Amazingly, when searching for "DRM" in the Communities/General Discussion forum, there were no matching results. I also can't see an easily found link on GOG as to why DRM-free games are the way to go if you don't want intrusive titles from alternative sites.

Can someone therefore please explain how these work for the lesser-informed. You may post links but I think an explanation on a GOG forum would be preferable to visitors.

1) What is DRM-free?

2) Is GOG completely DRM free?

3) How do Steam, Desura and other sites work?
- Do you have to be online to play?
- Do you have limited downloads?
- Do they check your IP address?
- What else may they be able to collect?
- Greenmangaming has a "capsule" to install to play their game - what does it do?

4) Any other DRM sites and/or other methods of DRM that people may not be aware of?

Thank you and if this information is on GOG, then perhaps it should be more prominent.

Finally, I know some of this is poorly worded - so I'm preempting any editing I am likely to do!

1) Digital Rights Management Free
2) Yes for the most part, there are some games with CD-Keys, though those are mostly for online play as a unique identifier.
3) While Desura has many DRM-free games not all are sadly, and some say Steam has some DRM free games, while others say they do not. As for your questions it all depends on the game developer if they choose whether or not to have those restrictions on their games (ex. Ubisoft with U-Play and always Online DRM). As for the other two questions I'm not sure as I have never used GMG myself.
4) some sites like dotEMU and a few others have DRM-Free games, but I think GOG is the only one with their entire catalog as DRM free.

I hope this clears at least many of your questions up.

drm free is exactly what it sounds like, it doesnt have drm. (digital rights management). DRMs are programs designed to ensure your computer is running a purchased copy of a game. Steam uses a client to launch its games, and that uses methods to verify the game is "legit". But publishers can also include their own drm and that gets packaged into the download too. Steam collects data on your system, what programs are running, what you use for hardware, presumably for compatibility info. I dont know the exact details on this, but i believe its not personally identifiable info... its just for their research.

1) DRMs are basically restrictions imposed by the copyright holders to control their digital products after sale, usually -but not necessarily- by using the internet. Being DRM-free means to not have any kind of Digital Rights Management.

2) Every game on GoG is DRM-free. Some games might require a CD activation key as an identifier for online gaming, though. Anyway, if that is the case, it is always explicitly specified (or, at least, it should be, as far as I know).

3) I'm afraid I cannot help you properly on this one, since every site has its own rules. Reading the EULA before subscription is recommended, as it gives you all the information you need.

4) I would tell you, but then I would break the forum guidelines. No advertising for other shops allowed, I'm afraid.

Are you asking this out of personal interest or because you want these informations diplayed more prominently here, so that the uninitiated can learn what you already know?

I wanted this to display the information more prominently. I'm actually reasonably clued up, although not as articulate as others on this site.

If someone who is new to pc gaming, then seeing DRM-free site is one thing but they may not know just how beneficial it is to them for a privacy perspective,

GOG has this in their FAQ, although I doubt many people read it and it sounds more like an advertisement than unbiased and accurate information (even though it's for a good cause): (Note that I'm not sure whether the first part of "owning" the games is actually true in a legal sense, and that the second part more or less applies to Steam, too. The actual difference between DRM client and DRM-free games is that you can always install and run DRM-free games even if you're offline. DRM clients might allow you to play the game off-line in some cases, but not to install them on your own, on a different computer than the one you used for the download and without internet connection.)

I'll try to explain the issue as plainly as possible in layman's terms, feel free to adapt my wording to suit your needs. BTW, the reason there are no search results for DRM is because the search function ignores terms too short (and three letters is too short, as i noticed when i couldn't find any results for "Mac").

What is DRM?
DRM is a short for for Digital Rights Management, a term that is usually used synonymously with "copy protection". It denotes a mechanism by which a copyright holder can control and limit a customer's access to a certain product without the customer's direct consent. There are many ways this can manifest, some media, might only be played on authorised devices, might be impossible to copy, or require authentication over the internet or the presence of a physical or digital "key" accessory. These limitations can only be applied to digital media, such as music, videos, eBooks or video games. Non-electronic forms of restrictions might exist as well, however, they are not digital and therefore not DRM.

Is GOG completely DRM free?
Yes, when you buy a game from GOG.com you receive an installer which works completely without any sort of authentication or restriction. The games are guaranteed to work on any computer that meets the individual system requirements. These installers can be backed up and installed on as many computers as one wishes. Of course being DRM-free does not mean the games are free of copyright, so while one can technically do anything, the rules of copyright still apply and limit what is acceptable and what isn't.

There is also an optional downloader client for GOG, which is optional and does not constitute DRM, as it only downloads the installer and checks locally if the files were corrupted.

How do Steam, Desura and other sites work?
(I don't know about Desura, so I will focus on Steam)
Steam uses a client program to access its store and launch games. Games can only be downloaded and installed via the client and some games require the client to launch the game, even if the client is not used for the actual gameplay. There are no stand-alone installers, but games that don't require the client for launching and running can have their install folder backed up. Note however, that a game backed up in such a way is not guaranteed to work, if during the install process dependancies are installed on the operating system they will not be backed up. Aside from Steam#s own DRM some games might come with their own DRM as well.

no. there is an offline mode. Though some users reports this to be a little fidgety, I have never experienced any problems with it, nor do I know anyone outside of this forum to have had any problems either. no, and you can install on as many computers as you want (bare in mind some games have 3'd party DRM with limited installs. Watch out for them) Steam check which region you are from, and have region restricted games Steam have a monthly hardware survey, but this is optional and you have to opt in to participate (http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey)
Steam logs playtime, and achievements you earn in games (if any)

Per user it's nowhere near monthly, I get it maybe once a year, if that.

The two week "timer" feature/bug last year was originally reported in Steampowered forums, not GOG. Just for instance. Funny if you missed them.

Just so that no one gets the wrong idea from your wording that the Steam offline mode problems are just something invented in GOG forums.

Funny how you failed to read "I have never had [...] I do not know [...]", but then again - I do know you and your selective reading :)

Just to be clear, that has nothing to do with DRM. Whether or not the digital store offers unlimited downloads of your games from their servers is a separate issue from whether their games have DRM.

Most digital stores seem to offer unlimited downloads (for as long as the store is up and running), but there have been some exceptions too. For instance, Strategy First at least used to offer only limited download time (or times). I bought their SFI Super Bundle which included 21 games, and they were all DRM-free installers.

But, there was a restriction IIRC that you could download your SFI games only for some time (like a couple of months), or was it that you could download them only three times or something. So, I did download them all and backed them up to my hard drives. I presume I can no longer download them again from them, but the installers themselves are still fully DRM-free, as far as I can tell. No online authentication needed at any point, when installing or playing the downloaded games.

1)

Strictly-speaking, DRM (stands for "Digital Rights Management") is technology to make software (games, etc) or data (music, videos, etc) simply not work without first having to first having to ask permission from from an agent of the whoever runs the DRM scheme (this agent may be trusted hardware, such as a Zune or the old iPod devices, or a DRM server run by SecuROM or Valve or whoever).

Loosely-speaking, DRM can refer to any kind of technical protection measure (TPM) intended to control who may use the software or media (although in my personal opinion this synecdochical usage of the term is too loose and it's less ambiguous to use the term TPM).

Ultimately the function of DRM is to allow sellers to be able to deliver software or media "on a tether" so that they can give it to your customers but also retain the ability to take it away from them later if they decide to.

DRM is mostly claimed to be for combatting piracy - however, the software tends to get pirated anyway so it's widely-surmised that it's actually intended as a surreptitious means to combat second-hand sales.

There are also some more novel applications - Steam's "free weekends" and "family sharing", Green Man's gaming's ability to selll your game back for store credit, and the Playstation Network's complimentary games for subscribers all work by using DRM, so it's not always a bad thing. Just make sure that you know what you're getting into and if the drawbacks are acceptable to you.

2)

Yes, GOG is completely DRM-free. The closest thing to DRM that you'll find here (and very rarely, at that) is a CD key. For example, if you get Unreal Tournament 2004 from GOG you also get a CD key for in case you want to play on a server which happens to demand CD keys.


3) "How do Steam, Desura and other sites work?"

- Do you have to be online to play?
For Desura, most games don't require Internet at all, but there are exceptions.
For Steam it's a mixed bag. Most games seem to use Steam authentication as a makeshift DRM scheme, and so you'll need to be logged into a Steam account through the Steam client (and the game must be licensed to that account) or the game will not run, but if you're very lucky Steam's notorious Offline Mode might work and you may be able to play despite not being connected to the Internet. Some games on Steam don't use DRM at all, and you can always run them (although you'll have to hunt through your hard drive to launch them manually whenever Offline Mode isn't working). And some Steam games use additional DRM, such as SecuROM, GFWL, or Valve's on CEG, so there's no single answer that holds for all Steam games.

- Do you have limited downloads?
No, Desura and Steam are both unlimited in this regard.

- Do they check your IP address?
On Steam some games are region-restricted. It prevents you from buying those if your IP address is from the wrong region. It also prevents you from playing games if you are in the wrong region. I don't cross regions often so I don't know the specific rules. But Steam doesn't associate your account with any particular IP address so you can safely access your account from any number of addresses. They do track which region you use to play and buy your games to crack down on people using VPN to buy from regions with better prices.

Desura doesn't care about your IP address, and doesn't even have region restrictions. You may notice that their store pages displays prices in your local currency. I don't believe they track your IP, but they probably use your IP to determine which currency to display.

- What else may they be able to collect?
Steam tracks the hours you play a game, and if you enable their hardware survey it reports the hardware on your machine so that game developers can look at to make sure that their minimum requirements aren't too hight for most of their target audience. Desura doesn't do any data collection at all that I know of. Neither of them are known to spy on you.

- Greenmangaming has a "capsule" to install to play their game - what does it do?

It's for downloading/installing and launching games bought from GMG (except for the ones sold as keys for other services). The idea is that when you're finished playing a game you can sell it back to GMG for store credit. Capsule games use SecuROM DRM to ensure that you can't continue playing a game after you sold it back to GMG.

Yeah, I don't know anyone personally in real life either who has had problems with the Steam offline mode, but that is probably due to two things:

- In real life I know for sure only maybe one person who I know for a fact to be using Steam (one guy at my work). Maybe I know more, but I just don't know them being Steam users, or even PC gamers. Like they don't know me being those two things either. It is not part of our daily discussions on the coffee breaks.

- Even for that one person, I've never really polled him how his Steam offline mode is working. I don't even know if he has ever tried to play Steam games offline.

So if that is what you meant by your comment, then it was quite useless and uninformative. It is like me saying "Apart from amok, I personally don't know anyone who've ever had any problems with any GOG game". That doesn't really prove anything, even if the sentence is factually correct.