Outlaws :)
https://www.gog.com/en/game/outlaws_a_handful_of_missions
It even has a secret room with Aliens. And Max is in it too.


I get your point, sometimes there just isn't an alternative. I can accept DRM up to a certain point, after all I have several games on Rockstar,Uplay,Origin, even the MS store. I just try not to buy these games on Steam anymore.
DRM free would be better of course, but for certain game types or certain publishers it's not gonna happen anymore.
In some cases I bought a game and played the cracked version instead.

Between December 2022 and January 2023 I am about to possibly spend $100 dollars (USD) on purchasing Rockstar video games from Steam, just to write negative reviews asking them to release their video games for sale 100% Digital Rights Management (DRM) free on gog.com. I already spent a bit of money purchasing 2K, Take-Two published video games on Steam this year to write negative reviews asking them and Rockstar to release their video games for sale 100% Digital Rights Management (DRM) free on gog.com.

It is a sacrifice I am willing to make to spend my money to do this so you do not have to at all.

Who knows maybe I am wasting my money, but I am doing this so PC video gamers do not have to do this who do not want to purchase video games from Steam, but want to purchase video games from gog.com.

I am willing to spend money to purchase the video games on Steam to ask for them to be released for sale on gog.com and then spend my money a second time purchasing those video games from gog.com, when they get released for sale on gog.com.

I am someone who collects and owns things ... games, movies, music, books, etc.

A good part of the reason I am like that, is because of the circumstances while I was growing up. It was the only way to ensure you had access to those things. It is still somewhat that way, but over time is getting less and less like that or less relevant.

Now, if nostalgia is ignored, you can go from one new thing to the next, ad infinitum. In other words, you need never look back due to the abundance of what is available and still growing more.

Many of us, and I am certainly one, highly value DRM-Free. But to be completely honest, most of what I collect I will only play once, so unless DRM would impact my enjoyment on that single play, DRM or DRM-Free is almost a non issue. The problem for me though, is that I don't always know before hand how often I will play something. I have to play it once to know that.

I am also well aware, that if I repeat play something, that is time taken away from playing something new.

DRM-Free in a way, is a luxury. Especially as it encourages you to look back and indulge in nostalgia. It gives you the freedom to do that more easily. You have more control and less reliance.

Some games you do want to play repeatedly and regularly. Quake is one such for me. So another problem for me, is when you feel that way about a DRM only game. How can you ensure it will always be available to you to play, independent from the control or limitations of other parties.

But maybe I am viewing it all wrong, maybe I should be less attached. Things tend to never stay the same, people especially move on or die. You cannot re-eat a great meal or re-drink a great beverage. Maybe we should just enjoy each moment as it happens and move on. Younger people certainly seem more inclined to do that, with all that is on offer these days. In any case, we cannot take it with us when we leave this existence.

DRM shouldn't exist, but it does, and has been the majority default for decades. Before GOG came along, we had to endure it in one form or another. It was just something we were forced to tolerate, with few exceptions.

I wish all my media was DRM-Free, but alas, most of it isn't.

So anyway. If I really cared about a game and were certain it was never likely to turn up at GOG, then yes, at a good price, I would buy it. The trick, is to never seek to have such games to desire. Avoidance is the best preventative medicine.

I try to buy games DRM free on GOG whenever that's possible, but I still buy quite a few games on Steam. As a general rule, I mentally consider Steam as "long-term, cheap rental" for games. This means, I am perfectly fine with buying games when they are really cheap (for example, I am subscribed to humble monthly).

If we talk about individual games I buy on Steam without aiming for "dirty cheap", there are various elements that go into the equation:

If it's a mulitplayer game/genre I really like, but which seems very unlikely to come to GOG (and without crossplay between GOG and Steam, would likely be unusable for the multiplayer). For example, I have bought several fighting games on day 1 or within a year or 2 from launch if they still have a solid userbase.

If the game has almost zero chance of coming to GOG (in my opinion), but I am really curious and/or I think I would like the experience (generally, if I think something like this, I usually need a sizeable discount to bother, but there are exceptions). Example: I bought Resident Evil 2 Remake, because it doesn't seem as if Capcom is ever going to publish it here, I love the original trilogy, and I was looking forward to this release. Basically, I set the bar a little higher, and I'll try not to spend too much money.

If the game is singleplayer, it should not have Denuvo or always online DRM-schemes when I buy it: even if I accept DRM to an extent, I won't buy the game if I feel like the DRM used has a chance to threaten the viability of the game in the short-medium term. I doubt Steam will kick the bucket soon, but the same can't be said for other companies, so I avoid anything that uses more intrusive DRMs.

There are many other factors, assuming zero chance of a GOG release, but they are all relatively minor compared to the ones listed above. If it's on GOG, I buy it here, and that's it.

The vast majority of my PC games are bought from GOG, along with itch.io, and directly.

That said, fighting games are my favorite genre and DRM-free options are lacking. Fighting games are designed with multiplayer in mind, and the player base will drop sharply if I wait too long. I've used consoles thus far for fighting games, but I am contemplating, giving it up in favor of building a new PC. Unfortunately that also means giving in to a client-based storefront.

Using Rockstar's stellar AAA (Red Dead Redemption, GTA, LA Noire, etc.) output to judge DRM-free games might be a bit unfair. DRM-free is clearly disliked by most of the industry (and certainly Take 2 hates it)... and AAA games that push boundaries often aren't replicated within the DRM world for quite a long time, let alone the DRM-free world. But your point is well-taken...

... being a staunch DRM-free supporter does take some level of patience, trust, and / or sacrifice.

There is not -- nor will there ever be -- a one-to-one ratio between DRM and DRM-free... especially in regards to the AAA space. If your purpose is to simply experience (not own) AAA games, the DRM-free world might not be for you...?

This is one of the reasons I have never completely left the console space... and why I grudgingly keep a Steam account.

Now, to your specific example...

... there are a number of good Western games that try their hand at some of the elements in RDR 2 / RDO, but none as accomplished as Rockstar's work (and most sadly are not on GOG). Can say I'm interested here in Wild West Dynasty (I think that's the name?), but we'll see... ;)

I'm not who you responded to but I'd like to reply to some of your comment, if you don't mind.

On this first point, I would say that I don't believe all experiences are necessarily worth having, even if there is no 1:1 alternative. This is a general belief of mine that would expand far, far beyond gaming. Back to gaming: It is questionable how good the AAA titles really are beyond production value and scale of some aspects. The trend in AAA gaming (as well as mainstream film, books, etc) has been to water things down for the largest possible audience ($$$). In that sense, indies can't provide an equivalent experience to AAA, nor should they.

For the more dedicated fans of the medium, mainstream content that tries to cast a wide net so to speak tends to be lackluster or not as good as it could have been otherwise. The way that dedicated RPG fans react to the Elder Scrolls series is a good example. A dedicated RPG fan might like Skyrim well enough yet still believe it could have been vastly improved by being a deeper RPG experience rather than being the action game it essentially is. The dedicated RPG fan would not "miss" casualized aspects being turned into hardcore RPG design.

In talking about preferences, one thing that would help indie videogame creators at matching the experiences offered by the AAAs, is if a larger number of people dropped their preconceived notions of "needing" good graphics, voice-acting, etc. For example, if one gets over the need to have all dialogue voiced in an RPG, it opens the door for greater freedom in the game than is possible in a AAA game. Though I concede those aspects like graphics and voice-acting can be part of the experience, so it may boil down to picking and choosing what is most significant.

Well if you ask me, Fallout: New Vegas is 1000 times the game RDR2 is (this is praise of F:NV, not meaning to diss RDR2). But I'm sure one can argue that F:NV isn't "really" a cowboy game in the way one can argue the show Breaking Bad isn't "really" a Western. What makes RDR2 comprehensive, deep, and good to you, specifically?

Ultimately, sending us to find a game to serve as an "RDR2 killer" is a bit unfair given that you are using the example of an enormous game that few studios would even have the resources to make: there isn't any other DRMed cowboy game on the market that matches it either.

This game https://www.gog.com/en/game/gun would have come out around the same time as Red Dead Revolver (the first game in that series, unless you count "Redemption 1 and 2 as its own new series"). I would say it is comparable to RDRe, arguably better.

Outlaws (which someone else mentioned, and is available here on GOG too) is a very cool experience. I don't know if you can/care to compartmentalize like this, but do you think that in a hypothetical alternate timeline where RDR2 was made on early 90s technology, Outlaws would be a fair comparison?

The Call of Juarez games you mentioned are a good shout, though I agree with you it's not the same and furthermore I would say I don't believe they scratch the same itch something like RDR2 would.

While I think you are right in some cases on that, it's worth pointing out that the principled among us are effectively what gets us any DRM-free releases at all. If people don't care about DRM and just keep buying on Scheme, et al, then it's less likely the games will ever become DRM-free let alone arrive here.
Woah. I was literally just saying this in my post about it being unfair :D

I aim to be as DRM-free as possible, with the majority of my games being bought on GOG. On extremely rare occasion, I will consider a DRMed multiplayer game to play with a friend, only if I don't think it'd get a release here and if it's something I really want to play. I refuse to buy anything singleplayer that has DRM.

Sadly, there are some experiences (DRMed online MP) that currently can't be had DRM-free. For those, I decide on a case-by-case basis, but only after thinking about it for a while.

If there's a DRM-free version on GOG and available elsewhere, I'd rather buy here.
If there's no GOG/DRM-free release, I kindly ask the dev to consider it and tell them I'll buy/rebuy. Then I start waiting, chipping away at my huge backlog of DRM-free games in the meantime. :P

---

Here's some story time about how I lapsed on my DRM-free stance for a few years:

I was completely DRM-free after I discovered GOG in 2016... up until 2020, when I went against my morals and let myself get peer-pressured into making some heavily DRMed purchases. :\

I had met a group of friendly people who were very MP-focused. They only ever wanted to play those, and none of them had patience to wait for a GOG release. Or if it did, they complained all the time about my shaky crossplay connection. If MP was locked to GOG only, they would refuse to buy here. They definitely didn't care to figure out programs like Parsec so we could play my DRM-free couch co-op games.

As you can see, there was a lot of pressure to keep up on their preferred platforms, never mine. I'm ashamed I went against my morals just to play with them.
Sure, we had some good times, but I regret much of it. Those guys churned through games really fast, often moving on shortly after getting started on something - so several of those games have gone barely touched. Not only was it a waste of money, I also knew every dollar of mine spent on that crap was supporting DRM practices, and mostly on a store that I hated.

So last year I put my foot down:
- I will fight tooth and nail to avoid DRMed purchases. If there is a DRM-free option, I'm no longer afraid to say "take it or leave it"
- DRM will only be considered for MP-only games where there is no GOG/DRM-free alternative, and a friend wants to play together. Such purchases are limited to once per year, and I only pay for stuff I could see myself wanting to play on my own.
- I went back to asking devs for DRM-free releases, without shame or hesitation.
- Screw what other people think.

A game can only become old and stale if you're actually playing it - otherwise, you can treat it as new the first time you load it up. I'm currently playing through Fallout New Vegas and really enjoying it; I don't care that it's 10 years+ old. (okay, technicallyit can become old, but not stale)

Regarding feeling like you're missing out, there are currently hundreds of DRM free games on my backlog. It's not like I don't have a lot to play - so I don't feel the need to rent a DRM'd game.