this post was submitted on 08 Mar 2024
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Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ

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[–] [email protected] 403 points 9 months ago (7 children)

DRM-free doesn't mean piracy. GOGs whole business model is built around selling games DRM free. I don't pirate but I do use GOG where possible as I hate DRM - it punishes and inconveniences legitimate users for piracy and doesn't even solve the problem. DRM is just an expensive waste of money for everyone involved.

[–] [email protected] 122 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Make the pay option less shitty than pirating. That’s all it takes.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 9 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 12 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Half-Life Free confirmed!

[–] [email protected] 22 points 9 months ago (6 children)

The drm-free marketing that gog does has been successful, but it is just marketing. While It's true that games sold on gog are drm-free, every game sold on gog that I've looked into is also drm-free on steam. The only real benefit is that the gog installers are more convenient for backups than using a steam back up tool.

[–] [email protected] 57 points 9 months ago

Not saying you're wrong, but there's a lot of peace of mind in knowing everything on the platform is drm free, rather than having to do some research. So it is marketing, but it's also a promise of curation so to speak.

[–] [email protected] 52 points 9 months ago

GOG is also a filter too. Everything in the whole store you know is DRM free when with other stores you have to check each game individually.

Steam is also a form of DRM in most cases though either way.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago (2 children)

How would you play a DRM-free game bought through steam without steam? (Genuine question)

[–] [email protected] 16 points 9 months ago (1 children)

You just run the executable

[–] [email protected] 12 points 9 months ago (5 children)

So it's possible to download the installer through steam, store it somewhere and ten years later I can just start the installer without having steam on my system?

Asking out of curiosity, I don't use steam, I never thought that would be possible?

[–] [email protected] 13 points 9 months ago (3 children)

You can copy the entire game folder and run it that way, as long as the game is actually DRM free it should work just fine.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 9 months ago

Steam isn't DRM. They offer a (very weak and basic) DRM for free for developers to use but they don't have too.

For a lot of games you can just install them using steam and then uninstall steam and the games will continue to work.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago (14 children)

it punishes and inconveniences legitimate users for piracy and doesn't even solve the problem.

IDK about that, the only person who can crack denuvo is empress and she doesn't crack all games, so I guess it atleast reduces piracy for a while. I agree however that DRM shouldn't exist.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Enshitification of DRM with denuvo going subscription model has become an unexpected ally in DRM getting removed even if it doesn't get cracked.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Yeah, from the leaked Crytek contract it revealed that devs have to pay again every year or remove it, which means Sega is extremely hostile since they still pay for denuvo on years old games like Persona 5 Royal.

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[–] [email protected] 240 points 9 months ago (6 children)

how is this acknowledging piracy ?

[–] [email protected] 162 points 9 months ago (2 children)

I guess they don't realize GOG is DRM free as part of their business model?

Probably because they think DRM=anti pirate and not "You don't actually own this"

[–] [email protected] 71 points 9 months ago

Selling only DRM-free games has always be GOG's whole thing (well, that and selling oldies compatible with modern OS), it's weird that this meme specifically would be considered "aknowledging piracy"

[–] [email protected] 16 points 9 months ago

Like, maybe if the final bit was saying the friends without accounts did like it there might be something there, but simply acknowledging DRM free I'm not seeing it

[–] [email protected] 47 points 9 months ago

Everything nowadays that attempts to give back a little autonomy or freedom to the user is called piracy.

As long as an app could theoretically be used for piracy, even if it was made to circumvent toxic behavior of users' bought and paid for products, then it must be properly labelled as piracy and taken down.

I'll better stop before this becomes a rant.

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[–] [email protected] 139 points 9 months ago (9 children)

OP doesn't understand the difference between piracy and drm-free.

But hey, looks like the advertising is working on you to promote GOG so good on them for a successful tweet.

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[–] [email protected] 92 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Good guy GOG wants you to actually own your own games, forever.

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[–] [email protected] 73 points 9 months ago

Drm-free isn’t piracy

[–] [email protected] 55 points 9 months ago (6 children)

ALL ANTI-CHEAT IS SPYWARE.

ALL DRM IS THEFT.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 9 months ago (2 children)

*malware
... also a violation of the CFAA

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[–] [email protected] 46 points 9 months ago (8 children)

I own and buy games from GOG. Especially if its a game i like. That way its actually mine. I hope they never change.

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[–] [email protected] 45 points 9 months ago (11 children)

Meme doesn't make sense in this context, but do love me some GOG.

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[–] [email protected] 42 points 9 months ago

No, it does not.

[–] [email protected] 40 points 9 months ago (1 children)

GOG is always my first choice to buy games.
It's a bit frustrating that you have to dive into the forum and check whether the developers actually maintain their GOG release properly before buying though.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 9 months ago (2 children)

The way I see it, if you've bought a game from GOG you've already paid, so no one can truthfully say in good faith that subsequently grabbing a cracked version of the Steam release is a lost sale.

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[–] [email protected] 31 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (3 children)

I love GOG for not having DRM.

It makes pirating shit I want to check out before I buy way easier and safer because I just need to find the GOG installer instead of some dubious crack.

Thanks, GOG, for giving me the ability to demo games to see if they are actually worth the price. 👍

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[–] [email protected] 29 points 9 months ago
[–] [email protected] 28 points 9 months ago

if i own a piece of software i should have the right to put that software on a usb and lend it to a friend for the weekend or someshit

[–] [email protected] 16 points 9 months ago (3 children)

Gog tries but its only drm free till its not.

Looking at you Cult of the lamb!

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 9 months ago (3 children)

I like GoG because I can download an executable and load it into wine, which is less easy with steam for Mac. Though they make that harder these days than they used to.

I know the Mac isn’t ideal for gaming but I don’t want to buy a whole other computer and have to deal with KVM and monitor switching just to play games that were released in 2004.

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