
Good Old Games: gog.com and the DRM-Free Revolution - rubikscube
http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2013/05/30/good-old-games-gog-com-and-the-drm-free-revolution/
======
InclinedPlane
DRM is poison. It provides only negative value to the consumer by adding new
restrictions and limitations.

Valve seems to be one of the few companies to make use of DRM that understands
this. Steam may be heavily encumbered with DRM but Valve has piled on huge
loads of sugar to make it palatable, more and more each year. Steam is more
than just a DRM system, of course, and it's all of the benefits of the Steam-
platform which make up for the poison at its heart (at least for a great many
consumers). Additionally, because of the track-record of steep price drops on
old games and the occasional steam-sale they blunt many of the down-sides of
DRM (such as lack of used-games).

Some game companies only see DRM from the narrow perspective of a publisher
concerned about "piracy" and feel entitled to dictate usage terms to their
customer base due to feelings of ethical superiority. This is mistaken, and by
abusing and misusing their customers they're destroying brand loyalty, which
is perhaps the most important thing a company can have, especially one
predominantly working in IP.

~~~
glurgh
Valve seems to generally treat its customers decently and to describe that as
some sort of sugar pill with which they cram a supposedly 'heavily DRM
encumbered' Steam client down your throat is a little overwrought. I've been
on Steam since the release of Half-Life 2 in late 2004. I own, according to
the client, 118 titles. I've never had a Steam-related DRM problem. The client
itself has occasionally had quality problems, so have some (mostly non-Valve)
games but I've not once felt the 'negative value' of Steam's DRM itself.

It's getting close to a decade but I still have essentially unencumbered
access to my copy of HL2 - I'd have surely lost the physical media by now. In
2007, I bought Portal which came in a bundle that included HL2 - I got an
extra free HL2 license to give away. In 2010 I got a free copy of the HL2 OS X
port and, were I the sort of person who enjoys the quixotic challenge of
gaming on Linux, I could have grabbed my free Linux port just a few weeks ago.
And that's just one game.

If that's poison, don't take me to the hospital, please.

~~~
Guvante
None of those are DRM, all of those are unlimited free downloads (which pretty
much every digital distributor provides).

The DRM is the fact that if you don't have an internet connection you have to
hope that Steam successfully launches into offline mode or not have access to
your games.

Similarly if Valve decides to ban your account, all 118 games become
permanently unavailable to you.

~~~
glurgh
A number of my Steam games are DRM-free. I didn't say these features were DRM
but that they are things Steam provides while having DRM so unobtrusive I've
not noticed it in 9 years. The OPs contention was Valve's DRM is some heavy
burden that they basically bribe you to accept. I'm sure it's gone wrong for
some people at some point but I think compared to the rate of just regular old
game-crippling bugs, it's negligible.

And yes, if Valve decides to ban my account, the DRM'ed games become
unavailable. Or I have to waste my time looking for cracks. But again, what is
the rate of that? If the dog shreds my big folder of physical game media, it's
also all lost.

~~~
Guvante
> DRM is some heavy burden that they basically bribe you to accept. I'm sure
> it's gone wrong for some people at some point

These two sentences reinforce what the OP is saying, you aren't arguing facts,
you are arguing impact. OP is saying we are underestimating the impact DRM
should have on our decision, to which you responded "it doesn't bother me".
That fact isn't important to this discussion.

I also use Steam, enjoy it, think they are a great company, and won't be
stopping anytime soon. However it is certainly true that unlike GOG their
platform is based around DRM.

> If the dog shreds my big folder of physical game media

What measures can you take to prevent Valve from banning you? For instance
some people have lost their Steam accounts because they used Paypal and there
was a disagreement between the two over a charge.

I control the physical media, I can't control Valve's authentication system.

~~~
glurgh
It's a little difficult to believe you're actually trying to have a
conversation about this when you selectively misquote what I said - you
chopped off the bit where I said I was quoting/paraphrasing the OP and then
claim my own words are reinforcing what the OP is saying. Well, of course they
are, I was quoting the OP!

And I think for the most part, I am relying on facts - it's the OP that
appeals to emotions - 'poison', 'heavily encumbered', suggesting Valve's
motivations for quality service is to trick their customers into accepting
DRM. Based on, well, nothing but opinion. My experience may be anecdotal but
it is factual.

------
njharman
I have more than 60 GoG games. Most bought during their awesome collection
sales. I have nothing but praise for GoG and all my dealings with them. They
_are_ the answer to piracy in that they make acquiring and owning games
easier, and better than pirating them. I've bought a few games from them I had
illegal copies of. Why? No DRM, extra stuff, the "right" price and this...

"The games are always remastered for modern operating systems as well, making
them playable on new machines."

I haven't even played some of those 60 games. Bought as part of "deals" and in
some sense I'm happy to give money to GoG for being fair / awesome and my
trust / desire for them to continue doing so and thriving as a company and
business model.

Being decent with customers, works.

~~~
_feda_
I agree with the sentiment of your post, but I don't think they "make
acquiring and owning games easier" than piracy. In fact it's very easy to
pirate gog games because of their anti-DRM stance so if a potential customer
doesn't feel like paying the 5 bucks for a game, it's just a torrent away. Not
saying GOG haven't done something wonderful but it's certainly not pirate-
proof.

~~~
gambler
GOG makes games easy to find and you don't have to worry about malware. I'd
say these two factors make it easier than piracy in practice.

------
programminggeek
Treating your customers as humans is good business.

Customers pay and pirates plunder.

Software pirates will find a way to steal things they are unwilling to pay
for. The smart companies in software will work to serve their customers and
leverage the pirates for their one valuable quality - free marketing and
distribution.

Another way to look at it is the reason the F2P + micro transactions works is
the same reason that shareware works, lower the friction to enjoy the product
and make it easy to share. Sharing is valuable.

Video game companies are so much hoping to stop piracy or used game sales that
they forget that sharing a game with friends is free advertising and marketing
for them.

If League of Legends wasn't free, I probably wouldn't have tried it, but
because it is free to play a lot of my friends have played, purchased, and
enjoyed the service. Apparently Team Fortress 2 makes 3x more money as F2P
than a traditional $50 boxed game.

To me it boils down to getting your product into the hands of people who are
willing to pay for it. If people aren't willing to pay for it without DRM,
adding DRM won't make you more money, it will just piss off the people who
were willing to pay you in the first place.

I'm kind of surprised how many of my hardcore gamer friends are anti Xbox One
already simply because of the way MSFT is going to handle used games and DRM.
They're losing the hearts and minds of their core market.

~~~
dwild
Selling game cheaply is good business, DRM has nothing to do with the success.
Most of my games are on Steam (and most of games on Steam has DRM), I have 2
or 3 games on GOG. Only because they were cheaper on GOG when I wanted them.
With a bad DRM you can easily lose customer but I don't think you actually
lose customer if your DRM are well done.

Also Team Fortress 2 make 3x more money for 2 reasons. It's Valve, which has a
HUGE fan base, and they sell crate that contains a random hat, which can be
sold for money to someone else (in the end it act like a lottery where people
think they will be able to get a rare hat that will be sold for hundreds of
dollars on the market). I don't think you can reproduce these two things on
every game.

~~~
IanChiles
But in addition to steam games being cheap, steam has turned into an
absolutely wonderful service, no more worrying about serial codes or patches
or losing the discs. I have a lot of games on steam that I haven't been able
to play yet, but bought because I know I won't lose them

~~~
marcosdumay
> no more worrying about serial codes or patches or losing the discs

So, Steam is better than the DRM you were used to before it. So much better
that you prefer not to deal with the old DRM system at all...

That's not exactly a point against "DRM does always annoy the honest clients".

------
drdaeman
Unfortunately, GOG's pricing seems too high in _ahem_ less developed countries
like Russia. While "one world fair price" policy sounds right and fair (and
certainly has advantages, as I've heard there's a problem with EU vs US
prices), it only works for countries with similar average incomes.

For comparison (no games are on sale or other kind of promotion in either
store):

\- Legend of Grimrock and Don't Starve (both have equal prices): 14.99 USD on
GOG, 299 RUR (9.42 USD) on Steam;

\- Fallout 2: 9.99 USD on GOG, 199 RUR (6.28 USD) on Steam;

\- Deus Ex: 9.99 USD on GOG, 150 RUR (4.73 USD) on Steam.

Not like $10 (~317 RUR, about two 0.5L bottles of a good beer) isn't
affordable (it totally is, if we're talking about single purchase), but,
still, paying 25-50% more than usual local market price feels quite
significant in the long-term. Given that Steam's DRM is relatively unobtrusive
and don't seem to bother most gamers, I doubt lack of DRM is significant to
many consumers, compared to price.

~~~
scott_karana
Can US customers buy games from the Russian Steam store?

~~~
Avshalom
No, but Russian customers can buy games from the russian store and gift them
to US customers. Or at least they could I don't know if Valve has changed that
yet. There is/was a pretty big black/grey market doing that.

However Valve does consider it violating some ToS or something so if they
think you're doing it as a business they'll take all your games and ban you
for life.

~~~
drdaeman
I've heard they only ban you from (any) trading/gifting, not from Steam
itself. Although I'm not sure whenever this is true or not.

~~~
Avshalom
Could be. I'm mostly just remembering a dust up from a few years back, so I
may _mis_ remembering.

------
asb
It's great to see GOG receive more attention. I will note that GOG hasn't
stood for "Good Old Games" for quite some time now. It's not just GOG, with no
official expansion. They are easily my favourite games retailer (I choose not
to purchase DRMed digital media, so are one of the few available choices).

Now that GOG are packaging up some of their releases of old games for OSX
using WINE, I suspect it's only a matter of time before they support Linux
officially.

EDIT to add: the fact they offer the same price worldwide is also a massive
point in their favour vs just about every other retailer (no insane price hike
for Europeans or Australians).

------
speeder
I am a fan of theirs since their beta period :)

In fact, I like them so much I bought more games than I even downloaded...

And The Witcher 2 is the ONLY game EVER that I pre-ordered, and the ONLY game
EVER that I paid more than 30 USD, just because of CD Projekt sheer
awesomeness.

By the way, I created my GOG.com account to buy Screamers, I suggest you
people do the same, very obscure, but very fun racing game (that needs quite a
bit of processing power, it was released before Pentium was invented, and
designed to only work in full graphics with Pentium! Very crazy stuff!)

~~~
barbs
Just had a look at Screamer. Looks awesome! And Mac compatible too :D.

Just thought I'd recommend a game that came out on GOG quite recently: Chaos
Overlords. A unique turn-based strategy. A mac release is planned as well.

<http://www.gog.com/news/release_cha0s_0verlords>

------
ajuc
CD Projekt has figured it out in nineties. Everybody pirated games in Poland
(the prices weren't adjusted for purchasing power, nobody did localizations
[except pirates - Russian CDs with illegal bothed Polish-Russian localization
of English games was on every street market for 20-30 PLN, when same game was
150-200 PLN and had no localization]). That was before CD recorders were
available cheaply, so pirates were earning big money on that.

CD Projekt somehow persuaded Bioware to let them do proper localization of
Baldurs Gate, hired the best Polish actors for voiceovers (think Morgan
Freeman hired by small publisher in USA when everybody knows nobody buys
games), did all the coding by themselves, and priced the product reasonably.
And it was (maybe still is) the single biggest hit on Polish gaming market. By
order of magnitude.

I'm glad they continue with that attitude towards customers.

------
shmerl
It's great to see that there is a successful games distribution service which
understands that DRM doesn't do anything good and only reduces the value of
the product for the legitimate customers. I avoid Steam, but use GOG because
of their DRM free stance.

The only thing they lack is selling Linux titles. While many (but not all) of
their Windows games work with Wine, in addition of course to DosBox and
Scummvm games which are easily playable on Linux, it's still good to have
native Linux titles too. There is a proposal for them to start doing it (you
can vote on it since GOG is asking for feedback on this matter):

<http://www.gog.com/wishlist/site/add_linux_versions_of_games>

DRM free distributor with Linux games would make GOG an unquestionable
preference.

~~~
guard-of-terra
Desura carries quite a few Linux games and they usually don't really have DRM.
I recommend them.

The only thing is: Most of games on GOG are really good, like, 5/5 good; but
games on Desura are hit-or-miss.

~~~
shmerl
I know, I bought Trine there for example. But I rarely use Desura, I use GOG
in vast majority of the cases, and now they have Trine there too, but not the
Linux version. The proposal is for them to start selling Linux titles too.
From their comments, it looks like figuring out the best way to support Linux
is what slows the rollout of such feature.

------
praptak
I remember one of the founders of GOG being a part of the ZX Spectrum scene in
Poland back in the eighties. He was sort of a major hub in the sneakernet
where cassette tapes where the packets, snail mail was the backbone and
walking around was the local network. Piracy wasn't even a word, everybody was
"obtaining" games. No wonder GOG "get" gamers - their experience with the
market goes 30 years back :)

~~~
ajuc
Well, it was legal then - the copyright treaties were only signed around 1994
IIRC.

And nobody was selling stuff to Poland anyway in eighties (even if we could
buy it).

~~~
praptak
Yeah, that's what I meant about piracy not even being a word - indeed there
was no other way to obtain software back then.

------
rubinelli
It's interesting that they are expanding from good _old_ games and bringing in
a lot of good indie titles as well. I see them growing as a credible, DRM-free
competitor to Steam outside the AAA, $60 game market.

~~~
L4mppu
They are not good old games anymore. They rebranded the site to simply GOG or
GOG.com and nowhere in their site it says anything about good old games
anymore. I remember TotalBiscuit talking about this in his video some time
ago.

~~~
shmerl
As others pointed out, they still can be called "good old" in a sense of
quality. I.e. even if the game is new, but it has the values of classic games
rather than mass market junk approach, it can be loosely called "good old" :).
GOG is known to pick really good games in general.

See
[http://www.gog.com/wishlist/site/continue_to_add_more_good_o...](http://www.gog.com/wishlist/site/continue_to_add_more_good_old_games)

------
outericky
The DRM argument will continue forever. It only hurts those who already want
the product. Yes, maybe you gain a couple of extra sales, but you probably
lose out many more because of all the extra hoops you make your legitimate
customers jump through.

Oh, and I just bought SimCity 2000. There goes all my free time.

~~~
venomsnake
The main problem with DRM is that we can have culture lost forever. There will
be some things impossible to purchase (in its own right absurd in digital
age). But also with platforms dying we can have games and ecosystems lost for
the future generations.

After all PS2 has ended its run. Soul Reaver and some FF games enter public
domain early next century. By that time they may have been lost forever. And
it is a loss to humanity if you ask me.

~~~
betterunix
"The main problem with DRM is that we can have culture lost forever"

That is just a side effect of the real problem with DRM: it takes control away
from the owners and users of a computer and puts it in the hands of privileged
third parties.

------
bdz
FYI: There are tons of DRM free games on Steam
[http://www.gog.com/forum/general/list_of_drmfree_games_on_st...](http://www.gog.com/forum/general/list_of_drmfree_games_on_steam/page1)

The recently released, higly anticipated System Shock 2 is also DRM free.

Easy way to test a game: Download it then close the Steam client. Run the game
from the folder. If it starts = DRM free

~~~
shmerl
Is it easily reinstallable/transferable on another system without using the
Steam client as well? If yes, then it can be really DRM free.

It's a bit ironical though, that the list of DRM free Steam games appears on
GOG, while Steam doesn't mark in any way whether the game is DRMed or not :)

~~~
bdz
There is a backup feature so you can move a game between computers. I've used
that but I guess there is no way to make a proper transferable backup w/o the
Steam client.

~~~
shmerl
So if Steam goes out of business, or your account would be suspended, and in
any other case when you won't have access to their client - the game will be
nontransferable. That's one of the positive indicators of DRM.

~~~
bdz
If GOG goes out of business and you haven't downloaded the game before... Same
story.

~~~
shmerl
It's not the same story since GOG gives you the installers. If GOG goes out of
business you can still use them, if you have them. You just should be diligent
to back them up. Steam doesn't give you such option and you simply have no way
to transfer the game in absence of access to Steam at all.

------
navs
I'm glad GOG is getting some publicity. I much prefer them to Steam. The Steam
client has always been clunky to me on all three supported platforms. I also
don't like the social aspect. GOG gives me a downloadable game for easy
transfer, gives me the ability to log in and re-download, their customer
service is superb and it's pretty cheap. Come to think of it, I'd be more than
willing to pay over the standard $10 for their games.

------
akavlie
I think it's kind of sad that they mention "GOG.com" over and over without a
hyperlink. The author links to two games on their site (Might & Magic and
Night of the Rabbit), but not their home page. Why do old media companies
avoid linking to sites they write about?

------
asb
Anyone know Polish and is able to summarise for us the key GOG.com-related
figures from
[http://www.cdprojekt.com/resources/document/prezentacje/Wyni...](http://www.cdprojekt.com/resources/document/prezentacje/Wyniki_1_kwartal_2013.pdf)?

~~~
ajuc
All data in PLN (around 0.30 USD), the first number is for 2012 Q1, the second
for 2013 Q1.

    
    
        Incomes on sales: 17 680 000, 27 810 000.
        Profit on sales: 470 000, 4 070 000.
    
        Incomes on sales to external customers per division:
         - game development (CD Projekt RED): 1 500 000, 4 100 000.
         - digital distribution (gog.com): 5 500 000, 12 000 000.
         - publishing, distribution in Poland (CDP.pl): 10 400 000, 11 400 000.
     
        Result on sales to external customers per division:
         - game development (CD Projekt RED): +100 000, +1 400 000.
         - digital distribution (gog.com): +900 000, +2 700 000.
         - publishing, regular distribution in Poland (CDP.pl): -800 000, -300 000.
    
        Assets in 2010-2012, 2013 Q1: 1 100 000, 1 700 000, 2 500 000, 3 100 000.
        Debt-equity ratio: 2012 Q1 27%, 2013 Q1 19%.

~~~
asb
Thank you!

------
mtgx
Will GOG start making all their games Linux compatible anytime soon? (at least
through Wine).

~~~
shmerl
Feel free to vote:
<http://www.gog.com/wishlist/site/add_linux_versions_of_games>

GOG are interested in feedback and demand.

Note - this is not about Wine. Many of their Windows games already work with
Wine, you don't need GOG's help to play them. As well as old DOS games which
use DosBox and Scummvm. That's about adding native Linux titles to their
catalog.

For DOS games they wrap them into Windows installer and ship a Windows build
of DosBox/Scummvm with them. There is no point in that on Linux, so you can
use innoextract to unpack them without installing through Wine:

<http://constexpr.org/innoextract/>

Then just plug it into you distro's DosBox and Scummvm (some tweaks can be
needed to the DosBox config files which they ship to adjust to the Linux
filesystem syntax, but they are minor).

------
jcromartie
The big game publishers are probably foaming at the mouth over GoG taking off
with no DRM and mostly decade(s) old computer games. I can only imagine it's a
huge kick in the balls to EA, Blizzard, etc.

~~~
shmerl
Some games on GOG are from EA. Example:
<http://www.gog.com/gamecard/clive_barkers_undying>

More of those: <http://www.gog.com/catalogue?search=Electronic+Arts>

~~~
gordaco
And even more, a few weeks ago there was a _really_ good sale of classic EA
games at very good prices. I think this is the complete list:
<http://www.gog.com/promo/ea_weekend_promo_030513>.

DRM-free Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, plus the expansion, Alien Crossfire, for
about 2.50 USD (less than 2€). Yeah, it's easy to love GOG.

------
danielweber
Was the SimCity 5 launch really bad for EA?

~~~
jlgreco
The publicity was horrible.

Of course I would be stunned if even 5% of the gamers who were calling for
EA's heads over it will abstain from buying the next game in their favorite
series if EA is involved in it. Most gamers seem completely unwilling to
boycott.

------
CodeCube
WooHoo GOG!

------
msc-o
all they need now is the 'neverhood' ;)

------
pdknsk
I became a bit more wary of GOG when I learned they are incorporated in
Cyprus.

~~~
GravityWell
This is the main point why GOG is great. Just save your install media and you
can reinstall in 10yrs if GOG goes away, regardless of where GOG is hosted.
The same is not necessarily true for Steam. I've also been getting tired of
the lag in starting up Steam just to play a few minutes of a game.

~~~
tuzemec
Yeah, I can't remember when TF2 started for under 5 mins... :( I play like 3-4
times a month and every single time I've got steam update, tf2 update, long
logging times and apart of that the steam client became really heavy on my
(probably above average) machine.

~~~
GravityWell
I was going to mention some of those other things that have been bugging me
about Steam over the years, and it's been getting worse and it seems more
bloated. I didn't really understand GOG at first, but once I realized how it
worked, I'm less enthusiastic about Steam. For titles available on both, I
wish I could return the Steam versions and use only GOG :)

