I think having an online account for multiplayer is a categorically different kind of requirement than having an online account for single player.
Until there’s a storefront that only sells games that include multiplayer servers that can be self‐hosted on your LAN, I think GOG’s explicit policy of no‐DRM installers is worth praising.
> Until there’s a storefront that only sells games that include multiplayer servers that can be self‐hosted on your LAN
IIRC from a discussion in their official Discord (by one of the people who work there) that is basically Zoom Platform[0]'s approach - if a game has a multiplayer component it has to allow you to run your own server.
Yes, that was mentioned in the thread I linked. According to the thread, both GOG and the game developer claimed it was a bug, and fixed it. This does not convince me of your statement that GOG has de facto eliminated its no‐DRM policy. A more plausible explanation is that GOG, not rolling in money like Steam, is subject to a certain amount of jank including high‐impact bugs that take longer than they should to get fixed. And GOG’s jankiness is a common complaint throughout these HN comments. I don’t think anyone contests that Valve provides a generally slick experience in comparison to its competitors.
Until there’s a storefront that only sells games that include multiplayer servers that can be self‐hosted on your LAN, I think GOG’s explicit policy of no‐DRM installers is worth praising.