That's actually pretty insidious of them to be advertising so many of their games as DRM-free and then to require that an internet connection be present for the installation.

I've not bought anything from GamersGate to date because I hadn't seen anything that took my fancy price-wise, and after reading that, I certainly won't now.

+1 Psyringe

Their definition of DRM free is that the game won't install any other program required to run the game like SecuROM, Tages, Starforce, Steam, etc. Their DRM-Free games, once installed, don't need an internet connection unless there is online play.
They don't consider their downloader to be DRM because you need to be online to download the game anyway and the downloader just connects to your account to make sure that you own that game. It works very much like the Impulse and Desura clients except that it's only function is to download games.
Many people may consider the downloader to be DRM, personally I don't care because at least they are upfront about it.

After download and autorun installer (when proper installation is started) just... copy folder with temporary files ('original' game installation files with 'decrypted' main setup/install file).

Exactly. This way the setup will work perfectly even after the downloader's gone.

You can also just place order, "return home" and pay as the price remains in USD.

Thanks guys - I just tested this method, and it worked. :) You've saved Gamersgate a customer. :) (though I definitely prefer GOG's interpretation of "DRM-free").

As long as this method works, I can be sure that I don't have to rely on any third party for installs Gamersgate's allegedly "DRM-free" software in the far future. I agree that currently it seems unlikely that Gamersgate would cease operations. However, I'm old enough by now to know how fragile a seemingly stable situation can actually be - think about Atari's spectacular crash in the 80s, or Microprose, or Lehman Brothers, etc. You just never know. And since I'm a collector, it's especially important for me that the long-term availability of the games I included in that collection is completely under my control.

Thanks again for the insights and advice. :)

Can you tell me step by step? I would like to install my Gamer's Gate colletion on my brother's PC. I keep the temp files, but can't see any .exe setup?

Dont know about DK, but I was in Switzerland last week, and they gotta pay in euro too, while having heavier regional restriction on which game they can buy.

I'll assume that you're installing the games on that PC to play them there yourself, or at least together with your brother, so that the usage is legitimate. I wouldn't want to help people _pirate_ these games. Otherwise, please let your brother buy them (actually, this way Gamersgate could win another customer who would otherwise have no chance of using their products). ;)

1. You download the games to your computer via the GamersGate downloader.
2. The game's installer will run automatically (or you run it manually)
3. From this moment on, until the installation has finished, the game's setup.exe will be present in the folder with the game's installation files.
4. You copy this setup.exe to a safe place (because it will delete itself after it closes down)
5. When the installer finishes, you tell it to keep the downloaded files. This will still delete the setup.exe, but keep all other files that were downloaded.
6. You copy all these files to your brother's computer and copy the setup.exe into that folder.
7. You don't touch the GamersGate installer on your brother's computer, but instead start the setup.exe inside the installation folder.

This will start the installation. Note that you'll still have to enter serials if required; also, if the game comes with any other DRM (Tages, Securom, etc.), it will be installed regularly. This method is not a crack. It just ensures that a product that is advertised as DRM-free can actually be installed without a need to rely on a third party for online activation every single time. Note also that this method only works if you _are_ a legitimate owner of the game and can install it regularly on one PC with an internet connection.

Thanks. So that's why i can't find the executable setup. They'll deleted eventhough i choose to keep the files.
Don't worry, i'm legitimate user of Ghost Master, Disciples and Sword of the Stars. But i no longer play them, so i want to install them to my brother PC. Kinda waste if nobody play 'em till the finish. So you're not helping a pirate here.
Though i don't know if serial key for Ghost Master will work on another PC. Alternatively, i can always download all the games from my brother PC using my account but it kinda waste of the precious bandwidth.

Well, if your brother is going to play the games, then he really should pay for them. Apart from Gamersgate declaring them non-transferable (which you may or may not agree with), they simply are cheap enough, and we can't really expect these services to maintain good prices if each purchase is played by several users (of which only the first one is paying). No offense, but try to look at it from this perspective: If everyone would give his "abandoned" games to another gamer, then services like GamersGate and GOG would make substantially less revenue (which ultimately means that the guys who _do_ pay will have to pay more).

If your brother wants to play these games, perhaps purchase them again and gift them to him for christmas?

He's just an underage kid and live with me and also share same PC with me.
He's not the one that interested in the games, but i'm the one insist that he should play it since his PC just been upgraded. So if it's illegal, then i just cancel my plan. That's the best option for now.

In many countries that would actually be legal, as you're same family living under the same roof.
Supply and demand: the less peoples buy something, the cheaper it gets. ^^

I'm thinking about used game too. Are they legal? As far as i know popular retailer such as Gamestop also sell used game.

I'm going to hope you're kidding, but in case you aren't...

Used games are definitely legal. Once a person buys something, they own it. People who sell software try to work around this in 2 ways:

1) Claiming that their software is a service and you need to pay again every time you use it.
2) Frequent new editions.

Both tactics are fairly obvious. There are some situations where software is a service (ex: Facebook) or when you need frequent updates (ex: any game published by Bethesda). But usually these are just companies trying to rip people off.

Psyringe's argument is false on a couple of levels. The exact places s/he is wrong differ depending on who you ask, but the basic problem is that s/he's treating buying something like charity, so there's a basic logic fail there. Also, s/he's claiming that every person who uses a product should pay the person who originally produced it. This is all kinds of wrong for every economic system, since it asserts that personal ownership exists and denies that anyone can own anything they didn't personally produce.

That argument has been used by a wide variety of scummy people and their deluded sycophants to trick people into paying more for products. It relies on the idea that buying a product and supporting a moral cause the same thing, which is just false. Sometimes they can occur in the same transaction, but they are not the same thing.