Re:DX-Ball
by wingerlang on Saturday October 16, 2021 @06:08AM
(#28886768)
> However I feel they could totally and completely crush the competition by adopting a DRM-Free approach
Are they not totally and completely crushing the competition already?
Sometimes DRM, like Denuvo, gets removed with a post-patch after it got broken because it has a performance impact and the pirated version runs better than the DRM one, while the initial purpose of the DRM (ensure no piracy right after launch) has been fulfilled. I call that pragmatic.
Steam is pretty DRM free. Games have Steam integration which checks if your account owns the game, but they don't attempt to prevent tampering like true DRM does. If Steam were to disappear you could easily un-steam your games.
GOG also bans third party DRM software. It's great, but big publishers don't like that which is why GOG is mostly indie.
Re:DX-Ball
by Wowfunhappy on Saturday October 16, 2021 @07:54AM
(#28887210)
> If Steam were to disappear you could easily un-steam your games.
Speaking as someone who actually does this (because I despise the Steam client), it’s not easy. Different games need different Steam emulators to work, and titles that seem to run initially will break in weird ways mid-game.
This burger is mostly meat free except for the beef used to make the burger
https://steam.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_DRM-free_games
While not huge, it is a pretty big list.
Re:DX-Ball
by Wowfunhappy on Saturday October 16, 2021 @08:42AM
(#28887456)
It's a big list because there are a lot of games on Steam. However, the chance that any given Steam game in your library will be DRM Free is very small. I've also had cases in the past where I bought a game because it was on this list, but the list was seemingly wrong because the game had DRM.
I've actually had much better luck with the Epic Game Store, although it's seemingly not as good as it used to be.
To get back on topic, could we have the opportunity to play DX-Ball nowadays if it was full of today-standard DRMs? Well, tbh, probably yes, but only by adding a useless cracking procedure.
Nonetheless, I totally agree with you and I myself have a « DX-Ball (2) Mods » folder on my PC for the last two decades :)