7 ms·

There is no DRM on GOG. https://www.gog.com/blog/what-exactly-is-drm-in-video-games-and-why-should-you-care/#9-drm-free-how-do-i-get-it- https://www.gog.com/bl

by bpye 8mo ago

There is no DRM on GOG. https://www.gog.com/blog/what-exactly-is-drm-in-video-games-and-why-should-you-care/#9-drm-free-how-do-i-get-it- https://www.gog.com/blog/what-exactly-is-drm-in-video-games-...

stavros 8mo ago
Famously so. The main method of deployment was an offline installer before they made Galaxy, and AFAIK Galaxy just downloads and runs the installer.
- gamesieve 8mo ago
  Not quite. You can use Galaxy to download the offline installers (or just do that through the website), but when you install a game through Galaxy, it downloads a special build which it just copies to the right location, without running a separate installer.
- KptMarchewa 8mo ago
  No, it doesn't use offline installers. Source: worked on that in the past. https://content-system.gog.com/ https://content-system.gog.com/
- thaumasiotes 8mo ago
  The running game can also call out to Galaxy and unlock, or not unlock, ingame content based on what it hears back. It's pretty difficult to imagine a definition of "digital rights management" that doesn't include this.
  - CopperWing 8mo ago
    As far as I remember, the only games which optionally need Galaxy running are those will online multiplayer, and only if you want to play online. This is because the original developers shutdown their own servers for matchmaking or originally used Steam servers for that. GOG servers are only replacing those.
    - gamesieve 8mo ago
      There are also a handful of games which put some additional purely cosmetic content behind an online check. That could be the start of a slippery slope, which people are justly upset about, but they then do an injustice to their cause by generalizing from those cases.
      - account42 8mo ago
        It's not a slippery slope but already full blown DRM plain and simple. Both online functionality limited to GOG-run servers and checks for cosmetic content.
        thaumasiotes 8mo ago
        Note that for Gloomhaven, the multiplayer server is one of the players' computers. That player hosts a game and everyone else joins. There are no GOG servers and no company servers. In version 1.0 of the GOG release, multiplayer is enabled. In subsequent versions, multiplayer is disabled (in the sense that the button to host or join a game is greyed out) unless the game succeeds at verifying you through Galaxy. (And this is a dynamic status; you can have it enabled, shut off Galaxy, restart the game, and find that it's disabled again. But apparently that isn't DRM.
      - CopperWing 8mo ago
        Which ones? Honest question. I only remember games for which GOG apologizes in their store page for missing cosmetics or extra features because originally tied to online services (e.g. the Mafia or Yakuza games), or ones in which they are unlocked by default for the same reason (e.g. Dragon Age Origins).
        gamesieve 8mo ago
        https://www.gog.com/forum/general/drm_on_gog_list_of_singleplayer_games_with_drm/post1 https://www.gog.com/forum/general/drm_on_gog_list_of_singlep... has a full list.
da_grift_shift 8mo ago
Yet the standalone offline installed games won't run without libgalaxy.dylib (Mac) or Galaxy64.dll (Windows) which is responsible for outbound connections to https://galaxy-log.gog.com https://galaxy-log.gog.com and https://insights-collector.gog.com https://insights-collector.gog.com? To be clear: if you buy Disco Elysium on GOG, download the "offline game installer" without using Galaxy, install it, and run the game on a desert island, it will work (the network requests fail open). But if you try to run the game after removing the bundled dylib/DLL, it will not. Why do Galaxy-free games ship with a mandatory dependency on Galaxy?
- nottorp 8mo ago
  > Why do Galaxy-free games ship with a mandatory dependency on Galaxy? Because the developer linked the dynamic library in at compile time instead of writing additional code to load it at runtime and disabling/enabling features based on its presence. You can call it budget limitations, incompetence or lack of respect for the customer. Doubt it's intentional DRM though.
- immibis 8mo ago
  [dead]
krige 8mo ago
Last I checked, there is loads of DRM on GOG and most of the games that have it, force you to use Galaxy.
- tommica 8mo ago
  Really? What games are those? I've not encountered a single one :/
  - krige 8mo ago
    Off the top of my head Crime Cities on launch forced me to use Galaxy to play it. I vividly remember this because the game also ran like complete crap.
    - gamesieve 8mo ago
      Galaxy can be required for multiplayer aspects in games, but if what you say is true for the singleplayer part of the game, GOG will consider it a bug, and will get it fixed. There's nothing in the Crime Cities GOG forum about this, nor in the various tracking threads in the main forum, and generally GOG users are extremely sensitive about anything which even reeks of forcing Galaxy, so I'd strongly expect any issue to be known. I've seen cases where the developer implemented a bad online check, so that if you blocked the program from accessing the internet while the OS reported being online, the game would hang or crash, but being fully offline would work. Could it be that something like that was at play here? Oh, or that you simply picked the wrong installer for the game, and thus ran the Galaxy-installer rather than the offline installer?
      - Springtime 8mo ago
        I think too it can be misleading since on Windows the default LNK shortcut that is created after the game installation launches Galaxy with arguments instead of being a path to the direct game EXE (which works entirely without Galaxy and how I run games). They do this to push Galaxy for convenience I suppose as most are used to clients that handle updates but it can be confusing if some wonder why for instance their offline installer shortcut opened Galaxy instead.
PunchyHamster 8mo ago
I guess depends what you consider DRM, some games appear to have problems https://www.gog.com/wishlist/site/label_the_games_that_have_drm https://www.gog.com/wishlist/site/label_the_games_that_have_...
- WorldMaker 8mo ago
  GOG's original and somewhat current line in the sand is "must have an offline-capable installer". For a lot of Good Old Games that is enough to guarantee DRM-free. Unfortunately in the Live Service world it is a concession that allows too many loopholes such as Sony single player games that still need a PlayStation Account and a half-dozen telemetry services active before they get to actual gameplay. Sony, as a particular example worth flogging, also makes use of the loophole that an anti-cheat rootkit can be installed offline, easy. I think GOG is saying a lot of the right things in terms of Game Preservation being a long term goal for them. I think they are between a rock and a hard place that the store would be a lot less active if they couldn't offer the latest games from companies like Sony, and they want to be on good terms with such companies to get access to their giant back catalogs for Preservation efforts which also presumably includes sales numbers of recent titles for justification. But yes, I'd also love to see them push back a bit harder on some of these publishers a bit further than "needs an offline-capable installer" and mabye include more steps towards some definition of "should run offline-capable", because yeah things like "Live Services" and account systems and mandatory telemetry systems and rootkit anti-cheat systems are often de facto DRM just wearing another hat of "user convenience" or "achievement tracking" or "game safety" tools. I don't think GOG can make that push alone, though. There are too many industry trends to try to buck to get further in those directions. (Thinking about the recent Anthem shutdown as a recent for instance of a mostly single player game that is entirely unplayable because EA shutdown live services this month.)
  - gamesieve 8mo ago
    There are no games on GOG which require a PlayStation account for their single player gameplay. (AFAIK, but I think I'm pretty tuned in and would know.)
account42 8mo ago
And we have always been at war with Eurasia.

by bpye 8mo ago

stavros 8mo ago

Famously so. The main method of deployment was an offline installer before they made Galaxy, and AFAIK Galaxy just downloads and runs the installer.

gamesieve 8mo ago
Not quite. You can use Galaxy to download the offline installers (or just do that through the website), but when you install a game through Galaxy, it downloads a special build which it just copies to the right location, without running a separate installer.
KptMarchewa 8mo ago
No, it doesn't use offline installers. Source: worked on that in the past. https://content-system.gog.com/ https://content-system.gog.com/
thaumasiotes 8mo ago
The running game can also call out to Galaxy and unlock, or not unlock, ingame content based on what it hears back. It's pretty difficult to imagine a definition of "digital rights management" that doesn't include this.
- CopperWing 8mo ago
  As far as I remember, the only games which optionally need Galaxy running are those will online multiplayer, and only if you want to play online. This is because the original developers shutdown their own servers for matchmaking or originally used Steam servers for that. GOG servers are only replacing those.
  - gamesieve 8mo ago
    There are also a handful of games which put some additional purely cosmetic content behind an online check. That could be the start of a slippery slope, which people are justly upset about, but they then do an injustice to their cause by generalizing from those cases.
    - account42 8mo ago
      It's not a slippery slope but already full blown DRM plain and simple. Both online functionality limited to GOG-run servers and checks for cosmetic content.
      - thaumasiotes 8mo ago
        Note that for Gloomhaven, the multiplayer server is one of the players' computers. That player hosts a game and everyone else joins. There are no GOG servers and no company servers. In version 1.0 of the GOG release, multiplayer is enabled. In subsequent versions, multiplayer is disabled (in the sense that the button to host or join a game is greyed out) unless the game succeeds at verifying you through Galaxy. (And this is a dynamic status; you can have it enabled, shut off Galaxy, restart the game, and find that it's disabled again. But apparently that isn't DRM.
    - CopperWing 8mo ago
      Which ones? Honest question. I only remember games for which GOG apologizes in their store page for missing cosmetics or extra features because originally tied to online services (e.g. the Mafia or Yakuza games), or ones in which they are unlocked by default for the same reason (e.g. Dragon Age Origins).
      - gamesieve 8mo ago
        https://www.gog.com/forum/general/drm_on_gog_list_of_singleplayer_games_with_drm/post1 https://www.gog.com/forum/general/drm_on_gog_list_of_singlep... has a full list.

da_grift_shift 8mo ago

Yet the standalone offline installed games won't run without libgalaxy.dylib (Mac) or Galaxy64.dll (Windows) which is responsible for outbound connections to https://galaxy-log.gog.com https://galaxy-log.gog.com and https://insights-collector.gog.com https://insights-collector.gog.com? To be clear: if you buy Disco Elysium on GOG, download the "offline game installer" without using Galaxy, install it, and run the game on a desert island, it will work (the network requests fail open). But if you try to run the game after removing the bundled dylib/DLL, it will not. Why do Galaxy-free games ship with a mandatory dependency on Galaxy?

nottorp 8mo ago
> Why do Galaxy-free games ship with a mandatory dependency on Galaxy? Because the developer linked the dynamic library in at compile time instead of writing additional code to load it at runtime and disabling/enabling features based on its presence. You can call it budget limitations, incompetence or lack of respect for the customer. Doubt it's intentional DRM though.
immibis 8mo ago
[dead]

krige 8mo ago

Last I checked, there is loads of DRM on GOG and most of the games that have it, force you to use Galaxy.

tommica 8mo ago
Really? What games are those? I've not encountered a single one :/
- krige 8mo ago
  Off the top of my head Crime Cities on launch forced me to use Galaxy to play it. I vividly remember this because the game also ran like complete crap.
  - gamesieve 8mo ago
    Galaxy can be required for multiplayer aspects in games, but if what you say is true for the singleplayer part of the game, GOG will consider it a bug, and will get it fixed. There's nothing in the Crime Cities GOG forum about this, nor in the various tracking threads in the main forum, and generally GOG users are extremely sensitive about anything which even reeks of forcing Galaxy, so I'd strongly expect any issue to be known. I've seen cases where the developer implemented a bad online check, so that if you blocked the program from accessing the internet while the OS reported being online, the game would hang or crash, but being fully offline would work. Could it be that something like that was at play here? Oh, or that you simply picked the wrong installer for the game, and thus ran the Galaxy-installer rather than the offline installer?
    - Springtime 8mo ago
      I think too it can be misleading since on Windows the default LNK shortcut that is created after the game installation launches Galaxy with arguments instead of being a path to the direct game EXE (which works entirely without Galaxy and how I run games). They do this to push Galaxy for convenience I suppose as most are used to clients that handle updates but it can be confusing if some wonder why for instance their offline installer shortcut opened Galaxy instead.

PunchyHamster 8mo ago

I guess depends what you consider DRM, some games appear to have problems https://www.gog.com/wishlist/site/label_the_games_that_have_drm https://www.gog.com/wishlist/site/label_the_games_that_have_...

WorldMaker 8mo ago
GOG's original and somewhat current line in the sand is "must have an offline-capable installer". For a lot of Good Old Games that is enough to guarantee DRM-free. Unfortunately in the Live Service world it is a concession that allows too many loopholes such as Sony single player games that still need a PlayStation Account and a half-dozen telemetry services active before they get to actual gameplay. Sony, as a particular example worth flogging, also makes use of the loophole that an anti-cheat rootkit can be installed offline, easy. I think GOG is saying a lot of the right things in terms of Game Preservation being a long term goal for them. I think they are between a rock and a hard place that the store would be a lot less active if they couldn't offer the latest games from companies like Sony, and they want to be on good terms with such companies to get access to their giant back catalogs for Preservation efforts which also presumably includes sales numbers of recent titles for justification. But yes, I'd also love to see them push back a bit harder on some of these publishers a bit further than "needs an offline-capable installer" and mabye include more steps towards some definition of "should run offline-capable", because yeah things like "Live Services" and account systems and mandatory telemetry systems and rootkit anti-cheat systems are often de facto DRM just wearing another hat of "user convenience" or "achievement tracking" or "game safety" tools. I don't think GOG can make that push alone, though. There are too many industry trends to try to buck to get further in those directions. (Thinking about the recent Anthem shutdown as a recent for instance of a mostly single player game that is entirely unplayable because EA shutdown live services this month.)
- gamesieve 8mo ago
  There are no games on GOG which require a PlayStation account for their single player gameplay. (AFAIK, but I think I'm pretty tuned in and would know.)

account42 8mo ago

And we have always been at war with Eurasia.