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The people like yourself who are specifically holding out for a DRM-free version aren't a significant enough percentage of the market to care about. Everyone e

The people like yourself who are specifically holding out for a DRM-free version aren't a significant enough percentage of the market to care about. Everyone else will just buy it on Steam.

shmerl 10y ago
As I said, it's only additional profit. After the prime time of those games, it's sales that come from those who appreciate playing good games regardless of how recent they are. So they already don't "care" about these users because they are a minority, but they can care about more potential sales in the long term. Percentage of those who wouldn't buy those games with DRM is the same as for new games (DRM-free preference doesn't depend on how new the game is). It's large enough in that long term. So if they are interested in such users, there is no point for them to lose out on those who would avoid such games because of DRM.
- debaserab2 10y ago
  No, it's not only additional profit - you need people to make the DRM free version. It doesn't appear out of nowhere. It takes paid developers to do. Let alone future support if you plan on issuing patches down the road. That's not even factoring the risk that you are now releasing a super easy to pirate version. It doesn't seem that illogical to me that a publisher might forgo a DRM free version considering cost and risk.
  - shmerl 10y ago
    > No, it's not only additional profit - you need people to make the DRM free version. It doesn't appear out of nowhere. It takes paid developers to do. That's only for games really seriously infested with DRM. There perhaps, it takes some effort to weed out that stuff. But it's really the most recalcitrant cases. Usually it doesn't take any substantial effort. > Let alone future support if you plan on issuing patches down the road. That's unlikely. They might issue updates such as add-ons / expansions and other missing stuff. But they wouldn't issue bug fixes and etc. For instance EA are now releasing their games like Dragon Age: Origins on GOG. They offered their expansions there after the release as a "patch", but they wouldn't make any bug fixes and etc. Such games are way past their production cycle. Clearly EA don't mind extra sales coming from such games. Though quite a lot are still missing. > That's not even factoring the risk that you are now releasing a super easy to pirate version. So you are saying they shouldn't sell those games because what, pirates already pirated and still pirate them? That's ridiculous. It's simply saying - we can have more sales, but we shouldn't. That release has no effect on piracy whatsoever. If anything it can actually reduce it, because some might pirate cracked versions because they are DRM-free.
    - debaserab2 10y ago
      You now have to support an additional production build of your game. You're suggesting that takes no effort? By the way - patches don't just mean actual gameplay patches. Patches also means compatibility with future operating systems, drivers, and hardware that you can't possibly know anything about today.
      - shmerl 10y ago
        > You now have to support an additional production build of your game. What kind of build? The most they'd need to do is to repackage it. And really GOG do it on their own, so all they need to do is to provide the game to GOG. There is no build involved for such older games. > Patches also means compatibility with future operating systems, drivers, and hardware that you can't possibly know anything about today. Those don't depend on distributors, they are universal. I.e. if they are doing it on Steam, they can use it on GOG as well.
        debaserab2 10y ago
        > What kind of build? The most they'd need to do is to repackage it. And really GOG do it on their own, so all they need to do is to provide the game to GOG. There is no build involved for such older games. It doesn't matter. It's an extra build. That means extra testing and QA resources. Have you heard of regression bugs? > Those don't depend on distributors, they are universal. I.e. if they are doing it on Steam, they can use it on GOG as well. Maybe. Maybe not. Either way it's another build to support. You won't know until you test it.
        shmerl 10y ago
        > It doesn't matter. It's an extra build. If they can't handle trivial packaging (tarball) or consider it an insurmountable effort - they should switch to some other business. Again, such older games don't get allocated QA and other resources normal production cycle games do. They get very minimal treatment. GOG do that QA for them actually. And if there are major problems, GOG either fix it on their own, or they reject those games if they can't fix some very major bugs. In result their versions actually tend to work better than Steam ones. Such companies like EA or 2K on the other hand aren't likely to go and fix bugs in their old releases.

The people like yourself who are specifically holding out for a DRM-free version aren't a significant enough percentage of the market to care about. Everyone else will just buy it on Steam.

shmerl 10y ago

As I said, it's only additional profit. After the prime time of those games, it's sales that come from those who appreciate playing good games regardless of how recent they are. So they already don't "care" about these users because they are a minority, but they can care about more potential sales in the long term. Percentage of those who wouldn't buy those games with DRM is the same as for new games (DRM-free preference doesn't depend on how new the game is). It's large enough in that long term. So if they are interested in such users, there is no point for them to lose out on those who would avoid such games because of DRM.

debaserab2 10y ago
No, it's not only additional profit - you need people to make the DRM free version. It doesn't appear out of nowhere. It takes paid developers to do. Let alone future support if you plan on issuing patches down the road. That's not even factoring the risk that you are now releasing a super easy to pirate version. It doesn't seem that illogical to me that a publisher might forgo a DRM free version considering cost and risk.
- shmerl 10y ago
  > No, it's not only additional profit - you need people to make the DRM free version. It doesn't appear out of nowhere. It takes paid developers to do. That's only for games really seriously infested with DRM. There perhaps, it takes some effort to weed out that stuff. But it's really the most recalcitrant cases. Usually it doesn't take any substantial effort. > Let alone future support if you plan on issuing patches down the road. That's unlikely. They might issue updates such as add-ons / expansions and other missing stuff. But they wouldn't issue bug fixes and etc. For instance EA are now releasing their games like Dragon Age: Origins on GOG. They offered their expansions there after the release as a "patch", but they wouldn't make any bug fixes and etc. Such games are way past their production cycle. Clearly EA don't mind extra sales coming from such games. Though quite a lot are still missing. > That's not even factoring the risk that you are now releasing a super easy to pirate version. So you are saying they shouldn't sell those games because what, pirates already pirated and still pirate them? That's ridiculous. It's simply saying - we can have more sales, but we shouldn't. That release has no effect on piracy whatsoever. If anything it can actually reduce it, because some might pirate cracked versions because they are DRM-free.
  - debaserab2 10y ago
    You now have to support an additional production build of your game. You're suggesting that takes no effort? By the way - patches don't just mean actual gameplay patches. Patches also means compatibility with future operating systems, drivers, and hardware that you can't possibly know anything about today.
    - shmerl 10y ago
      > You now have to support an additional production build of your game. What kind of build? The most they'd need to do is to repackage it. And really GOG do it on their own, so all they need to do is to provide the game to GOG. There is no build involved for such older games. > Patches also means compatibility with future operating systems, drivers, and hardware that you can't possibly know anything about today. Those don't depend on distributors, they are universal. I.e. if they are doing it on Steam, they can use it on GOG as well.
      - debaserab2 10y ago
        > What kind of build? The most they'd need to do is to repackage it. And really GOG do it on their own, so all they need to do is to provide the game to GOG. There is no build involved for such older games. It doesn't matter. It's an extra build. That means extra testing and QA resources. Have you heard of regression bugs? > Those don't depend on distributors, they are universal. I.e. if they are doing it on Steam, they can use it on GOG as well. Maybe. Maybe not. Either way it's another build to support. You won't know until you test it.
        shmerl 10y ago
        > It doesn't matter. It's an extra build. If they can't handle trivial packaging (tarball) or consider it an insurmountable effort - they should switch to some other business. Again, such older games don't get allocated QA and other resources normal production cycle games do. They get very minimal treatment. GOG do that QA for them actually. And if there are major problems, GOG either fix it on their own, or they reject those games if they can't fix some very major bugs. In result their versions actually tend to work better than Steam ones. Such companies like EA or 2K on the other hand aren't likely to go and fix bugs in their old releases.