Hi there, We removed Dark and Darker from sale on the Epic Games Store on March 5 in consideration of a court decision in Korea between Nexon and the game’s publisher, IRONMACE. On November 1, 2025, we will be removing Dark and Darker from your library, at which point it will no longer be playable via the Epic Games Store.
Effective immediately, players can no longer purchase Redstone Shards or the Legendary Status upgrades via the Epic Games Store. Players can continue to use the Redstone Shards that they have previously purchased until November 1, 2025.
We will issue a refund to all players who have purchased the Legendary Status upgrade. Refunds will be issued to the player’s original payment method, and where that’s not possible, players will receive a refund to their Epic account balance. We are unable to provide refunds on Redstone Shards.
If you have not received a refund by July 1, please contact player support.
Thank you,
The Epic Games Store team
They don’t have DRM. That’s not the same as owning the game. If you don’t back up the games or installers yourself, and GOG goes under, you lose access to your library the same as Epic or Steam going away.
You can back up your Steam and Epic games, too. You just need to be able to access your account to verify your license for most titles (but not everything; loads of games do not use Steam or Epic’s DRM, have no online checks to verify anything, and you can just copy the installation folder to another machine to play the game). But you can also easily crack both of their DRM to skip the online checks even if they do use it.
This goes for physical media as well. You own the disk; you do not own the software on said disk. The software on the physical media could still have an online check to see if you are a license holder (this is what CD-Keys are used for) and block you from installing/running the software, despite it being on your own CD/DVD. I am pretty sure I myself have games on disk that can not be installed because the online verification servers no longer exist, so the only way to install them is with cracks.
That’s why I mentioned that you purchase a license. That has also always been true even if you “bought” a game as a physical copy in a store. A DRM-free game is still the closest thing you get to owning a game.
I have heard this argument before, but I really don’t get it. Of course you could lose your files if you don’t download them. I’d say that’s so obvious it isn’t even worth mentioning. If you lose or destroy your physical copy of a game you also lose access to it. Pretty obvious.
Why could you both not be right ? Yes, right now a DRM Free game is the closest thing that we get to owning a game. Yet, that wasn’t always true, we used to have an unlimited access to our video game, executable, as long as we had a disk.
But they took that from us ! 👿
But that’s the point they’re making, isn’t it? With GOG games you can download the installer. With that you also get unlimited access to it.
Given you don’t lose it, but that same argument goes for physical disks.
Exactly, GOG has no control on how you use it, for all intents and purposes it’s yours. You can even borrow the game to your friends if you want. I love GOG, hope they nvr go under
So you’re saying torrenting and seeding is basically a moral obligation?
It’s just basic preservation of art. 😤
Depending on the era of the game, you might well own a copy of a game on a disk, just like you own a copy of a book when you buy a book. Weaselling out of first-sale-doctrine stuff came a long time after people started buying video games. A century ago, publishers were trying exactly the same thing with books, and depending on the country, either legislation was introduced that made it explicitly illegal, or the courts determined that putting a licence agreement in a book just meant that the customer got a copy of a licence agreement with their book, not that they were bound by its terms.
I was born in '85. IBM pioneered the idea of software licensing in the '50s. Nothing I’ve ever purchased was old enough to be free from the concept.
The thing I hate most is not being able to re-sell something. I mean, sure, I could sell my disks to someone; but they wouldn’t necessarily be able to use them and then I would be guilty of fraud or copyright violation or both. 😩
You own your individual copy of the game software, end of. It doesn’t fucking matter if it’s on a disc or a digital download.