KSP to GOG

[Temeter]

It's also on the official KSP twitter.

[Fel]

I'll have to check it out later...I've been having a problem with a game that came out in 2004, maybe they have it there.

In some 90% of the cases, they simply apply community made patches. With the dos games, often it is just "+DosBox and finished."

With DRM, they'll even download cracks from the net.

[merendel]

KSP isn't about crashing spaceships. It's about landing them spectacularly.

Dont forget the high speed docking manuvers, those are always crowd pleasers as well as the high velocity landings.

[jwenting]

hmm. So like.. they took games from old OS's, such as windows 98, windows 2000, XP, and make them work on modern systems?

No, they used to take old DOS games no longer sold or supported by their (often defunct) creators, ignore the intellectual property, and sell them repackaged with a DOS emulator for Windows.

Seems they've now gone legitimate and selling stuff with permission...

[WOODY01]

I would have waited and bought it from GOG if I have known Squad would release it there. Unlike Steam great customer service, DRM free, just a smaller selection probally because publishers do not like the DRM free and ability for refunds.

[magnemoe]

Hmm, a GT Legends video from the 'net mentioned copy protection causing issues. That's one of the major sources of such shenanigans - DRM code generally throws the entire manual out the window and is intentionally as incorrect as possible (I've heard of some even doing things like patching system drivers or even replacing 'em. <sarcasm>what could POSSIBLY go wrong there?</sarcasm>). Of course, it only harms the legitimate owners, the damned pirates don't even bat an eyelash as they crack it.

Anyhow, poor coding practices are poor coding practices, and kinda off topic (and a personal pet peeve of mine. I actually re-bought Civ IV because they released a DRM-free bundle).

I think the guys at GoG remove those things normally.

Yes, lots of the early drm used errors/ incorrectly coded data on the cd dish. As you needed direct access to hardware it did not work under NT/2000/XP.

After that they got real creative, as you say, and naturally it was all cracked.

The real fun part is that then os generations changes like this and old games stop working, the company patch the game if they are responsible and the game is still relevant.

In a few cases they have stolen the crack from the pirates

[White Owl]

KSP isn't about crashing spaceships. It's about landing them spectacularly.

That's not crashing. It's landing with style!

[Fel]

After that they got real creative, as you say, and naturally it was all cracked.

Yeah, but cracked "overtime." It's not always a day zero, nor even within a month. Sometimes people get impatient and just purchase the thing. Some of the newer DRM attempts unleash bugs at you to ruin your enjoyment of the game; do you buy the game, or live with the bugs?

Can it be effective enough to boost sales? Of course it can. Eventually, you'll have a fully working crack, but how long? And what about patches, the game ends up needing to be recracked over and over.

Is it even a tenth as bad as people keep claiming it is? Well, let's take a look at all the people who are successfully running the game with DRM... and all the people who clearly microwaved a CD posted it online and claimed "OMG DRM DESTROYED MY DISK". When the opposition resorts to Fear Tactics, how can we put faith in a word they say.

[georgTF]

Just wanted to chime in and say that i've been a happy customer of GOG. DRM is a non-issue for me unless it's annoyingly intrusive (i'd forgive e-license, don't mind Anno 2070 using UPlay, etc.) In some cases having no DRM is usefull if you can keep several copies installed, mod/break them in diffrent ways or eliminate lag/CPU use since there's no wrappers/clients wasting resources.

That said, GOG should hurry up and get a nice Steam-like client out already because the convevience of having your purchases in a library from which you can install/uninstall/update/whatever is nice to have. Contacting friends and playing together is another obvious bonus as is cloud storage. Whenever the client gets released it will stay optional so people who find clients abhorrent wont be affected, which is a nice bit of customer support.

For now, the "library" is a webpage tied to your account with all purchased games neatly arranged. You manually download installers, update patches when they come out or bonus items such as avatars, wallpapers or whatever else. Though this process is manual, there is no DRM whatsoever. Just the bare game. [There are very rare cases of very old, hard to crack games that contain copy protection and you have to type in a word or correctly identify a vehicle or something. The correct anwsers are included for you. Master of Orion 1 does this, but the practise is incredibly rare.]

By far the greatest appeal of GOG is the support they throw at older games. Retail legal copies may fail to work on newer hardware or OSs but with some black magic the GOG team sorts them out and makes them playable. Think games older than 10 years. The classics.

This is partly why i like GOG and consider them as usefull competition to Steam. Origin or Uplay just do what Steam does but typically they do a worse job. Uplay has some nice features but also annoying issues and DRM levels that turn off many people. I can't accurately speak for Origin because i would not take even a free game from the service. Desura deserves a shout out as well, they focus on indies.