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> GOG.com (run by CD Projekt, the Polish developers of the Witcher series), are easily the best citizens altogether, most importantly for their commitment to DRM-free distribution

The commitment is weaker than they want it to sound. They're selling quite a few games now that require an internet connection or a serial number in order for multiplayer to work, or even just to access some of the single-player gameplay.

Refusing to call something "DRM" doesn't mean you're DRM-free.

> They're selling quite a few games now that require an internet connection [...] in order for multiplayer to work

How else would online multiplayer work? I suppose there's the community-run server model, but you're asking vendors to potentially do some pretty major re-architecting.

GOG's games are entirely DRM-Free for single-player and local multiplayer. For experiences that are inherently tied to online services, the concept of DRM-Free ownership doesn't really work.

There's more than 1 free online multiplayer, and RTCW had keys and anti-cheat when it became free for better or worse.

I think you're conflating issues, if you give allow the community to run servers, you don't have on-going costs for multi-player (besides the discovery service, but you can make that free too).

> How else would online multiplayer work?

Right, because I said "multiplayer", obviously I meant "multiplayer over the internet".

Multiplayer would work by letting you connect however you want.

> you're asking vendors to potentially do some pretty major re-architecting.

From a game architecture perspective, there is no difference between connecting to someone else over the internet, and connecting to someone else over a LAN. As far as the networking stack is concerned, the difference is that in the second case, you're most likely using IP addresses that are reserved for non-internet use.

But wait, there's more!

> How else would online multiplayer work?

You could just... NOT require a registration when connecting to the internet. Remember what I said about requiring a serial number? Try thinking of a more iconic, prototypical example of DRM.

> GOG's games are entirely DRM-Free for single-player and local multiplayer.

No, they're not, this is just false.

> From a game architecture perspective, there is no difference between connecting to someone else over the internet, and connecting to someone else over a LAN. As far as the networking stack is concerned, the difference is that in the second case, you're most likely using IP addresses that are reserved for non-internet use.

Well, but you're assuming the server software is actually designed to be run on end-user PCs, and not some proprietary server architecture that also hooks into a bunch of other company stuff.

> You could just... NOT require a registration when connecting to the internet. Remember what I said about requiring a serial number? Try thinking of a more iconic, prototypical example of DRM.

So I guess the question here is, what is the purpose of buying DRM Free games?

To me, it's the knowledge that as long as I can find compatible hardware, I will always be able to run a game, no matter what external server somewhere someone decides to take down. This is very powerful, and it's the difference between truly owning an experience, and renting temporary access to one.

As long as an external server is required, all of that goes out the window. Any game that uses that model is inherently a rental. And there's nothing necessarily wrong with that, if the experience couldn't exist any other way. I buy tickets to movie theaters, and Broadway shows, and plenty of other "temporary" forms of entertainment.

If the multiplayer already requires an external server, what does it matter whether or not there's a serial number? To me, it makes absolutely no difference.

> No, they're not, this is just false.

What single player / local multiplayer games on GOG have DRM?

> What single player / local multiplayer games on GOG have DRM?

#1. This question is not asked in good faith; games purposefully include centralized internet multiplayer, while not including local multiplayer, and this is itself a form of DRM.

#2. Northgard applies DRM even to single-player modes. You cannot use them without simultaneously connecting through the Steam^W GOG client.

https://www.gog.com/game/northgard

> Northgard applies DRM even to single-player modes. You cannot use them without simultaneously connecting through the Steam^W GOG client.

I'm not seeing anything about this in reviews or elsewhere on Google? The GOG page itself states:

> Please note: The GOG Galaxy Client is required to access online features for Northgard.

But, offline singleplayer seems to work fine by all accounts. I'm actually a bit tempted to buy the game to verify absolutely.

Note this forum thread, titled "Warning: GOG Galaxy is required to use conquest mode.":

https://www.gog.com/forum/northgard/warning_gog_galaxy_is_re...

So no, offline singleplayer is not working fine by all accounts, it is not intended to work at all, and this was fine with GOG when they reviewed the game. (If you start the game, you will see the message "You need to log in through GOG to access Conquest" displayed in a tooltip over its grayed-out button. It's not something you could actually miss, if you were reviewing the game.)

Did you really think I was just making this up?

> or even just to access some of the single-player gameplay.

Define some, can you not play the full game if you're entirely offline if not either don't buy the game, or what's the problem?

> Define some

Here, Northgard removes single-player functionality unless it can check on you: https://www.gog.com/game/northgard

> either don't buy the game, or what's the problem?

Well, the problem would be selling a heavily DRMed game while claiming to be DRM-free.

https://www.gog.com/forum/northgard/warning_gog_galaxy_is_re...

Well this suggests it's a bug, at least.

>> require an internet connection... in order for multiplayer to work

Failing to see the problem here.

Multiplayer doesn't need internet. Neither the client nor the server does.

I think the parent made a mental jump here: the problem is when multiplayer needs a particular endpoint on the internet, and when that endpoint is unreachable (firewall, bad connection, product discontinued), then multiplayer is broken.

The world just isn't black and white is it.

Epic could certainly be described as anti-linux, for the reasons you've described. On the other hand they have invested quite a bit into open source cross platform projects Godot being a good example.

Valve have made huge amounts of money from gambling but have been tremendous in pushing Linux as a viable gaming platform.

CD Projekt are staunchly DRM free which is fantastic, and offer support for Linux releases on their store, but they are dragging their heels on full Linux support with GoG Galaxy, and talk condescendingly about Linux users with regards to their games Witcher 3 and more recently Cyber Punk 2077.

Judging by their actions I would still pick Valve ahead of the other two as the best for Linux as a modern desktop OS.

I wonder how much of Proton development is really Valve and how much is originally Wine contributors though. Fortunately Wine is GPL afaik and requires modifications to be contributed back to the community. So even if it is a cheap way for Valve to gain customers, it means there is a chance contributions flow back and forth between Proton and Wine.

Its mostly Valve funding external developers like Codeweavers and Philip Rebhole.

The investment into linux gaming isn't only wine thought. They are working behind the scenes into fixing the rough edges and creating a smooth experience.

They pushed publishers to develop linux ports, they hired developers, they created a linux gaming distribution (steamos and the "failed" steamos console) and do their own research and development like ACO [0].

Proton in the end is "only" wine bundled with a good patchset and preinstalled debendencies, but even in the beginning you could get a good gaming experience out of the box that you only got through manual patching and tuning with wine.

[0] https://steamcommunity.com/app/221410/discussions/0/16409152...

I would argue Proton is a bit more than 'only' Wine and that it also includes projects like DXVK/D9VK. These make many, many more games playable at decent performance than would be possible with Wine's own solution.

Yeah counted dxvk as patch. Wine has it's own work on dx over vulkan and you can easily use dxvk with wine as well. It's the default for most of my wine prefixes.

Tbh I even got a wrapper script to try games with proton when they don't run well with wine just to see if it works any better and the wrapper is mostly setting environment variables and reading paths.

> (steamos and the "failed" steamos console)

I agree that steamos hasn't been a big success in the market, but I'm pretty sure Valve intended it as negotiating leverage - BATNA [1] - when Microsoft came out with Windows Store.

So long as Microsoft isn't declaring "No app stores except ours" or "30% cut of sales to us, no exceptions" steamos has been a success from Valve's point of view :)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Best_alternative_to_a_negotiat...

I'm a 100% with you on this. And it's even a great fallback since they are actively working on linux.

> I wonder how much of Proton development is really Valve and how much is originally Wine contributors though.

Both! They gained the advantage of 20 years of work on Wine before they started distributing it. Now they're continuing to push Wine forward by funding further development. Most work on Proton is sent to upstream Wine first, and is then merged back into Proton. All of this is visible in the public repositories.

This is exactly how open source should work :) Valve's Linux team are good open source citizens, you can rest easy.

Team Fortress 2 and CS:GO were early pioneers of current micro transaction models. Arguably the “loot box” was popularized by crates and boxes from TF2. Players would receive crates through casual play on any server. The crates could be unlocked with keys bought for 1.50 each.

This model was brought to Valves free to play release DOTA2, where it further cemented the concept in the public awareness.

TF2 definitely feels to me like the origin of widespread loot boxes in gaming (The actual origin appears to be MapleStory in 2004, and the appearance of widespread free to play social network games with loot boxes does slightly predate their inclusion in TF2. I’d definitley blame Zynga more than Valve for the current state of affairs personally). By the time DOTA2 came around though they were already so prevalent that I don’t think their inclusion changed much of anything though.

MapleStory had a "cash shop" in 2004, not loot boxes. Very common design at the time, it was just an in-game store that only took real money in return for items. MS was actually somewhat famous at the time for having a fair, cosmetic-only cash shop (which has now since changed)[0].

PCGamer [1] puts "ZT Online", a Chinese MMO, as starting the lootbox trend in 2006.

[0]: Albeit, this is all coming from my experiences on the Global MapleStory servers. The Korean ones could have been different

[1]: https://www.pcgamer.com/the-evolution-of-loot-boxes/

It’s actually the Japanese version of MapleStory that first had the “Gachapon ticket” in 2004, which gave random in game items and cost real money. (While it seems to have been ported to other versions later on, I can’t figure out when that happened). ZT Online is definitely closer to the modern loot box model. While they also didn’t have loot box unique items, they had the model where you used keys to open chests bought with real money. Additionally enemies didn’t drop items in the game, instead it was a combination of buying materials and smithing. This apparently made gambling with keys to get items directly very compelling in comparison. Opening a chest was also rigged in a way where a wheel span on items you could get, but the appearance rate of valuable items was more common than the rate at which you would actually land on them.

Here’s an article written on the game in 2007: https://forums.mmorpg.com/discussion/161383/the-dark-side-of...

Definitely TF2 and the infamous "hats". Other games may have sold cosmetics, but none truly gamified it like Valve. They even had a proper economist [0] whose whole job was to tweak and optimize the system to make as much money as possible. In 2011, they switched TF2 from paid to F2P, which also was a huge step forward for the microtransaction model. CS:GO soon followed suit.

[0] https://www.businessinsider.com/yanis-varoufakis-valve-game-...

I'm in a sad situation where I want to support GOG but choose Steam because of their superb (just click Play) Linux integration. After many years I'm just tired of tweaking Wine/Lutris profiles.

I'm really hoping GOG will one day provide a Linux client with Proton inside.

The roll out of the current system was fairly slow and based on response to changes in TF2. Initially weapons were tied to in game achievements, and later a random drop system as well. Cosmetic hats were added to the drop pool in 09, and in 2010 a weapon, item and crate (loot box) shop, and later an update made of community creations. 2012 added a co-op mode MvM that required a 1$ ticket to play a round of the game that that count how many times you've played and can drop items, and the steam community market where items can be traded. It's worth noting that Yanis Varoufakis[1], the economist was a consultant for valve at this point. In 2015 skins for weapons were added, something that beforehand was free.

Valve's argument, which is significantly different than something like overwatch seems to be that content like hats and weapon models and skins has value, and when it's given away there's less incentive for creators to make things, which results in less things being available for players to enjoy and people who make things getting less money. A similar thought led to the introduction of the paid mods store for example. While that was extremely unpopular, there are a couple game mods for sale on the steam store2[2], and there are Patreon game modders[3].

Of course Valve's dog in this race is that they can and have made boatloads of cash in doing so[4], where in their ideal situation users make content and other users pay for it, and they just collect a fee on top for providing a platform.

[1]https://www.yanisvaroufakis.eu/category/valveconomics

[2]https://store.steampowered.com/app/280740/Aperture_Tag_The_P...

[3]https://www.patreon.com/JulioNIB

[4]https://www.ign.com/articles/2012/03/08/how-and-why-team-for...

GoG does not offer refunds, no-questions-asked. Also unlike GoG, Steam has location/country specific pricing and can do payments in local currencies (at some point they even used to accept Bitcoins). In the third world, you pay much lower prices if you buy through steam. Considering this, Steam has been rather a good thing for gamers.

> GoG does not offer refunds, no-questions-asked.

I thought they actually started offering them as of recently?

But regardless, you can see why refunds are much harder for GoG—it goes part-in-parcel with being DRM-Free. Valve can remove games from your account and render (most of) them impossible to play. GoG, by contrast, can't really "take back" a DRM-Free executable once you've downloaded it.

Even before Steam allowed refunds, GoG had a 30-day no-questions-asked exchange policy for any game you'd purchased but hadn't actually downloaded. Sadly, this isn't particularly useful, but it's also the one situation where GoG can actually "reclaim" the returned item.

> I thought they actually started offering them as of recently?

Indeed they do. Support will try to give you credit instead so you need to be insistent on getting your actual money back.

In my neck of the woods, GOG offers no-questions-asked refunds, and they also have location-specific pricing and local currency payments. The pricing is usually higher than average though, so they grant extra credit for those purchases.

I'm not sure which location you're talking about where this doesn't apply.

I think GoG still not having regional pricing for much of 3rd world. In Steam most games are available normally at 30to 70 percent reduced prices in much of 3rd world, compared to US prices.