Don't sweat the title....it's clear enough and fitting.

That said, I would gladly accept such older forms of copy protection(the ye old term for DRM) as they didn't usually hinder my ability to play the games I bought. Sadly, though, many companies don't want to go back to such.

============================== It was similar for older games as well, which had cd-key generators and people posting lists of keys...no-disc cracks...etc.

Non online forms of copy protection hinder backups, cause bugs and vulnerabilites, and prevent playing the games. If it wasn't for cracked copies of those games then they wouldn't be playable today but sadly sometimes the cracked copies of those games have issues.

Try playing a game that requires a CD key or the game manual or a working CD or floppy where all or are lost and you lost your proof of purchase should you just buy another copy?

Those who accept DRM are party of a throw away culture and should throw themselves away.

I think I have stated it before, but I am and would be fine with at least two or three forms of DRM (depending how DRM is defined exactly):

1. Online multiplayer DRM. In fact, there I even prefer DRM.

DRM is probably the most effective way of discouraging cheaters, if being caught meant that their purchased copy of the online game will be invalidated and they'd have to purchase a new copy of the game in order to play (or even, couldn't play the game anymore even if they did purchase another copy, at least if they use the same credit card or ID to identify themselves for the game/service).

The only caveat is that this doesn't work for free-to-play online games quite as well because there is no game to be purchased, but even there you'd still lose any in-game purchases or item achievements.

That is why you basically never seem to encounter cheaters in Team Fortress 2 Competitive Mode, as you have to pay something and/or identify yourself in order to access it. The free-to-play TF2 Casual Mode though is full of both cheaters, and non-human cheater bot players that are generated on the fly with new (free) Steam accounts.

With single-player games there is no similar advantage to DRM, as there are no cheaters I'd need to get rid off to keep enjoying the game.

2. Single-player DRM that will not prevent you from playing just because the DRM service becomes inactive or no internet

So, a single-player game that calls home and maybe tracks how many copies of my game is being played... While not preferable, I'd be ready to accept that, as long as it will not try to prevent me from playing the game, and the game will start fine even if it can't do the tracking because either internet is down or the DRM service itself has been shut down.

So if I can still play the game 10-20 years from now when that tracking DRM system is already dead and long gone, fine I guess. After all, my main objective to DRM is the inconvenience it causes to legit users of the game, like not being able to play your legit game anymore just because the digital store from where you bought it has been shut down.

I am unsure if this is considered DRM though. Yes it is tracking you, but it isn't actively trying to control whether or not you can play the game (nor will accidentally prevent it either, e.g. if your internet is down or the DRM service is down).

3. Watermarking of games.

This is a bit similar as the previous one.

By this I mean that the digital game I purchased is somehow watermarked, linked to me, like it is embedded and encrypted into the game code that "this copy of this game was purchased by GOG user #23554231342432234" (pointing to me).

So while e.g. GOG (or Steam or whatever store I bought it from originally) staff could link that copy to me if they found that copy of the game being shared on piratebay and whatever, that watermarking wouldn't prevent me from playing the game. It might prevent me from buying more games from GOG (or Steam) though, if the staff felt it is me who is constantly leaking and sharing their games to shady pirate sites, or spreading the game to the world.

And naturally if and when GOG or Steam is long gone, that watermarking still wouldn't prevent me from using that game.

Of course I wouldn't want that watermarking to be my real name or ID, but only some "customer code" which is meaningful only to that store/service from where I bought the game.

Again, this is more like mere tracking of the game than actually controlling how and when I can use the game, so not sure if this qualifies as DRM at all. Still, I feel this would inconvenience only pirates and people who share their games around the world (which is what they shouldn't be doing), not legit users who just want to play their damn game in their household, even 30 years from now.

I found this game on Gamersgate (isn't avail anywhere else to my knowledge) which literally asks for your home address, full name (and even phone number if I remember right) when you install it, and then presumably sends it to a database. You also need to actually email the developers and ask for a serial code, which actually expires every few months or something. Was probably the most insane and instrusive "DRM" I've ever seen, and what is stranger is that it's for an ultra-obscure blobber RPG that no one has probably heard of. Sad because I really want to play it but no way am I sending my personal details to some dude on the internet.

I probably wouldn't mind DRM that much if it only affected the pirates and people sharing their games to the world.

To me the problem is that it affects also me, the legit user, if and when that DRM system goes down in the future, or there is some other hiccup like I am trying to install and play the game on a PC without an internet connection (so it can't connect to internet to validate my copy of the game).

"Come on, to this day and age, who doesn't have constant internet connection?!?"
For instance me, when I am trying to play on my gaming laptop in the rural areas of Thailand where internet costs an arm and a leg (strict data caps etc.), or there is no internet coverage. Or, a couple of months ago I was on a short trip on boat to Estonia (just buying some cheap booze for my birthday), and there was no or very weak internet coverage during the time the boat was on the open sea. Yet, I could take out my laptop and play some GOG game on it fine without internet, while waiting for the boat to arrive to the destination.
Or, if I try to play some old game that has problems running on modern PCs on my old retro-PCs running Windows XP or even Windows 98SE, and I have disabled networking altogether for security reasons.
In fact, I am going to disable the internets also on this Windows 7 PC where I am now writing this message, in a couple of months when Microsoft ends its support for it. I can still access internet on this PC by dual-booting to Linux, but no internets for Windows 7 anymore, no siree. I will use this Windows 7 only for running some semi-old games and applications that may have trouble running on Windows 10 or Linux.

After all, the only reason GOG has been able to revive and sell old classic games is because they've been able to find DRM-free copies of such old games, or deactive the DRM/copy protection in them. Otherwise, we would have none of those games on GOG (or elsewhere, for that matter).

DRM that prevents you from playing the game is preventing the archiving of games,

Pretty much this. I recently installed the old Half-Life again (from disk) and had to enter the serial number. No problem.

Everything that can meddle with my property after it came into my possession is a no-go.

Although disk copy protection is evil also, because you can't make backups and it'll often not work on more modern systems. I own quite a few disks which are useless now. Original media also deteriorate, especially floppy disks, but optical media too. No backup, and you're screwed (or have to use the more grey areas of the internet to get your backup copy...).

I generally agree with these principles.

My near exclusive preference for GOG is predicated on not trusting that point 2 will hold.

Many games on Steam require the presence of the Steam client to run. Many games do not work well (or at all) on newer operating systems.

Valve instituted a death sentence for these games by stopping the steam client from running on Windows XP. Within 5 years, Windows 7 will suffer the same fate. When the steam client becomes 64-bit only, Mac users will suffer the same fate for almost the entire back catalog of games.

Sorry for using this old reply method.....gog is having trouble posting for some reason the other way. Each bit I post corresponds to one paragraph of your reply, from top to bottom:

1st bit above by you: To be fair it only affects the legit user who cannot find it morally right to use a crack/etc.

2nd bit above by you: You do you, and you've maybe been told this before, but end of life for Win7 doesn't make the OS suddenly more susceptible to viruses/attacks....in fact many such virus makers make less viruses for such systems(or so I hear) when less people use them.

2rd bit above by you: Iirc many of the older classic titles added early to GOG were cracked/abandonware versions or used files from such, and often used other people's work to get such running. This isn't meant to be a dig at GOG, though, but just some info you might not have known.

4th bit above by you: Not really......many can archive such once the DRM is cracked, unless games went to streaming only, that is.

Archives that can be sued into oblivion for promoting piracy are hardly strong foundations. The Internet Archive's legal ability to run abandonware is a time-limited exemption that can be easily removed.

I do accept though that less-than-judicious means have a place in the preservation of artistic works. At a time when recording for personal use did not have legal sanction, a great deal of the early years of Doctor Who was saved from destruction because someone recorded it as it was broadcast.

1st bit above: T*rrents/p*2*p/etc.....there are many ways to hide such archives out of the watchful eye of companies and lawyers....and even when a public one goes down 2 more spring up in it's place within weeks.

2nd bit above: This is true....same with some of the old Avengers(with Patrick McNee) episodes.

(Sorry about posting this way instead of multi part posting....gog is eating my replies when I do it that way despite using the right brackets/etc)

Not hard at all, as you can see from my reply. You just have to know how. Just add that quote_number with square brackets before each section you want to quote (or even mere quote with square brackets), and slash-quote with square brackets after the quote. Easy peasy pants on cheesy.

Much more complicated than that. You have to find the right crack to the exact version number and language version of your game. Also there is the concern of the security, how can you be fully sure that the oddball "crack" that you downloaded from shady sites does not include some extra malware? My Avira antivirus tends to flag all "key generators" and many other types of cracks as malware, false alarms or not? Who to tell?

I'd prefer not to have all that headache, trying to find working and safe cracks years or decades afterwards for my old games. I know, I have been there, doing exactly that for my big collection of old CD and DVD PC games.

In fact, usually it is much simpler and easier to just download a whole pirate copy of the game all over again, than trying to find a separate crack. But then it is pirating all over again, especially as p2p clients tend to share as you download.

Not suddenly, but increasingly. It is common sense that you take precautions with systems that are not receiving security updates anymore. Maybe this is also related to my current work as a system administrator, where I have to think about these security things all the time. Like, we found out that certain (hardware) firewalls of our customers had a very severe security issue that just popped into limelight, and we scrambled to update the firewalls ASAP. It is silly to think that if a some old firewall wasn't receiving security updates anymore, it wouldn't be targeted (that much) by evildoers anymore. Quite on the contrary.

I know, and that is completely irrelevant to what I said. It doesn't matter who exactly stripped away or deactivated the DRM. The important part is that someone did, or that there was no (meaningful) DRM or copy protection to start with.

If Thief Gold had DRM that tried to call home to Looking Glass Studios's DRM servers online to validate the game, and failing to do so because LGS is long gone, then GOG couldn't sell the game. Not before someone deactivated that DRM in the game.

Completely irrelevant to what I said.

If you crack the DRM, then your game is DRM-free and doesn't try to prevent you from playing the game anymore. As simple as that.

Absolutely none.

I am unsure if you make the distinction based on whether the publisher can "change the rules" after the sale, like inactivate your copy of the game after purchase. In that sense "copy protection" and "DRM" are different, ie. copy protection is set in stone beforehand... but it still tries to control, even after sale, how and where you use your game. Like that not many people are playing the same copy of the game at the same time etc.

I personally just consider it offline and online DRM. The "offline DRM" does also include e.g. manual code checks, code wheels, Lenslok and whatever there ever was. Those will not prevent you from copying the game, but they try to control that those copies can't be played (unless you successfully copy that manual or codewheel as well).

To me, "copy protection" is just a very specific subset of DRM, meaning basically the SecuROM CD checks and such. Others are online DRM (like all the current forms of DRM on digital stores, Steam CEG included), then there are those aforementioned code wheels/manual checks/USB dongles/RS-232 dongles etc. (some of these are still a thing, e.g. one of our customers is using some professional service or application that required that we add an USB dongle to the server where they run it).

DRM is the umbrella term for all those different technologies trying to prevent illegit use of the product. EULA's, TOS etc. are not DRM as they are not technologies, but legal mumbo-jumbo.

Nowadays people refer to DRM meaning only online DRM, as that is the only kind of DRM they ever see nowadays.

And another nitpicking question is whether streaming is DRM or not. I don't really care if it is considered as DRM or not by definition of DRM itself, but to me the only important part is that it has similar implications to the end-user, as DRM. Frankly, from the "ownership" point of view, I don't see much difference whether the game has always-online DRM, or is using a streaming service.

I did just that....gog ate the reply and the whell kept spinning and it wouldn't reply for some reason...even after checking it for errors(maybe I used a blocked word?).

It's still very easy for one that knows what they are doing. As for viruses: One can avoid most of those if those use multiple scanners or DL from trusted sources(trusted by users I mean).

Eh, not everything is easy, and things are often "sweeter" when worked for(imo).

As for t*rrenting: One can disable uploads altogether in such cases.

Still, it's usually not bad to use such with the net if you use a good AV/firewall/etc...or at least not much worse than using a non-eol OS with such safeguards.

Agreed, but some do care...especially when Gog got caught a few rare times using such fixes without crediting people for them(even if only subtly).

I wouldn't mind some old-fashioned form of proection like code wheels or manuals check.