I'm not being snarky when I ask this but why not just download a game and try the GOG service if you don't mind giving new services a try? Copy it and move it to another computer just for the hell of it or something. Give it a whirl. Maybe you'll enjoy the freedom of not having to ask permission.

Also, it's hard for me to take you seriously with a user name like Amerika. Not that my name is much better being as unoriginal as it is.

But, but, but...oh just get one of these. You can run a laptop real-time in good sunlight with one. There is always a way if you are willing.

Oh, it's you again. It seems like anyone who doesn't want Steamworks attached to every existing PC game is an asshole. Yeah, let's just ignore the thread title. Let's see how far back you can remember.

Once upon a time, games were sold without DRM. People owned the games they bought. Then, around November 16, 2004, a long-awaited PC game was being sold at retail stores in a physical box, just like normal. Many people bought this game and took it home and put it in their disc drive only to find out that they couldn't play it without some online activation. You may find this surprising, but the average gamer didn't even know what the hell DRM was. It's entirely reasonable, like it or not, that most all customers fully expected to be able to put the disc in the drive and play the single player game they paid good money for just like they always had. This game wasn't presented any differently than any others had been in the past. The main reason for going to a store to buy a game in those days is because their internet service sucks. Even if they could get decent service, it cost money to pay for that better service.

True story, that. I even bought the collector's edition of Half-Life 2, and guess what? I couldn't get a refund for it. The retail clerk asked me if the game was broken and I told her that, yes, it was but it appears that they intended to make it that way. Well, no refund for me then if that's the way it's supposed to be. I could have tried another clerk or the next store and told them that the disc was missing or that it was shattered when I opened it, but that just would have been dishonest plus all I likely would have gotten was an exchange for the same game.

You know what I did? I accepted my mistake and ate the loss. I also quit buying PC games once I figured out that this trend wasn't going away. I only started buying PC games recently again through GOG.

I will say that I never once went onto the Steam forum and complained though. Sure, I've complained other places but never there. Has it ever occurred to you that maybe GOG isn't trying to take away customers that love what Steam has to offer? If people love it, they'll stick with it. Maybe they're trying to get people who might be reluctant buyers of DRM'd games that would rather not have DRM but have no choice? That they're trying to get people like me who quit buying PC games altogether even though they loved playing on a PC?

The reason that console games still sell at retail is because they don't have the kind of DRM PC games do. It appears to me that the average PC gamer migrated to consoles because of DRM. Hell, music CDs are still selling well and they don't even have copy protection on them. I can buy a CD, rip it, and copy it onto a flash drive all in a few minutes and then give it to a buddy if I really wanted to and yet they are still stocked on the shelves. If music CDs had continued down this route, I would bet my savings that physical retail music sales would have gone the way of the dodo much like PC games are going now. Whether or not that would be good for the industry by causing people to look for better non-DRM alternatives on the internet is up for debate though.

Since the OP seems to like all his/her games on Steam I seriously doubt it, despite his/her comments to the contrary.
The US Census Bureau disagrees with you as would most of the US residents with English as a first language. Whether what you say is "technically" correct in very specific circles, most people just don't belong to those circles.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_ethnicity_in_the_United_States_Census

I don't wish to argue technicalities or specifics, just to point out that the word "race" seems to mean something wildly different than what you seem to imply to the majority of our (over 200 million) citizens.

Agreed. I remember hearing that biologists have been phasing the term out for some reason or another but - that's anecdotal and I can't back it up in any way. Not my purview.
Besides - the term can and will function in language, even if it is no longer accurate. That's just the inertia of things. I might as well switch to "bigotry"...

I prefer bigotry as a term as it covers more of the same type of bad behavior in a single term (for example homophobic bigotry wouldn't typically be covered under the term "racism" and I encounter that kind of thing more often).

LOL! :-D

I imagine the decision was more to make a public show of being flexible and having good customer service than it was about pacifying the guy. But I do agree with your overall sentiment- breaking policy because someone decides to throw a temper tantrum on the forums doesn't really set a good precedent. If the guy had come in, hat in hand, and basically said "I know I screwed up here and I know I'm asking you to go above and beyond what could be reasonably expected of you, but any help you could offer here would be appreciated" then offering a refund would basically just be a case of GOG staff being really awesome people. Giving a refund because the guy throws a big enough fit publicly... not so much. Then again, the other option would be to pretty much say "We're sticking to policy and that's all we have to say", then either let the guy continue ranting or lock down the thread, so there doesn't really seem like a good resolution that results in GOG looking good to everyone. As it stands, the choice that GOG made probably makes them look good to most people, with just a few hard-ass bastards like you and me less than happy with the outcome.

Yes. I remember getting a game years ago - my girlfriend bought a physical copy at Wal-Mart - and I can't even remember what it was! - and when I tried to install it it said I had to have a Steam account. At the time I had no idea what Steam was, and I thought that meant it was an online game. So we took it back, and remarkably managed to somehow get our money back.

But yes, I'm one of those people who played games before there was any DRM, and not having it certainly didn't ruin the gaming industry. It's just an excuse.

Agreed.

It's been shown, publicly, that, under certain circumstances, the terms of service can be considered more 'guidelines' than rules. Exactly what those circumstances are.... who knows ?

A precedent has been set - time will tell if it'll turn around and bite GOG on the @r$e.

Guys, is there really an point to arguing this further. This is just going in circles. The OP keeps saying he's right, other say he's wrong, and nothing new gets said, nor does their seem to be any reason whatsoever for saying it. The matter's been resolves, the OP won't change his mind no matter what you say to him, and the OP won't change anyone else's mind no matter what he says to them, so what is the point.

As much as I shudder to quote this, "give peace a chance"

give peas a chance.

if cooked well, they're not as bad as everyone makes out.

Entitlement is a bitch.

You are sounding a bit like a race realist with the beginning there.

Also, yeah racism is not an umbrella term, though some people treat it as such, which is weird.

Yeah, I would have understood what I had done if I purchased an online multi-player only game without LAN capability (except I wouldn't have bought it then because it would have said so on the box, much like GOG has drm-free plastered everywhere on the site.)

This thread is almost physically painful for me to read... instead of bashing a newcomer who is having an issue (which will undoubtedly force them further away from the site), how about we all stop being such hateful assholes & try to see something from his point of view? As much as people like to talk about how "classy" this forum is, not much of that "class" is being shown in this thread.