Quoting: Kristian" The point of limited activations is by far not the worst point in DRM."

For me this is exactly the worst thing. I will not buy a game that has limited activations,  constant online DRM or intermittent online DRM(online authentication every 24 hours or the like) or similar. That is where I draw the line. I don't care about the more or less paranoid privacy aspects. That is not to say I don't care about privacy, I certainly do. But I don't see the issue with authenticating a game online once, when it is installed. Where is the privacy concern in that? it is meant as (IMHO ineffective, meaningless) anti piracy measure. That is it. I would want to so some really good evidence in order to believe that Valve are abusing it to gain access to sensitive information.

It's surely a bad thing. I won't buy any games with limited activations either, but this is a comfort issue. Privacy and security issues go way beyond comfort matters, that's why I said the previous issue isn't the worst. But in the end for me it doesn't matter. I wouldn't buy a game with any level of DRM :)

Privacy/security concern is inherent in the concept of DRM itself if you think about it. DRM by default is preemptive policing approach (which I consider simply unethical to begin with). I.e. it treats all users as potential criminals (infringers), that's the whole point of DRM. I.e. users are denied trust from those who utilize DRM. Why would you trust them in return when they don't trust you? DRM code is a black box doing whatever because they don't trust you. Now, why would you assume it repsects your privacy and is secure for your system? Since trust is always mutual, I'd say it's proper to always treat it as a potential threat. And it's not like there were no cases of real DRM abuse in the past.

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So in the end, you can have some games that are actually fully DRM free, but not comfortably packaged for you to back up. Others come with various levels of DRM nastiness and without a clear indication of its presence (in some cases it's indicated as 3rd party, and in others it's not since it's Steamworks DRM). The point of limited activations is by far not the worst point in DRM. Privacy and security concerns are much more important. And, I assume you can't filter the catalog based on DRM free criteria?

Quoting: KristianI should also add that Steam has a backup feature that allows backups to optical media and external HDD's and the like. So you can use that as your installation media in the future(though you still need the online authentication at the end).

This is useless, since one of the key problems with DRM is, that when the service is being closed, DRMed content which depends on the service becomes a pile of useless garbage. So such kind of backups which require you to log in to Steam to install them are not good.

All in all, that's not good enough for me. Buy using a service you actually support / endorse it. I prefer to support those who have a clear DRM free position.

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Quoting: owenLinux users should pull their butt plug out and be grateful that valve is porting games to linux and with steam for linux there can be AAA titles on linux. BTW I am a linux user and glad that valve has the ball to do it.

I'm not grateful for them proliferating any DRM on Linux. I'm grateful that they increase interest in Linux as a platform for developers. Credit should go where it's due. And criticism where it is due as well.

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Quoting: SilviuI've got  Deus Ex on Steam. The only time I needed Steam to download it was on initial download. It does not need Steam to actually run. Back it up and that's it. No need to ever install Steam again. Keep the archive safe. Just because you have to sign on for a service does not mean it's DRM.

It's like complaining that you have to log on GOG's site to be able to download games.

Well, if you can simply archive the game directory and use it as a backup for further installs, then it's not as bad. But is it true for all Steam games? And if so, why don't they offer to download an archive? Another big downside there is that they don't inform you what kind of DRM (if any) is involved. Desura for example do it (even though most of their games are DRM free).

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Quoting: owenFuck GOG and their shitty stuff. Who the fuck want them. Steam support linux and almost any games you find on GOG is already on steam.

Anyone who doesn't accept DRM. As simple as that. And it's a lot of Linux users for your reference. I'm simply not going to use Steam while they have any bit of DRM involved.

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Quoting: liamdaweThere are already games on Steam that don't require steam to even be running, Steam already supports it.

For me DRM free means several things:

1. Having an option to get a downloadable installer / package which you can save and use at any time on any machine without relying on existing service.
2. No registration keys and etc. to play the game.
3. No requirement to run some shadow process ("client" and etc.) to play the game.
4. No requirement to connect to any servers to play the game (unless it's a MMORPG or something that implies on-line connectivity by design of course).

I'm not using Steam, but I got the impression that it requires #3 (running a client) for many games. And while it doesn't require it for some games, it doesn't offer a downloadable installer for any game. So there always is some DRM involved. I'd rather support services which have clear DRM free policy.

Quoting: HamishDosbox and ScummVM may be free, but the GoG products and modifications are not, and they should be treated just the same as any proprietary application. 

Do you mean they distribute modified DosBox and ScummVM? I'm not aware of that. None of the DOS games I got from GOG so far had any problems running in stock DosBox and ScummVM. It's not an indicator of course, since I have just a small subset of their games. But sure, if they need a modified emulator - the only way is to ship it with the game. On the other hand, why can't they submit their patches upstream in such cases?

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I actually would strongly dislike if they'll release DOS games for Linux with bundled DosBox and ScummVM - it's extra clutter. They can specify a simple prerequisite - have DosBox / ScummVM installed for those games. Users aren't dumb, and if they are interested in old DOS games, they already have DosBox and ScummVM installed with high probability (and if they don't, they'll easily install it from their repositories). Many Windows users are also "noobs", yet GOG don't bundle for example DirectX with each Windows game.

Anyway, this shouldn't be something for GOG to spend their time on first, while they don't sell native Linux games yet. Their DOS games installers are trivially extractable with innoextract and anyone can play them now without running through Wine.

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Quoting: HamishBesides, GoG games do not tie into one central Dosbox install when they sell their games anyway, but ship with a custom configured executable with each game purchase. Can you imagine the trouble that would cause if it did? Just because Linux has a packaging system does not mean you need to do that level of dependent insanity.

Which is rather silly and is caused by the lack of any packaging system on Windows. On Linux they have no need to package DosBox and ScummVM for each DOS game - it's pointless, they can use distro's emualtors and ship only config files.

But those games aren't really the main focus in this issue. Native Linux games are. And for them as you said, many packaging solutions are developed already.

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Quoting: AnonymousGoG is great for old Windows games, I give them that. But the way they handled this story, with one lame comment, borderline insulting if you know a bit about Linux, is a deal breaker for me for a long time to come.

In reply to this, and previous commenters who asked, why the question of Linux support on GOG is still active. The answer is rather simple - GOG is second biggest digital distributor after Steam, and in contrast with Steam it's principally DRM free. GOG don't position themselves as targeted for old games exclusively anymore. They are directly competing with Steam [External Link] already and bring more and more new games.

So to answer the questions above - if you want DRM free gaming on Linux, you should support the idea of Linux games on GOG. Steam is not an option, since I highly doubt they'll drop DRM any time soon - they are too entangled with DRM obsessed publishers, and dropping DRM would mean removing all DRMed games from the catalog, or convincing dumb publishers to allow their games to be sold without DRM, which is a huge task and Valve doesn't seem to be even interested to bother.

If GOG would start supporting Linux, they can even allocate resources to actually port games to Linux. If Humble Bundle managed to do it, surely GOG can do it too.

Why it can take them a long time - GOG are perfectionists. I personally think it has a lot of downsides, but that's how they operate. They don't use agile releases and beta features. They take their time to develop something before releasing it. They have several R&D projects for 2013, one of which can as well be Linux support. The fact that "Steam does it" doesn't mean they are doing it very well. Pulling a massive runtime to enable some game is not really an ideal option.

And indeed, GOG expressed their interest in supporting Linux before [External Link].

Quoting: frostworkAs this wasn't mentioned yet, you might be interested in
http://www.gogonlinux.com [External Link] (not too active, afaik it's only one developer)
and
https://sites.google.com/site/gogdownloader [External Link]
I try to keep them both more or less up2date in the gentoo gamerlay btw

I prefer the second one.
Project site: https://github.com/Sude-/lgogdownloader [External Link]
Announcements thread: https://secure.gog.com/forum/general/lgogdownloader_gogdownloader_for_linux [External Link]

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