed-world RPGs story-wise, with a world where you can go anywhere and do anything you want.'"
Hello, anything more substantial than this nice summary one can read somewhere ?
http://www.vg247.com/2014/04/2...
I am guessing they mean this article from yesterday. Interview about DRM, photos and videos:
http://www.redbull.com/en/game...
Just don't post the link in the first place !
So far as I can tell, DRM-free means "no DRM".
FWIW, I actually find Steam really annoying. I usually use a couple of computers at once, and I sometimes have a slow-paced game on one and want to play something faster on another while, say, waiting for turns to process or something. I can do this with even the most draconian DRM schemes, but not with Steam. Yes, I'm aware of Offline Mode. Valve Support has told me that it is in fact prohibited to use Offline Mode to run another copy of Steam, even if I'm using it to play a different game.
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The Witcher 2 was also released without DRM on gog.com.
It's an acceptable tradeoff for me. Though I have loathed it since its inception, I have warmed up to Steam over the years, mostly because the huge discounts offered through sales have resulted in a vast library of games that the Steam client organizes pretty neatly for me. It also does away with any sort of installation hassle. I do not miss having to hunt one or more patches on a publisher's site to apply to my 1.0 version. I also don't miss physical media being subject to damage, having to search for a CD or no-CD patches or paying more than U$5 for a game.
It's not that I actively like Steam DRM, it's that, in light of the benefits it provides and in how is doesn't affect my usage pattern, I don't mind it. It's only when compared to activation limits, mandatory connection for single player and other aberrations that is shines in a benign light.
It's only when compared to activation limits, mandatory connection for single player and other aberrations that is shines in a benign light.
If your only argument in favor of something is "It's better than other bad things.", you may have a problem on your hands. Well, you said you don't actively like Steam DRM, but continuing to use Steam only ensures that it'll never change.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
Steam isn't the problem, developers are. You can get genuine DRM-free games on Steam, meaning it'll handle downloads/updates/mods for you, but you can also run the game from it's own folder, copy the folder to another PC, run it from there without Steam, etc. It really isn't the one holding you back. If you want more DRM-free options, ask the people who make the games.
See GOG.com (where I purchased witcher 2, which I have yet to play). Same basic idea, lots of discounts, nice organization, etc.. Only no DRM! None at all!
The selection though is a little more limited, For me though I tend to enjoy old games just as much as new ones. The combination of GOG, humble indy bundles, and a couple other similar sources keeps me well stocked with DRM free games.
I usually use a couple of computers at once, and I sometimes have a slow-paced game on one and want to play something faster on another while, say, waiting for turns to process or something. I can do this with even the most draconian DRM schemes, but not with Steam..
If a Steam game is DRM-free, you can still load the executable directly without Steam running at all, no need to mess around with offline mode.
Steam doesn't force any kind of DRM on games - I have several genuinely DRM-free games on Steam.
Interesting! I wasn't aware that this was an option. I will have to investigate that. Thanks!
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
. Well, you said you don't actively like Steam DRM, but continuing to use Steam only ensures that it'll never change.
He likes stuff like disc based securom drm even less.
If he refuses to use everything he doesn't like, he won't play very many games at all.
but continuing to use Steam only ensures that it'll never change
Steam has added family accounts, and now family library sharing features. These don't solve the problem yet, but they are baby steps forwards towards solving some the biggest complaints most people have about steam's drm.
Valve tries to push Steam as the friendly DRM, luvvable and plushy and not that evil kind that the competition uses.
Check out gog.com instead, and get some of the same games as Steam but DRM free and cheaper than Steam sales.
If a Steam game is DRM-free, you can still load the executable directly without Steam running at all,
Its not quite as simple as that. If the game supports steam achievements, workshop, trading cards, cloud saves, etc then its not necessarily steam "DRM" that is causing a reliance on being logged into steam.
There are lots of genuinely drm free games that 'like' being tied to steam... not for the drm, but for the other steam features.
There is no requirement for DRM on Steam. It's a distribution platform first and formaost, and there are DRM-free games on Steam. Steam also has DRM that publishers can use (and which really isn't that bad or intrusive). Steam also distributes games with all the worst DRM: horrible, horrible stuff.
Contrast this with Good Old Games, owned by the very same CD Projekt Red. There you get a promise of "no DRM of any kind ever". They distribute many games which originally had DRM in some cracked (but licensed) form, so stuff like "look up this word in the manual" is bypassed. They're just as good as Steam at patch management.
Steam is tolerable. It's good points outweigh its problems. But GOG is great. It's made of win and awesome. It's like the best pirate BBS from back in the day, where every game worked better thanks to the cracks, except it's all legal and licensed, and reasonably priced. Naturally, they're having a hard time attracting publishers, but the financial success of the Witcher titles might get some notice.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
The selection though is a little more limited,
A lot more limited, but they also have one of the best and largest old game libraries. I love gog for old games.
My 'beef' with GoG for indy games though was Linux support. I buy a cross platform indy game on steam and I get pc+mac+linux. On GoG I only got PC+Mac downloads.
Recently GoG has announced a committment to support linux, and I couldn't be happier to hear this!
Another quirk with GoG's model is that its a bit at odds with paid expansions. For old games, all the expansions that are are ever going to come out have come out, but what about expansions / paid DLC for current still in production indy games. -- And I believe I read its one of the main reasons AI War, for example, is not on GoG. I'm not sure what the solution here is.
If he refuses to use everything he doesn't like, he won't play very many games at all.
Well, that's what I do. I still play Doom (with source ports) and other old games (many sold on GOG), and I have no problems.
Steam has added family accounts, and now family library sharing features. These don't solve the problem yet, but they are baby steps forwards towards solving some the biggest complaints most people have about steam's drm.
My complaint is that Valve itself supports DRM at all. If it were just a problem of the developers, it wouldn't be Valve's problem at all.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
Well, that's what I do. I still play Doom (with source ports) and other old games (many sold on GOG), and I have no problems.
Of course, people who have to play all the latest games might not like this. But it's not like DRM-free games don't exist; there are many.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
Wasn't it up on gog.com on release day? If I recall correctly, it was one of the few "big" games that gog did get right away.
See GOG.com (where I purchased witcher 2, which I have yet to play). Same basic idea, lots of discounts, nice organization, etc.. Only no DRM! None at all!
Witcher 2 was a bad example.
Every version of The Witcher 2 sold on services that weren't sold through GOG had DRM when the game launched. This included retail copies, which had SecuRom.
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
Duh, stupid me. Of course it was on gog.com on day one. gog.com is a service run by the makers of The Witcher series.
Yup. It was.
I find this comment absurd as a person playing games in both PC and console worlds. Your complaint isn't even aimed at Steam really, as it is a general attack on all bound-by-account DRM schemes (Is there one out there better than Steam?). Did you never try having two accounts as a solution to your problem, if simultaneous gameplay is that important? In my view, Steam is insanely friendly, making multiplayer a cinch, allowing use on any number of platforms at no extra cost, offering a fantastic library of titles for PC, Mac, and Linux (!!) for really low prices, etc. And yet, it still can't escape Slashdot whining. Good grief...
DRM is pointless there is no need for anything past a cd key because it's going to be cracked no matter what you do.
DRM:
It's a challenge
It's reputation
It's curiosity
It's self enlightenment
It's testing your limits
Adobe - has one of the most diehard DRM setups ever created costing millions to make and it was completely fucking destroyed in four hours.
Is that when they eventually release a director's cut version of the game several months or a year after release, they don't make you purchase it separately if you bought the game previously. You get the full version update for free.
Now if only Capcom would do that with the PC version of games like Street Fighter 4, which only has 3 or 4 different versions now.
Try reading the Witcher books by Andrzej Sapkowski. They really 'transcend the genre' - much like Patrick O'Brian's Master & Commander series. If Sapowski was writing in English he'd be a far bigger deal than George R.R. Martin or any of the other current fantasy hacks.
Waiting for turns to process?
Are you playing on a PDP-11?
So what you're saying is you know very well it's technically possible to do what you want on Steam, but because some customer service rep tells you they don't want you to, you find the whole platform "really annoying".
Bah.
When a platform comes along that gives developers a sense of security and reason to invest in games and gives users the ability to install their games on more than one machine and when that machine goes belly up, to install them automatically on another machine (something you can't do on the old "X number of serial number uses is the limit" games), I would say it's pretty much a win-win.
Valve has done a pretty good job of being really friendly to gamers. They create a whole ecosystem of games and forums and support and communication to the dev community that never existed before, but you find it "really annoying" because you can't play some turn-based abomination that takes long enough between turns that you can go over to a second machine and play another game without the psychic pain of knowing Bob @ Phone Support said you shouldn't even though you could do it if you wanted.
Did I mention, "Bah"?
You are welcome on my lawn.
Also, do you know about the new "family accounts"? Maybe you should give Bob @ Phone Support another call to ease your suffering.
You are welcome on my lawn.
There is no requirement for DRM on Steam. It's a distribution platform first and formaost, and there are DRM-free games on Steam. Steam also has DRM that publishers can use (and which really isn't that bad or intrusive). Steam also distributes games with all the worst DRM: horrible, horrible stuff.
Contrast this with Good Old Games, owned by the very same CD Projekt Red. There you get a promise of "no DRM of any kind ever". They distribute many games which originally had DRM in some cracked (but licensed) form, so stuff like "look up this word in the manual" is bypassed. They're just as good as Steam at patch management.
Steam is tolerable. It's good points outweigh its problems. But GOG is great. It's made of win and awesome. It's like the best pirate BBS from back in the day, where every game worked better thanks to the cracks, except it's all legal and licensed, and reasonably priced. Naturally, they're having a hard time attracting publishers, but the financial success of the Witcher titles might get some notice.
GoG: No linux :(
Liberty.
I can't find any information to support your claim.
I wonder how hard it would be for all the older games that run in DOSbox?
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
You're correct in that Steam doesn't mandate DRM for games sold on it. But it has two distinct problems:
1. Steam doesn't indicate on a game's store page if said game is DRM-free. You have to search for this information elsewhere and hope someone has the correct info. Sometime Steam will indicate if a game uses extra DRM apart from regular Steam-DRM, but I've never seen it advertise a game as DRM-free unless the developer/publisher has specifically put that info somewhere in the game's description. However, everything from GOG is DRM-free so they don't have to say anything because it's already a given.
2. Steam mandates use of a client. Even if you want to run the game outside of the client, you need the Steam client for downloading as well as updates. GOG has a client but you can easily download everything from a game's landing page once purchased. You then have an installer you can backup and the game runs via your regular desktop/Start menu shortcut. Much cleaner I think as I can then download and organize files in the way I want without dealing with the problems that can arise by using an unnecessary client.
What pisses me off the most about Steam is that its DRM is NOT EVEN NECESSARY. It doesn't stop pirating - I downloaded BioShock Infinite and Episode 2 (which contained the previous episode, all other DLC and the latest patch), installed them, copied over the modified steam_api files and ran it perfectly fine (even quicker than steam, since no client needs to be launched first and there's no "preparing" dialog window beforehand). It doesn't stop jack shit in terms of pirating, yet it's there because archaic publishers still believe that some protection is better than nothing even if that DRM has the potential to hider paying customers.
Right here. It's a subsidiary of CDProjecktRed.
Om, nomnomnom...
>Steam doesn't indicate on a game's store page if said game is DRM-free
If you get the Enhanced Steam addon for Firefox, it will tag any game you look at with if it has bonus DRM or not. Or shit like UPlay.
It also shows you historic price data for every game, so you know you're paying three times the Spring Sale price, or twice the GOG price or if you're getting a good deal.
>Steam mandates use of a client. Even if you want to run the game outside of the client, you need the Steam client for downloading as well as updates. GOG has a client but you can easily download everything from a game's landing page once purchased. You then have an installer you can backup and the game runs via your regular desktop/Start menu shortcut. Much cleaner I think as I can then download and organize files in the way I want without dealing with the problems that can arise by using an unnecessary client.
I actually prefer installing things on Steam, rather than going through the tedious InstallShield process for each and every game I download. The only annoying thing about Steam is that it reinstalls DirectX every time you install a game, but even that is hidden from the user. Uninstalling is also easier. I can see if my saves are backed up to the Steam cloud (so I don't need to hunt around for my Save Games location and manually back them up), and then one click uninstall them.
As the GP said, the weakness in Steam is when you're trying to play two games at once, but they've actually got a solution for this now (http://store.steampowered.com/sharing/). My wife can play Oblivion while I play Payday 2, for example, using their Family Share plan.
I have been getting bit by the Steam DRM problem too now that I have a family. Over the years I've gathered over 200 games in Steam without thinking about it, but now if somebody else in my family is playing on Steam, I can't play any of the other games at the same time. Fortunately they added the family share option, so I made separate accounts for everybody and from now on try to spread the games more so can at least play something. The problem is still that the big bulk of the games are on my account, but I suppose it gets better over time as I buy more games and perhaps duplicates too to the other accounts.
Oh gee, I wonder where they got such a great idea from. OH THAT'S RIGHT, the original The Witcher was a category 5 DRM shitstorm that blew up in their faces when it failed to work properly on Windows 7 and screwed over all their customers. Wow, how selfless and progressive of them
Did retail copies bought in Poland have SecuROM, or any DRM at all? Those are the only copies that were published by CD-Projekt. In North America Atari had publishing rights (later, Warner Bros. took over), Europe and Australia had Bandai Namco, and Japan had CyberFront. It was the other publishers, not CD-Projekt, who added DRM to retail copies. CD-Projekt responded by arranging it so that if you bought The Witcher 2 from anywhere then you could go here and get the game DRM-free from GOG at no additional cost.
So I think The Witcher 2 is an excellent example of the lengths they'd go to against DRM.
Fairly easy - the hard part is getting the game out of the installer. You'd need to use something like innoextract or WINE. But fortunately GOG is busy working on adding Linux support right now, so sometime in the near future it should be as easy on Linux as it is in Windows.
Most of their Mac games use DOSBox or WINE, so it probably wasn't too much effort for them to get Linux support working for most of them. Even before they announced Mac support, I ran quite a few of their games with WINE and DOSBox on OS X (their older games use DOSBox on Windows too), but it's a lot less hassle to get their configs (although they tend to be quite pessimistic about visual quality, and you can improve some of the older adventure games a lot by changing the scaling mode to hq3x in the DOSBox config that they ship).
I'm very happy with GOG - there are typically 5-10 games on my shelf that I haven't got around to playing yet. I got The Witcher 1 and 2 as a bundle and enjoyed them both, although I enjoyed the first one a lot more. They're DRM-free and let you redownload games, often with significant updates (e.g. I bought Dungeon Keeper, and they later added the expansion pack. FTL is now FTL: Advanced Edition).
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The Witcher 1 and 2 were both DRM free. I grabbed both from GOG a while ago and they're just executables that run on any machine and don't have any need to phone home or similar.
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The first or the second? I really enjoyed the first, but about the only improvement in the second was the graphics (and my laptop could only handle the lowest detail at a playable rate anyway). The combat was a lot better in the first one and the characters seemed more interesting.
It's a difficult balance in this kind of game between making it open (so the player feels in control of what's happening) and providing a story (because part of the reason for buying the game like this is to be told a story). The first one seemed to get the balance right, but the sequel felt too scripted to me - I was just running from one plot element to the next and then making the four token decisions. There were lots of side-quests in the first one that impacted the story later on and interactions with characters that told you interesting things.
I think the sequel also got off to a bad start, because it let you import your save game from the first one, but after being given a silver sword by a Goddess and a steel sword by a king and finding some legendary armour exploring a tomb, I discovered that the first person I killed had a better sword than me. More importantly, swords and armour made a significant difference in the second. One thing that always annoys me in fantasy games is when the equipment makes more of a difference in fights than the skill. In The Witcher, the difference between a crappy sword stolen from a low-paid henchman and the amazing sword forged for the kind was about 10-20%. Enough to give you a slight edge, but not enough to make a real difference unless a fight was very close. The difference between Geralt at the start and Geralt after he'd (re)learned a load of fighting skills was significant. In contrast, in The Witcher 2, you can get a really good sword and then be easily able to beat monsters that would kill you easily with a less-good sword, without learning any new skills.
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They did release it DRM free if you bought it from them. If you bought it via another publisher then you got some extra crap and had to go back to them to get the DRM-free version. How about next time giving money directly to the company that sells DRM-free games, instead of to a company whose only contribution was to add some DRM crap and put it in a box?
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GOG is nice but I personally wish they had a proper client. Sure, it's not like many of the games on GOG receive updates and hence need some of the features provided by Steam but I personally enjoy the organisation aspects of Steam.
Agreed. Steam makes it a lot easier for me to manage my game collection.
I bought the game from GoG, but loved to hear about that when it happened. CD-Projekt are true bros and one of the studios I really want to support.
I was about to say that I'd buy their games even if they weren't as good as they are, but you could actually do quite a bit worse than Witcher 2 and still have a game worth playing.
"Some" of the same games is about right.
GOG is great for old games and the odd indy title but there catalog simply does not compare.
I love old games, but I also enjoy playing games made this century and in this regard GOG is simply nowhere close to the depth of Steam.
CD-Projekt actually gave away all of the DLC they made for the game, and allowed you to download it through the game configurator. Even better, after you downloaded the game, the DLC menu allowed you to download voice acting in any of the languages you wanted.
I really have to recommend the original polish voice acting. I'm not polish and I do not understand the language, but I truly enjoyed the work they had done. I'd say most voices were a better match than in the english version (especially in Witcher 1).
And oh yeah, almost forgot about this. About year or two after they had released the game and expanded it with an enhanced edition, they made the enhanced edition completely free for any purchasers of the original.
When a platform comes along that gives developers a sense of security and reason to invest in games and gives users the ability to install their games on more than one machine and when that machine goes belly up, to install them automatically on another machine
To be fair, that has existed before....on consoles.
Valve has done a pretty good job of being really friendly to gamers. They create a whole ecosystem of games and forums and support and communication to the dev community that never existed before.
That never existed before on the PC....consoles are a different story. We've had that sort of thing since the PSone days.
Another quirk with GoG's model is that its a bit at odds with paid expansions. For old games, all the expansions that are are ever going to come out have come out, but what about expansions / paid DLC for current still in production indy games. -- And I believe I read its one of the main reasons AI War, for example, is not on GoG. I'm not sure what the solution here is.
How so? GOG already has a number of DLCs and both free and paid expansions (I've only bothered committing the new Shadowrun expansion to memory, though). Where's the issue between that and the No DRM policy?
Doesn't many old DOS-era games from gog.com come with DOSBox? Shouldn't be too hard to move from one DOSBox installation to another?
/ The Arrow
"How lovely you are. So lovely in my straightjacket..." - Nny
Buying it! Especially since it's DRM free. 10+ points CD Projekt!
Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
I installed Neverwinter from Steam and later installed the Arc client for promotional freebees and some how the Arc client found Neverwinter buried in the steam folder. When I launch Neverwinter from Arc this play time doesn't register with Steam...
That isn't in dispute. As far as I can see, The Witcher 2 was being sold through gog.com since release day.
One thing I've noticed is that the "family mode" allows one to play games from "Account B" on "Account A" (after an additional step to authorize the secondary machine/account). I can't remember if I've done this while logged into both accounts, but perhaps that might work for you?
I've got one account on the "family PC" that does auto-login, and is authorized to play games from my main account.
Yet. But from the request page and then this notice, it is coming...
But GOG is great. It's made of win and awesome.
Apart from not having any games I want to play.
True. But whenever people start gushing about great deals they can get on Steam these are usually titles also on GOG, whereas the games I want to get on Steam tend to be high priced in the $50-$60 range.
They have recently announced their intention to support ubuntu/mint.
See http://www.gog.com/news/gogcom...
It shouldn't be that hard. Anyway, wine is also a viable solution for many older games, although I haven't tried it myself. For the adventurous types, many games from GoG can be played under linux. Here is a quick list:
http://www.gog.com/mix/linux_n...
But GOG is great. It's made of win and awesome.
Apart from not having any games I want to play.
My impression is that there is a higher percentage of GOG games worth playing than Steam games worth playing. Obviously, Steam is a much bigger platform with thousands of games, but still, games on GOG have generally stood the test of time. Anyway, if you've never tried some of the best old games, you could be pleasantly surprised.
That's odd. I'm going to bring that up on the GOG forums, but I suspect there's some BS going on at some layer.
Did a quick check: There are several games on GOG with DLC.
Shadowrun (mentioned before)
Sword of the Stars: The Pit
Omerta: City of Gangsters
Strike Suit Zero
Blackguards
Democracy 3
Divinity: Dragon Commander
So I'm not sure where they got that...
I think they have a name for that already: "open-world RPG".
(What did I miss?)
Yeah, but that's a console, which by its very nature is a less preferable method of gaming
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F...
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So tell me, what PC games were you playing from 1972 to 1977? Let me guess, you were'nt, unless of course you were some university lab playing Hunt the Wumpus or something, but odds are you weren't playing electronic games at home.
Now take a look at the price for
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M...
or the Launch price of the original IBM PC:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I...
Look at that price, that was $1500, 1981 dollars, for a machine with 16 of RAM and no floppies. OS and Monitor extra of course.
In 1981 you could get an Atari 2600 for $199, so far far more people bought 2600's to play Combat, Space Invaders and Missile Command than bought IBM PC's to play Adventure. Sure there were always a few "rich kids" with tech aficiando dads who bought them such machines or Trash 80's or Apples or C64's. But they were HUGELY outnumbered by 2600's.
today, I can walk to my local store and get a PS4 for $399.
That $399 will get you something like this PC:
http://www.walmart.com/ip/Acer...
Now you're going to say, "I can build a better rig for $600. $600 is $200 more than $399. That extran $200 will get you at minimum 3 games, or 2 games and an extra controller, or a year of PS+ and 2 games, or a lot of indie titles.
And before you say "free Team Fortress" or "free MOBA", I'm going to laugh at you for spending $600 or more on a game machine...only to then not spend money on any games. That is why I often think of PC gamers as cheapskates. Or more accurately, Filthy PC Gamer Bourgeosie Philistines would rather throw money on hardware for e-peen points on benchmarks, than actually buy games.
meant mainly for children and the developmentally disabled.
I don't know where you are, but that's most certainly not the case in the Anglophone countries or Japan, especially since the PSone days.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
You think publishers were selling copies of C&C, X-Com, and Panzer General to "Children and the developmentally disabled"? Who do you think they were selling, Azure Dreams, Castlevania: Symphony of the NIght, or Colony Wars to?
Adults. They knew the market had grown up alongside games and was still playing.
There may well be other features of console gaming that once presented some advantage. I can't think of any, but theoretically it's possible that they exist
It just works. No muss, no fuss. Spend a little on hardware and then focus on buying games. Lot
if (!steam_is_available) panic();
If the game relies on steamworks cloud saves etc and doesn't gracefully run without them that's not DRM any more than this is:
if (!sound_card_is_available) panic();
Its lazy at worst, but its not DRM.
Give it time, it's growing. It won't ever have titles from EA of course (and nothing of value was lost), but indie dev studios have discovered it, and the percentage of new small titles available on both Steam and GOG is growing. And who knows, with the success of their own AAA title, some of the bigger studios might finally cave as well - at least those not so arrogant as to be exclusive to their own homebrew distribution network.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Did a quick check: There are several games on GOG with DLC.
Yeah, but too be fair, I think that's a fairly recent feature for GoG.
I know "AI: War" also uses (used?) a serial key to differentiate between the demo and full version, which was another sticking point with GoG. (Although they allow multiplayer keys for NWN etc... so there's that...)
By this point though, I don't think Arcen is ~that~ concerned. By far the majority of the revenue is from steam. They wrote that steam is 91% of the income, 3% was direct sales, and 5.9% is gamersgate and impulse. Leaving 0.1% for 'others'
http://christophermpark.blogsp...
That's a while back and still predates bionic dues being released, etc but at the time GoG and other distributors amounted to less than a 10th of a percent. (Although he candidly admits both that at the time of that writing gog was a very new distributor for them, and that gog didn't have ai war -- which is far and away their most popular game so the low numbers are entirely expected.)
Still, it suggests that its not really worth arcen's time to jump through any major hoops or obstacles to put ai-war on gog.
It certainly isn't going to object if another game that I happened to buy from the same *store* is being played on another PC!
The game doesn't object. Steam itself does. There *is* a big difference, even if the end result is indistinguishable in practice.
It can *probably* even be played just by turning off sound...
Depends where "if (!sound_device_available)" is.
If you honestly thought that just because they *told* you it was purely for technical reasons it therefore isn't DRM, you are a colossal idiot
If they told me that, I'd tell them to fix it because its lazy programming. If they are a decent developer who *honestly* didn't do it for the DRM then they would and could fix it.
Since this sort of stuff has happened, and exactly those sorts of updates to games have been released to make titles work better with acheivements and cloud saves etc when run offline or without steam loaded at all your "utter moron, brainless fanboy, sucker, and collossal idiot" charges fall flat on their face.
Theres even been games that were released DRM free, added acheivements etc which "broke" their ability to be run without steam, and then patched again to restore steam-free running. Just because a developer does a half-assed or flawed implementation of using the steamworks client stuff doesn't mean they are trying to stick you with DRM.
There have also been games which were released with DRM, and later patched to remove it. There have even been games which were released without DRM, some publishers added DRM, and later it was patched out again.
Steamworks looks like DRM and quacks like DRM. In what way is it not DRM? Just because they removed the DRM later doesn't mean it wasn't DRM in the first place. That's what Steam is. I'll even grant that in some cases the developers honestly didn't *intend* it to be DRM, but if they use Steamworks and the game therefore doesn't work unless I'm signed into Steam, that is DRM in every single way that matters.
I notice you also don't even touch things like resale and so on. Steam is DRM. Anybody pretending otherwise is lying to themselves.
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
Steamworks looks like DRM and quacks like DRM. In what way is it not DRM?
It has a cloud save game component - that's not DRM.
It has a match making service - that's not DRM
It has its whole 'achievements' tracking, and leaderboards and stuff, that's not DRM.
Steam is download manager, and automatic patching system, and that's not DRM either.
But yeah, Steam ALSO has a DRM component, no question about that.
Steam is DRM.
Saying "Steam is DRM" is like saying the Wizard of Oz is a story about a scarecrow. Its not really a complete or accurate picture.
Moreover there absolutely ARE games on Steam that are not dependent on Steam, and will gracefully turn off steamworks features if steam isn't available/running or online, making them every bit as "DRM free" as GoG.com titles.
Anybody pretending otherwise is lying to themselves.
I really don't know what your axe to grind here is.
I notice you also don't even touch things like resale and so on.
Even GoG doesn't allow 'resale' in any meaningful sense of the word. The game is on your gog account, you can't transfer it. Sure you can take the copy you downloaded and sell it to someone else and never download it again I suppose... but you can do the same with any steam title that's not reliant on steam too. And in any case that's not a meaningful "support for resale".
My Steam games are often very slow to start, and sometimes refuse to start at all. I'm not a huge fan of whatever it is Steam does to my games (though easily installing it on multiple machines is certainly nice).
No idea what you're talking about. I got Witcher 2 totally DRM free.
The studio, CD Projekt Red, reveals that, unusually, it'll be releasing the game as a DRM-free download.
Unusually? The Witcher 2 was also DRM-free (if you bought it from them, and not through some other distributor, at least). Releasing DRM-free is standard for them, and one of several reasons why I like them so much. (Other reasons are that their games are unbelievably gorgeous, and they do interesting stuff with really driving moral choices in their games.)