once you've hit the start a conversation, the chat page has loaded and you've refreshed it, they should be under the list of users on your chat list

This.

Thanks for your help. I ended up opening a Paypal account just for this. It seems it works fine for gifting.

Undue hostility towards GOG, or towards anyone really, is of course always regrettable, but are the fears of DRM really that ridiculous? The bad communication is of course the biggest problem and the heart of the problems with lack of trust towards GOG, but let's remember that not so long ago there was no GOG client, no achievements, no "friending" nonsense, no regional pricing. The GOG many users used to know and trust is no longer. For better or worse being a safe haven for people disgruntled with todays gaming industry is not only no longer GOG's goal, it's exactly what they it's working very hard to distance itself from. Given that major shift in GOG's policy it's really not that irrationall to consider the possibility of some form of DRM eventually being imlpemented. Do I think it's going to happen? No, not really. But I understand why some do, and even though I don't believe it's going to happen I still prefer to keep an eye out for any suspicious developements. Better safe than sorry. There is no harm in sending GOG a message that we're paying attention and won't stand for any DRM, even if it turns out to be a false alarm, as long it's all done in civil fashion.

Should in theory, but this is GOG and it appears my chat is in a vortex

I actually like Galaxy and the possibilities and I trust them not to want to become like Steam with DRM. I think it has a great future and I'm looking forward to use it at some point in the future.

But trust doesn't mean complete and blind trust. It's a slippery slope after all and they are part of the usual business like everyone else.

I trust myself that I will recognize the day when Galaxy will be DRM and that will be the day I'll say goodbye and go away.

What really bugs me now is that many of the features of Galaxy do not work as intended or do not work as smoothly as they could be. I want a working, useful client.

My fear is that they are not enough focused on bringing features to useful, working level (like for example the missing blocking ability, the missing adding friends, the sending of uncompressed files, the potential wiping of the games folder and many other small things).

I acknowledge that they are doing them (slowly) but the communication is not good. The "top men are working on it right now" meme is in a way everything which GOG wants to be but isn't right now.

The client, achievements, and "friending" are all entirely optional, so I don't see why they should be a concern for people who don't like those things. I don't really care for those things myself, but I'm not bothered by any of it because unlike with Steam it's not forced on me. I'm glad that people who like those things can have them.

As for regional pricing, I can understand why some people are still upset about that, but GOG does give customers the difference in store credit if regional pricing causes them to pay more. Purchasing a single game might require more money, but it should even out for anyone who uses GOG regularly. I think it's a good compromise, and one that was unfortunately necessary. With DRM it's hard to prove that being DRM-free increases piracy or loses sales, but if a game's base price has to be lower on GOG for certain countries than it is on Steam, then the developers and publishers are pretty much guaranteed to make less money if they release the game here. As far as I'm concerned, regional pricing was a necessary evil, but I think GOG handled it in the best way possible.

As for the fears of DRM, I do think they're ridiculous primarily because it would be suicide. Even if GOG was an evil company with no morality or principles, from a business perspective it would be absolutely insane to introduce DRM because only selling DRM-free games is the only real advantage GOG has over other distributors. Turning Galaxy into DRM, even just for some games, would ruin everything they've been building up for the past seven years. Developers would no longer have an incentive to release their games without DRM, and the "DRM-free revolution" would end. GOG would basically just be Steam with less games, and at that point I think most of their customers would either switch to Steam or just stop buying games altogether.

RESULT!

Done some testing and stumbled upon a setting here: https://www.gog.com/account/settings/privacy

"Users are / are not able to search for me by email or username" - could well be the cause on its own, or combined with chat set to friends only / nobody

Booooo *hisses*

* A bear pisses

O______o

Did not expect to see that today!

It's not about whether those things are "good" or "bad". All I meant was, that they are indicators of GOG's new, different course, towards a new, different clientele. And that is the point. A lot of what constituted GOGs "identity" at one point has since been abandoned in favor of broadening it's appeal. That is why it may be hard for some to see anything about GOG as set in stone.


Fair enough, but one can easily imagine the same being said of DRM one day.


Which is why I myself do not believe it's going to happen. But then again, just because it seem irrational does not mean it's impossible. I fail to see any benefit from the chat replacing the old PM system, or the changes to My Account, and yet they were implemented anyway. It is sometimes prudent not to rely too much on wisdom and rationality of other people. It's not like no company has ever made a grave mistake.

I think screaming "DRM! Betrayal!" at every turn is silly, but so would be putting absolute, blind trust in GOG.

In the land of the blind, the account holder who does not use the forums, is KING!

FTFY.

For example, a person living in China pays on average 203% more than a person living in Russia (that's more than three times) and doesn't see a single cent back in store credit.

Well, nice to see these fixes/changes, but I'm just going to hang on to my helmet and hazard tape for a while longer though.