Umbaglo

I suspect the issue is that in order to be DRM-free, the game has to be playable off the disc without any further patching. But that means that, if the disc is to be delivered on time, it will need to be manufactured with a v0.9-ish version of the game that might be obsolete by the time the game launches. Thus the disc (which is the most likely copy for early pirate-wannabes to get) might still be buggy, which could lead to morons people complaining about bugs that have actually been fixed it legitimate copies of the game. This could all be avoided if the game disc cannot be run without patching. The problem then is that the game disc will only be functional as long as Obsidian maintains the server(s) that handle the patching. Now I'm sure Obsidian is not out to screw players and would keep the server up as long as possible. But nothing lasts forever; eventually Obsidian will close, or we'll all switch to a totally new internet, or what have you. At that point, the autopatcher has become the worst sort of DRM: the kind that prevents honest customers from using the product. That's why Obsidian feels the need to send the DRM-free game disc to customers well after the official release date. In other words, you're saying that their intent is that the DRM version will never ever get another patch. I somehow doubt this is the case; they're clearly going to patch the DRM-free version, so the exact same method they're going to use after launch can be used to ensure that the 1.0 patch is available for players that receive the disk. Hell, some people are suggesting that the intent for wanting to delay is to prevent someone from ripping the game from the disk and putting it up for piracy. Releasing a somewhat non-functional pre-1.0 version to the manufacturer and expecting the players to download a patch that completes it seems like the BEST solution; if the early access version basically won't work, then it doesn't matter if someone leaks it from the factory! The version on the disk could even be basically the whole game as it exists right now, but forced to run the current beta until it gets the 1.0 patch, if they wanted to be fancy about the whole matter (but that would be a lot of work). If the manual or installer says "Go to this URL to get the release patch", or even checks there automatically (which is not a DRM service), then it's the person's fault for not paying attention. This is not an unsolved problem; players used to deal with this before the Steam days, and while Steam and other DRM services fixed the problem conclusively, that doesn't mean the old methods don't work.

Why is this an either/or option? This is a "dilemma" that existed back before Steam, so while I understand that it's been long enough without it coming up that many people don't remember, it also doesn't mean that the problem is unsolved. Why not go back to the same solution that developers used to use back then? You can pre-determine a URL for the 1.0 patch, and then put it in the game installer to be downloaded and applied automatically, or put it in the manual and tell people to go there to download it. There's no need to delay shipping the physical goodies or game disk while retaining the DRM-free promise.