You don't have to change anything about the thread nor repeat any definitions, Lifthrasil. The vast majority of us are quite capable of telling the difference between someone genuinely wanting definitions clarified vs sh*t-posters who filled up page 2 of this topic with "'Online-gated account-locked content is no more DRM than offline DirectX dll's that come bundled with Windows', 'electricity is DRM', and 'this whole thread is pointless because in 10.000 years none of the games will be workin...'" then turned it into a 4 year long personal crusade on the back of feigned sincerity and thinly-veiled 'concern trolling'...

The so called "bug" is quite often due to GOG encouraging the usage of Galaxy's DLC Discovery API which believe it or not, does actually 'authenticate' purchased DLC not that different to Steam. Instead of the game unlocking its own DLC "internally" (where the game knows what its own DLC and folder structure looks like and looks for it directly (eg, Oblivion looking for \Data\DLCShiveringIsles*.esp files, NWN looking for its DLC under \data\nwm\*.nwm files, Dishonored looking for \DishonoredGame\DLC, etc), instead GOG's Galaxified offline installers are hard-coded to have Galaxy / Galaxy.dll stub 'authenticate' the existence of the DLC for the game, then "present" it back to the game, for which the workaround for offline installers (if Galaxy isn't running) involves looking for a Galaxy Manifest file named "goggame-****.info", and if it can't find / doesn't look for that file in the game's root folder then in some games the DLC will never be 'authenticated' by Galaxy / Galaxy.dll stub, and will remain "unseen" by the game despite being installed in the right place. In fact, for some games you can mimic this 'bug' by deleting / moving the goggame-****.info files out of the game folder and as if by magic the installed DLC will no longer appear in the game (despite all the DLC files still being installed)...

So in such cases, yes affected games belong on the list until they're fixed because the cause of the missing DLC in offline installer due is the Galaxy "DLC Discovery" authentication check offline workaround fails and the client (that's Managing the Right of the Digital DLC to be 'presented' to the game in order for the game to "see" that it's installed...) isn't running. The only reason this absurdly overly-convoluted half-baked API was invented was to have "bonus content" for CDPR games as a reward just for Galaxy users / potential future uses for in-game MT's. There's zero reason why such a "Rube Goldberg Machine" 'solution' was ever needed to buy and install DLC for offline single-player DRM-Free games, here or anywhere else (hence why retail disc games bought from one store and their DLC disc bought from another managed to work together just fine without the problems that the Galaxy "DLC Discovery" API has introduced here.

I think the mistake many here seem to be doing is to equate DRM-free as only the lack of any DRM and then proceed to label everything that goes against their personal definition of DRM-free as DRM, when it would make far more sense to view DRM as only one of many things that can prevent a game from living up fully to the ideals of DRM-free gaming.

For example if a game's multiplayer support relies totally on the access to its publisher's servers, it is a problem regardless if that server is at all interested about you having a valid license or not, so why can't we just focus on getting as many people as possible to agree with that directly rather than waste time trying to convince them that such a reliance should either way be considered DRM, as if labeling it as DRM would somehow make adding player hosted server support just as easily achievable thing as getting an actual DRM check disabled from a game?

TL;DR, The title of this thread would be a lot more accurate and more widely agreeable if it we could extend the original title with a "-free incompatible design choices" suffix.

Pardon? DRM-free shouldn't mean free of DRM? *scratches head*
This thread is about single player...

DRM on GOG: list of single-player games with DRM

Asking as someone who finds the thread title entirely accurate, exactly what do you find hard to understand about the title?

Perhaps you should read again what I wrote and this time pay more attention to the "as ***ONLY*** the lack of DRM" part?

Multiplayer related examples of DRM-free incompatible design choices are much easier to and faster to explain and on the other hand, most, if not all of the games listed in this thread belong here precisely because some parts of them rely on online services the same way as any multiplayer mode that lacks player hosted server support or other means of running the multiplayer sessions totally independently from such online services.

It can only be entirely accurate for you if you insist on denying that it is much harder for most of us to agree on the shape of the DRM hole you are trying to hammer through everything you think to be against DRM-free gaming than for us all being able to agree on the shape of the hole where we could just drop through any fully DRM-free game.

And while you are free to disagree with my point of view, you probably should first consider the unpleasant possibility about publishers and developers being even more likely to not agree with your definition of DRM than me, so why argue with them what is and is not DRM, when that can of worms could be sidestepped easily by expanding the concept of DRM-free to mean more than just the absence of DRM and thus take away their ability to hide behind their various excuses for why this or that isn't DRM, so its presence in a GOG game shouldn't be a problem for anyone...

If you follow an extremely strict view point that it's not DRM unless it has something like Denuvo Anti-Tamper, that's great for you. That doesn't make someone else wrong for deciding that things like not being able to save the game at all in King of Seas or get an important drop in Dungeon of the Endless if you don't play the game through Galaxy as DRM. I know that some people don't considered forced store launchers as DRM because I've had that argument thrown in my face numerous times for why I should get with things and switch to Steam on the basis that being forced to use the Steam launcher isn't DRM.

However some of us do look at forced launchers as DRM with no regard to which Store it is - Steam, Epic, GOG Galaxy. If we have to use a store's launcher to play a specific game, we're not going to play said game and don't feel like we're missing out.

Also something that you do not seem to understand based on Post #1532 is that this thread is specifically for issues that impact single-player. It isn't for multiplayer DRM issues as there's already a thread for that.... Or more accurately, there's so many games that have DRMed multiplayer such that Lift made a list of games with multiplayer that do not have DRM as that list is shorter. This can be found here


So again, I find the thread title entirely accurate.

Okay, I would suggest people just accept the definition set forth by the creator of this thread as Arguing about definitions just ends up going into circular back and forth with nothing of value being added.

Monkey Island™ 2 Special Edition: LeChuck’s Revenge™ - DRMed Installation

The offline installer is missing some files such that you must first install the game with the offline installer, then use GOG Galaxy to pickup the missing files.... or the game will never work in that you'll see the LucasArts screen, a screen with Guybrush tapping his foot (perhaps a loading screen), then it crashes. The game is specifically missing the following:
* The file monkey2.bin that should in in your main installation folder.
* The folder !Temp, which has some subfolders and a bunch of files.

Installation Steps (for those that like lists) -
1. Download the offline installer from your GOG account: https://www.gog.com/en/account
2. You'll get a setup screen for Microsoft Visual C++. Select the Repair option then click Next. Select Done.
3. You'll get a second setup screen about Microsoft Visual C++. Do the same thing - Repair, Next, Done.
4. The offline installer will continue and give you the following message when it is done: "Monkey Island 2 - Special Edition was installed successfully."
5. You must now download GOG Galaxy and run it to run an update for this game.
6. GOG Galaxy will download the previously mentioned missing files as an update, then go into an update fail loop where it will keep trying to download the missing files over and over again.

However for those of us that want to play the game offline and outside of Galaxy, the game works now even though it's stuck in an update loop in Galaxy where it cannot be played through Galaxy. Also once you've gone through the installation, you can backup the entire game folder so as to not have to use Galaxy a second time. In this case, installation is run the offline installer then copy your backup to the game folder, which I tested and can confirm works.

I've already submitted a request with GOG support about the offline installer missing files (and workaround installation.) I also brought up the update loop with GOG Galaxy only because it technically is a related issue.


edit -- found a typo, fixed

Thank you for the warning. Now the question is, is this a general thing? Or did an error occur during your download of the offline installers?

@all: can someone, who owns the special edition verify, if the game is installable and playable completely without Galaxy for them? Or whether the missing files problem affects the current offline installers in general?

I don't have this game but what's weird is according to gogdb installer wasn't updated since 2015.

I just tried to replicate it (offline installer only, Galaxy has never been installed) but it works fine here. It's true that the file mentioned (monkey2.bin, approx 553kb) isn't in the offline installer, however it actually appears to be created by the game during the "GuyBrush is tapping his foot" loading screen. What's more if you feed it into a Hex Editor (I use HxD), it appears to filled with 0's, ie, it isn't a real file and has no content. If you quit the game, delete monkey2.bin then restart the game, it gets recreated by the game. There is no temp folder present on mine, but I'm not sure there should be, as the \tmp folder inside offline installers usually contains the InnoSetup related meta-data stuff (pictures for adverts shown inside the installer during install, innosetup scripts, redists, icons, etc), that's usually only seen if you unpack with InnoExtract / InnoUnp. It's possible some installation glitch occurred for Catventurer causing a corrupted game to freeze up, but I think it's normal that monkey2.bin isn't included inside the installer because it's created by the game.

Looks like the installation is turning into a ride in DISNEYland... Now let me paint Donald Duck on my walls while listening The Bad Plus "Suspicious Activity?" ;)

I have installed the game several times and I have never used Galaxy.

I just tested and I have the same result than AB2012, Monkey2.bin is auto-created when you launch the game and the game seems to work fine, at least the beginning I haven't tried if it is fully playable.

Are you sure it is not your anti-virus being overzealous ?