GOG basically acknowledges piracy in a meme

DRM-free doesn't mean piracy. GOGs whole business model is built around selling games DRM free. I don't pirate but I do use GOG where possible as I hate DRM - it punishes and inconveniences legitimate users for piracy and doesn't even solve the problem. DRM is just an expensive waste of money for everyone involved.

Make the pay option less shitty than pirating. That’s all it takes.
- Gaben taught you well
The drm-free marketing that gog does has been successful, but it is just marketing. While It's true that games sold on gog are drm-free, every game sold on gog that I've looked into is also drm-free on steam. The only real benefit is that the gog installers are more convenient for backups than using a steam back up tool.
- Not saying you're wrong, but there's a lot of peace of mind in knowing everything on the platform is drm free, rather than having to do some research. So it is marketing, but it's also a promise of curation so to speak.
- GOG is also a filter too. Everything in the whole store you know is DRM free when with other stores you have to check each game individually.
  Steam is also a form of DRM in most cases though either way.
- How would you play a DRM-free game bought through steam without steam? (Genuine question)
- You mustn't have looked at many games then. As someone who 95% only buys games from GOG, and has a wishlist of 190+ games, the vast majority of the games on the wishlist have DRM in their Steam versions.
- No, Baldur's Gate 3 is a cracked release on the steam version.
it punishes and inconveniences legitimate users for piracy and doesn't even solve the problem.
IDK about that, the only person who can crack denuvo is empress and she doesn't crack all games, so I guess it atleast reduces piracy for a while. I agree however that DRM shouldn't exist.
- Enshitification of DRM with denuvo going subscription model has become an unexpected ally in DRM getting removed even if it doesn't get cracked.
- AFAIK there are devs who remove Denuvo as soon as their game gets cracked, and tbh I don't have too many complaints about that system. That being said, I don't own any games with Denuvo, so I don't know why it's hated so much.
- DRM exists for more than just games.
Yeah, anytime someone mentions just punishes users, I'm reminded of the time this was really driven home for me.
I was working for a company that did developed tools that worked adjacent to other software and needed to install one piece of software to test my component intended for that program. After using that software at work, I decided to also use it to generate data for a personal project I was doing for fun at home and pirated it.
At work, we obviously used a legit copy and had a business partnership with the company. Their DRM required a dongle and running server software on the machine with the dongle that would issue licenses to clients. I forget the specifics, but we had some problems and it took a few weeks of emailing back and forth with someone from support before I was actually able to get the software running.
At home, I just ran a crack and had it running the same day I decided to use it.
All their fancy DRM just turned into a pain in the ass for the legitimate use and a complete non-issue for those doing what it was intended to prevent in the first place.
To me, the meme acknowledges that GOG installers are shared in groups, which is piracy since the other people didn't pay for it. (That doesn't mean it's bad btw.)
- Why wouldn't the friends like it then?
- How is the meme acknowledging that GOG installers are shared in groups? This doesn't say anything about sharing anything in a group, other than "My game has no DRM, and yours does"

how is this acknowledging piracy ?

I guess they don't realize GOG is DRM free as part of their business model?
Probably because they think DRM=anti pirate and not "You don't actually own this"
- Selling only DRM-free games has always be GOG's whole thing (well, that and selling oldies compatible with modern OS), it's weird that this meme specifically would be considered "aknowledging piracy"
- Like, maybe if the final bit was saying the friends without accounts did like it there might be something there, but simply acknowledging DRM free I'm not seeing it
Everything nowadays that attempts to give back a little autonomy or freedom to the user is called piracy.
As long as an app could theoretically be used for piracy, even if it was made to circumvent toxic behavior of users' bought and paid for products, then it must be properly labelled as piracy and taken down.
I'll better stop before this becomes a rant.
It's because the original image macro that this is based on was about piracy, saying something along the lines of "I bring a certain 'just torrent it' vibe to the conversion that the riaa just doesn't like."
Their reuse of the macro is indirectly an answer or a continuation of it that can be seen as acknowledging the original message.
To me, the meme acknowledges that GOG installers are shared in groups, which is piracy since the other people didn't pay for it. (That doesn't mean it's bad btw.)
- My friend, I regret to inform you that you are misunderstanding the meme

OP doesn't understand the difference between piracy and drm-free.

But hey, looks like the advertising is working on you to promote GOG so good on them for a successful tweet.

drm makes it a lot harder to pirate
- DRM punishes paying customers. DRM free is the best choice for anyone who enjoys games, and supporting the devs is the best way to get more games you enjoy.
  DRM free isn't pro-piracy it is pro-consumer.
  I couldn't give a shit what pirates are doing. I pay for my games and I don't want DRM ruining my experience.
- Aggressive DRM mostly punishes paying customers. The game will probably be cracked anyways.
- Just type any game title to the torrent tracker and you'll find you this is only for the first crack. After game is cracked by just one person, everybody can pirate it just like if there was no DRM.
  DRM-free is exactly the reason I buy on GOG and would never pirate a game that exists on GOG.
- No. Only a few people in the world are capable/dedicated to breaking copy protection. Everyone else just downloads already pirated software, no matter how hard it was to break. It's just as easy.
  If I wanted to play GTA V (which I acquired legally twice) I would just look for a pirated copy. The legal one keeps updating every few days with huge downloads, requires you to download some crappy launcher, the launcher also needs to update, you need to login you need internet connection, etc, etc. It's a terrible hassle and made me abandon the game mid-story.
- DRM often encourages piracy

Good guy GOG wants you to actually own your own games, forever.

Drm-free isn’t piracy

ALL ANTI-CHEAT IS SPYWARE.

ALL DRM IS THEFT.

*malware
... also a violation of the CFAA
- spyware is a subset of malware
I saw a really cool concept for "Anti piracy" some time ago. It works by having a lot of little achievements which represent you progress. So each time you start the game it checks for which achievements you have and the loads your progress according to your achievements.
- So, basically cloud saves with extra steps, except you only get a single save and can't replay the game? Sounds even worse than current solutions, honestly
- That's just a different flavour of DRM.

I own and buy games from GOG. Especially if its a game i like. That way its actually mine. I hope they never change.

Meme doesn't make sense in this context, but do love me some GOG.

To me, the meme acknowledges that GOG installers are shared in groups, which is piracy since the other people didn't pay for it. (That doesn't mean it's bad btw.)
- Wtf is your problem copy and pasting your comment everywhere? No one keeps asking for your opinion on each comment.
- Wouldn't the last part need to say "really do like" instead if that's what it was about?
- Isn’t it great how twenty six people in a community about privacy downvoted your reasonable comment. Can’t wait or them to downvote this one too. We’re not in this group to jeer piracy and villainize it.
  We’re here to celebrate it!

No, it does not.

GOG is always my first choice to buy games.
It's a bit frustrating that you have to dive into the forum and check whether the developers actually maintain their GOG release properly before buying though.

The way I see it, if you've bought a game from GOG you've already paid, so no one can truthfully say in good faith that subsequently grabbing a cracked version of the Steam release is a lost sale.
- What does good faith have to do with anything the big companies claim?

I love GOG for not having DRM.

It makes pirating shit I want to check out before I buy way easier and safer because I just need to find the GOG installer instead of some dubious crack.

Thanks, GOG, for giving me the ability to demo games to see if they are actually worth the price. 👍

How do you know if its the legitimate gog installer and not some malware?
- https://mastodon.world/@goggames/110867027951735764

No.

if i own a piece of software i should have the right to put that software on a usb and lend it to a friend for the weekend or someshit

Gog tries but its only drm free till its not.

Looking at you Cult of the lamb!

iirc the COTL issue was caused by a miscommunication between the dev team, publisher and gog itself
pretty sure it has long been fixed
- What happened?
Epic is the same

I like GoG because I can download an executable and load it into wine, which is less easy with steam for Mac. Though they make that harder these days than they used to.

I know the Mac isn’t ideal for gaming but I don’t want to buy a whole other computer and have to deal with KVM and monitor switching just to play games that were released in 2004.