All hail the GOGBear!

Yeah, I mean, what can ya do... :P

Hard to say. A lot of things that were talked about were things that happened in the past. One promise for the future was to communicate more with the community - another was the new forum and of course the already mentioned possibility to make classic installers default.

It's without question that the "use classic installers as default" option still has not been implemented. Imo this is quite a joke given that we are talking about a simple checkbox (already implemented in a well known userscript since years) and that they just recently overhauled the complete account system with those GOG profiles. I guess we can all tell what will happen next: GOG will try to fine tune this profile thingy given them another construction site to work on and since they have limited manpower other things will probably not be worked on for a specific time ... if ever. Don't get me wrong. I know that many here are thinking those profiles are god's gift to humanity. But I personally think that there were and are more important things GOG should focus on. There are still some things broken and some things wrong here and those are the things that we talked about - not profiles or facebook impementation or achievements or any other stuff I would call "nice to have but not so important right now".

Let's talk about the next important point: "communicate more". Well ... I guess the answer here is also "no". I know that especially elcook is trying the very best to give community explanations whenever something happens for which an explanation is needed. But let's be serious: he is one person and that's just not enough to cover each and every question. Yes - I watched the forum even more closeley since they made those promises and no - unfortunately I still experienced several moments when community complained about lack of explanation or general communication. Imo this is not elcooks fault but the fact that he seems to be the only one responsible for feedback here. At least they are watching a bit closer for unappropriate behaviour in the forum and they do act accordingly - at least in some cases.

"The new forum": - nothing happened here as well - at least nothing we can already see. But we are talking about a new forum and not about a simple checkbox ;) so I am o.k. if we have to wait a bit longer here as long as this new forum has been TESTED thoroughly whenever it will go live. However it would be so nice if GOG would still fix those things broken for months on the actual forum. The "hyperlink" problem, the "special characters in hyperlinks problem" and there are probably still several other things still broken I just cannot remember at the moment (I don't even know which 911 number is forbidden at the moment to prevent spam mails the GOG way).

That is a long answer to a short question so let's summarize it: They might have done a bit but regarding the things we have talked about in Warsaw unfortunately there is not much that I can see that really have changed for the better. I mean it was a great trip and I still think the people at GOG are great ... but that does not change the fact that the reason for this whole event should have been to build a bridge bteween GOG and the community and if you ask me they missed out to really use what we talked about. Comparing "before Warsaw" and "after Warsaw" I cannot see much of a difference. But please correct me if I am wrong.

That's the understatement of the week... "This place is a death trap" (C) Sachys

;-)

Hm. I'm not certain we can safely interpret the current lack of communication about the profile as "elcook is simply overworked, so he can't answer everything at the same time".

All I'm saying is : these 6 should go back there. Right now. On their own. Knock on the door together. And start with "Say, there's also something else we wanted to ask. About profiles, ...".

Okay, I know, it's sunday. But I didn't specify which door.

https://www.gog.com/work

I count 37 jobs (not including the GWENT roles) 23 of which are programming or programming related. We only see maybe three or four blues regularly on the forums (the English ones anyway, I assume there are a few foreign language speaking blues on the other forums).
There are 18 support staff listed on the support page, they are currently looking for 3 more, 16% of their current workforce. You can assume the 'missing' roles from other areas might be in a similar range.

Here's that same page from three years ago;

https://web.archive.org/web/20150424143101/https://www.gog.com/work#gog_mentality

It's hard to be sure, but those look like the same programming roles to me.

So yeah.. I'm fairly sure they are seriously understaffed and as such are prioritising what they know or think will make them more money. Unfortunately that's social media esque profiles and steam like clients, because that's what the majority of the market wants.

How can a company remain understaffed for 3+ years is beyond me.. O_o
Why they continue to avoid non-residents employees even with such a bad situation?

I don't know how much or little GOG pays. Perhaps there is a big discrepancy between the skills they expect and the salary they can pay. That would explain why they remain understaffed, because they don't find anyone with the necessary skills who is willing to work for the pay they offer.

...that wouldn't fit the image of a growing company, but is rather something, which one often finds in dying companies. But who knows? GOG's personnell/salary decisions might be just as good as their communication decisions. That is: as bad as they can get.

Does Poland have any standard pay practices? Can they tell someone, "We're going to pay you shit and if you don't like it you can quit"?

What about the tech sector there? Is it thriving? Yes I know it's a large country but maybe anyone who grows up in, say Warsaw, with a head for computers, figures they can find better opportunities elsewhere. That happens with other countries all the time. Shit, over here it happens with other States. The difference between a great job and an awful one can be a matter of just a area code.

Well... judging from the responses of various people with and without the required experience on the forum, I'd say the requirement to move to Poland is a huge issue.

I know it would put me off even considering applying for anything. Between potential language barriers and the perceived status of Poland in the West (I don't know about anyone else but my uneducated assumption of Poland is that it's still not far off being a third world country... that may be entirely incorrect but I imagine it's an image shared by many) it means the idea of relocation isn't particularly appealing.

Nothing is ever fully completed here at GOG – and Galaxy will always remain their high-priority work in progress.

Depends on what you understand under "third world country"?

Well I don't mean people are starving in the streets, but my impression (of most of Eastern Europe) is that's still a pretty poor area that hasn't caught up with places like the UK, Ireland, France or Germany in terms of available amenities, jobs, access to cultural events (like concerts etc.).
I'm sure I'm probably entirely wrong, but it doesn't change the fact that is the first impression that comes to mind and the bias that puts me off considering a job in Poland, and I'm sure many other people here feel the same.

My main concern with the new forum is what if they force you to use a gog galaxy profile instead of the current one. Porting the old broken forum completely to new one intact is no simple task, they might follow what steam did , shutdown the old steam powered user forums(SPUF) and forced everyone into using their steam community profile directly.


Did anyone of the 6 members ask if the old forums will be ported as is or its a brand new forum?