DRM can't be good for business, if it's a fair business. DRM is used for nefarious purposes however, so in that sense it's "good" for crooks. I.e. DRM has nothing to do with piracy. So far it seems there can be several reasons why DRM is used:

1. Clueless / stupid execs, who think that DRM prevents lost sales (i.e. reduces piracy). These can be compared to Lysenkoists, who insisted that plants can be "trained" to grow in the cold climate.

2. Crooked execs who excuse their incompetence with DRM (i.e. if sales are low, instead of admitting that they created a garbage product they blame it on pirates and say that they aren't idling about it and put DRM in place).

3. Crooked execs who want to control technology progress by poisoning it with DRM.

4. Crooked execs who want to spy on users (DRM often simply equals spyware - it never improves privacy, on the contrary).

To summarize, it's either crooked or clueless, but DRM is never good for fair business.

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Widget on HB site: https://www.humblebundle.com/store/icebound/Isldkw10dk [External Link]

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Looks very promising. Do you know if it's going to be released DRM-free?

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Quoting: adolsonI'll be waiting for the final release (if not longer). I really wanna play it (hence why I backed it), but I haven't ever really enjoyed playing unfinished games in the relatively-recent era of ship-now-patch-later, let alone when they're purposely released unfinished. But at least they're labeling it honestly nowadays.

That's my feeling too. For RPGs and adventure games, unfinished versions can spoil the experience. I'd wait for the release.

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Corresponding thread on the GOG's forum
https://secure.gog.com/forum/age_of_wonders_series/age_of_wonders_iii_developers_are_considering_linux_port_if_there_is_enough_interest [External Link]

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Tied to Steamworks unfortunately.

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Great, it's coming out DRM-free.

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I don't expect it to be usable until GOG will roll out Linux support in the fall.

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Quoting: Bull JohnWhat when I only have the retail box of the game ???? CD Keys won't work as steam keys
:'(

If you have a retail key, you can get the game from GOG here: https://secure.gog.com/witcher/backup [External Link]
When Linux version will come out, it will appear on GOG. That's going to happen sometime in fall.

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The story is actually quite connected, but it's not strictly required to understand the second game.

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