Honestly the most amusing thing about these threads is... where are ya gonna go? If you care about DRM and client free gaming, GOG is by far the best place to shop. The only place to shop in many cases. It's like threatening the manager of a grocery store in a super small town with one grocery store... like okay, where you gonna go?

Which is one big reason GOG will stick to its promises, by the way.

GOG is just a business and should be treated as such and not as some kind of friend or social organization that cares for anything else but profits. That is at least the lesson that I learned recently...

Zoom is coming soon with a new site and around 200 new games(from suggestions and such alone)....people might go there if they want to for some reason(if even to buy games GOG doesn't sell while sticking with GOG).

If Zoom becomes a contender, I wonder if that'll remain true?

(It likely will...I still wonder, though)

The worst issue with Zoom is that it is impossible to find. No one knows where it is. If you google for Zoom, you get hits about everything else related to "Zoom", but not that site. Blindly going to zoom.com or zoom.net doesn't help either.

People can't join a store that is impossible to find, sad but true.

Anyway, IF "Zoom" can compete with the same things as GOG (like recent and classic releases with DRM-free installers), all the better. It is good to have options also for DRM-free gaming. There have been other contenders as well like DotEmu, Desura, GamersGate, Humble Bundle etc., but either they have closed their doors, or increasingly become only Steam key sellers, not offering DRM-free installer games anymore.

Well that's why one needs to search for more than just the word zoom. ;)

(It is zoom-platform dot com, in case anyone is curious)

Well the installers are like bare bones ones similar to the GOG ones, and DRM free(the one I tested so far is, anyways)....there are problems with the site but they will supposedly be fixed soon(with a new site)

(Also they only have paypal payment set up atm)

I also agree more choice is better, btw, which is partially why i'm keeping an eye on it...if they keep adding more games(esp. ones GOG doesn't have), gets gift codes and more payment options, fixes the site I think it could be a decent contender.

Using the keyword "platform" wouldn't have occurred to me. I did google for e.g. "zoom games", but still nothing. I think even "zoom store" pointed to elsewhere.

For GOG, I just need to google for "gog", and right there, as the first item, what do I see?!?

Finally I know where it is.

Why did you need to write it in that form? Are you afraid spambots will pick up zoom-platform.com from the text and instantly start a DDoS attack to the domain, or something?

LOL I like the genre selection options in Zoom. There is a genre called "ARMORED LAND COMBAT GAMES", with one (tank) game in it. I guess it makes sense, in a way...

A rubber chicken with a pulley in the middle? ;)

I get what you're saying, though....I dunno why zoom isn't easier to find via search....maybe it has to do with(up til now) zoom not being that big a store/site or very popular?

Tbh I don't remember why I did it that way.....oh well, at least you and others know it now.

Yeah, they have a few too many genres(compared to GOG's lack of enough genres and categories).....but that's likely only temporary, as they are making a new site(or rebuilding the old one) soon(and actually soon, not GOG's "Soon" TM).

Hopefully they fix some issues like: middle clicking links opening broken tabs, the rotating slideshow-style game listing on the main page not being advanceable in either direction(back or forward), menus closing as soon as one hovers off of them for a split second, and others.

Again this assumption that the alternative are other stores. The alternative is "piracy". GOG used to know that early on, and wanted to offer something sufficiently better than what could be obtained in that manner to be worth paying for.

"early on" being the key word here. Nowadays the majority of people that play games on a PC are "noobs". They buy it on Steam or don't play it at all (or just get a console). Game piracy (the % of people that do it) isn't what it used to be anymore.

If you need to make analogies, don't pick such terrible ones. I can backup my mp3 player as well as the source code for it, and nobody can take it away from me. I think that's pretty much the point of DRM-free games too. "It's not DRM if you can choose not to play it!" Funny, but no. It goes far above and beyond copyrights; it does not recognize my country's local copyright laws, nor does it recognize any international conventions. It's an umbrella term for arbitrary access restriction schemes that has nothing to do with copyright. "Rights" doesn't refer to copyright, it refers to access controls. Much like permissions on a file.

Multiplayer aside, the only time this has happened that I recall, it has been a developer error (Mysteries of Westgate). Still seem to be working for me - in fact, I'd like the ability to *reduce* them by e.g. ignoring updates that just add a new language, cloud saves or just a new installer. I'd agree here - the continual pushing for Galaxy I do find obnoxious, but since it will almost certainly pose similar security and privacy risks as Steam's client, I wouldn't touch it with a bargepole (plus it doesn't work on WinXP anyway). However, GOG's inclusion of the galaxy.dll even in single-player games has been causing problems.

The problem here is that for GOG to offer a "competitive" mutliplayer service, it has to get as many people using its client as possible. Then the likelihood of successful player match-ups increases, boosting the value of multiplayer on GOG. Doing so without alienating those customers who are only interested in single-player, who don't care to open their system setup to third parties or who don't want their gaming behaviour tracked is something that GOG has managed poorly so far, and there seems little chance of improvement. I presume you are specifically referring to SecuROM/SafeDisc drivers that still remain - this was a problem with Flatout also due to GOG (or the publishers Strategy First) using a (poorly) cracked .exe. The "GOG is going downhill" sentiment is certainly one I'd agree with. In particular:

* it gave up on fixed price points;
* abandoned fair pricing;
* shares customer purchase data with Google;
* shares further activity with Google due to their use of CAPTCHAs (on support and key redemption pages);
* is breaking content that used to work for some users (WinXP compatibility, Win7 users should expect similar treatment shortly);
* has a broken forum (e.g. it can't handle more than one hyperlink per line in a post);
* a increasingly sluggish website (mainly due to front page Javascript).
Well, not buying new games and enjoying your existing collection can be a perfectly good choice - especially given how many games can be given a new lease of life courtesy of modding.

However the lack of alternatives is a relevant point. It would seem extraordinarily difficult for a new store to make headway given that GOG have satisfied much of the pent-up demand for out-of-print games - unless they can provide a compelling reason to "buy again" or provide an enhanced product (e.g. old games with modifications to run at higher/widescreen resolutions) it would seem that they'd be dead on arrival.

And we have seen the disappearance of stores like IndieGameStand and
Desura so there's a clear element of risk in switching to a new arrival (even with offline installers, you'd still lose the option of re-downloading if you had catastrohpic data loss).
Thanks for the pointer, and I've had a look.

And Gawd, they need a new site *fast*. I've criticised GOG for being slow, but this makes GOG look like Lance Armstrong on acid, whoops there's the cat out of the bag. :) A 27MB download for the front page probably outstrips the size of some of the games they have. And all at pretty high prices too, given their age. Their webmaster needs to be tied up with phone cable and whipped with a v.92 modem. :D

Probably worth keeping an eye on but unlikely to become a major player unless GOG really screws up.
Clearly you do, given the frequency of your posts in this thread...

GOG offers the same exact offline installers now that it offered then. Anyone running to piracy because GOG markets Galaxy as an alternative would have run to piracy anyway, they were just looking for a reason. The biggest percentage of pirates used to be broke teenagers, but nowadays I'm pretty sure it's anger addicted drama queens.

Missed the point entirely.

See comment above.

Literally first sentence from the Wikipedia article:
"Digital rights management (DRM) tools or technological protection measures (TPM) are a set of access control technologies for restricting the use of proprietary hardware and copyrighted works." i.e. a sort of protection of copyrighted work.

Not gonna sit around and argue.

You wanna think of it as an arbitrary umbrella term, be my guest.

As with most discussions online, they prove to be pointless and lead nowhere eventually. I'm out.

@StingingVelvet you should have added "agreed", since you're talking about the same thing, at least that's how it comes across for me. GOG essentially competes with the "pirates". And on two fronts - defending DRM-free in front of the publishers and making money by offering better service than TPB.

At the site fuck drm these DRM-free options are also recommended.

https://fireflowergames.com/

https://itch.io/