Comment on Next Heroic Games Launcher release to include initial GOG Galaxy support
ampersandrew@lemmy.world 3 months agoIt’s a nontrivial thing to make a good product for your customers, but it should still be done. If only GOG had the market muscle to require this without shooting themselves in the foot, like when Apple pretty much universally made digital music purchases DRM-free.
naticus@lemmy.world 3 months ago
Doing things with a direct connection to friends is something no one does anymore. Port forwarding for a game? Yeah it’s fine for people who are technically minded like I’m sure anyone in the community is, but walking a friend through it on their router just to okay with them is a nonstarter. No, the cloud connection is how this is handled now. I haven’t seen a game in a decade do it via a direct connection from player to player.
ampersandrew@lemmy.world 3 months ago
The unanimous game of the year did it just last year. No one uses seat belts or air bags until you have to either. LAN, direct IP connections, private servers, etc. are essential for when services like GOG’s or Steam’s are no longer functional or available.
naticus@lemmy.world 3 months ago
That’s news to me, but looked it up and confirmed you’re absolutely right. That blows my mind, because in many circumstances it can be impossible for players to connect, especially in a double NAT situation or you’re playing on a network you have no control over (e.g. university network).
But comparing a safety feature to a technical requirement is a bit misleading here, no? This is more about making sure gamers can just play rather than having to reconfigure network equipment, which they may or may not have access to.
Honestly if Steam is down at this point, I’ve got bigger things to worry about personally. Does it happen? Do I curse the name of GabeN? Sure, but it’s such a rare instance and happens maybe once a year for a matter of an hour or so typically.
But let’s not confuse using a client app as being DRM. On GOG Galaxy, it’s not doing anything DRM related other than providing you access to download the game itself. All the client is doing is providing a “friends network” that everyone is connecting to and creating a cloud bridged connection. This solves any double NAT problems, obfuscates your IP, removes any need to make network config changes, and no one has to think about it.
ampersandrew@lemmy.world 3 months ago
It’s convenient for players, who don’t need to know anything about networking to play, which is why we all use it despite its downsides. But it always has downsides. Steam networking goes down for regular weekly maintenance and kills your multiplayer session in a lot of cases. If you and a couple of friends are on a train or in a rural area with terrible internet, you can still play.
But it is DRM. If you need to connect to your store’s servers to play multiplayer, I imagine that reduces piracy compared to being able to copy paste the executable a few times and send it to a few friends that can all play together. Still, I want the guarantee that what I’m buying is built to last, which means no DRM, which means requiring that connection to my store’s servers is not it.