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

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (3 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] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Half-Life Free confirmed!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (2 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] 1 points 1 year 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] 1 points 1 year 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] -1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

To me, the meme acknowledges that GOG installers are shared in groups, which is piracy since the other people didn't pay for it. (That doesn't mean it's bad btw.)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

How is the meme acknowledging that GOG installers are shared in groups? This doesn't say anything about sharing anything in a group, other than "My game has no DRM, and yours does"

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (4 children)

how is this acknowledging piracy ?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

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] 1 points 1 year ago

It's because the original image macro that this is based on was about piracy, saying something along the lines of "I bring a certain 'just torrent it' vibe to the conversion that the riaa just doesn't like."

Their reuse of the macro is indirectly an answer or a continuation of it that can be seen as acknowledging the original message.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year 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.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

To me, the meme acknowledges that GOG installers are shared in groups, which is piracy since the other people didn't pay for it. (That doesn't mean it's bad btw.)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

My friend, I regret to inform you that you are misunderstanding the meme

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Yeah that seems like a bit of a stretch. That meme read to me like "Oh, you're having problems with the DRM? I don't have that problem," not "Hey guys, here's the GOG installer for X game."

Otherwise, why would the other people in the group chat not like the vibe?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Drm-free isn’t piracy

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

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

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 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.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (4 children)

It's not yours. You buy a revocable license. Read their TOS.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

But DRM-free means there's no mechanism to revoke that license. Which is really how it should be because entities shouldn't be able to benefit from a sale and then retract their side of the deal and keep the money just because they made up some terms that say they can do that.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

How are they going to take the file off my computer?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Mr. GOG comes to your house and destroys the drive you're storing the game on

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Same as every other store with DRM: they won't. Still doesn't mean you own your games.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Right, but a store with DRM can effectively prevent me from playing the games, that's where my ownership effectively ends.

With GOG, there's no DRM. So in all senses except some weird philosophical context, I do own the game. I paid money and received a file(s) that I can relocate, make backups of, burn to disc, archive, etc.

You could argue that if they revoke the license and I continue using the file that I have on my computer, that I'm now committing piracy, but that's getting into a big technicality

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

does it matter if that license is only needed to download the game? once you have it downloaded, it doesn't matter if the license gets revoked (it only grants you the ability to download the game, and use galaxy online/social features such as achievements and multiplayer)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Gog has no drm. So effectively who cares.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 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.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (3 children)

drm makes it a lot harder to pirate

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

DRM punishes paying customers. DRM free is the best choice for anyone who enjoys games, and supporting the devs is the best way to get more games you enjoy.

DRM free isn't pro-piracy it is pro-consumer.

I couldn't give a shit what pirates are doing. I pay for my games and I don't want DRM ruining my experience.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

No. Only a few people in the world are capable/dedicated to breaking copy protection. Everyone else just downloads already pirated software, no matter how hard it was to break. It's just as easy.

If I wanted to play GTA V (which I acquired legally twice) I would just look for a pirated copy. The legal one keeps updating every few days with huge downloads, requires you to download some crappy launcher, the launcher also needs to update, you need to login you need internet connection, etc, etc. It's a terrible hassle and made me abandon the game mid-story.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

DRM often encourages piracy