[Part 3/3, split up because it was too long for one post, but there was no error message about length.]
[This is only posted in one thread: this seemed the most relevant one.]

But GOG hasn’t changed. So far, anyway. The disingenuousness, the withholding of pertinent information, the ignoring of their customers (against their own stated policy), the resort to threats and blocks rather than answering: it keeps doubling down on the lowest common denominator of corporate behaviour. I am so sad to see this happen to a company I respected. I’m sure there are many within GOG who feel the same way, but can’t do anything about it because the decisions are made above them, and they have strict orders on what to do. I’ve worked for companies that exert that level of control and threat over employees livelihoods (often the same ones that then favour Non-disclosure Agreements to silence people even after they have left the company, to keep the truth hidden).

Even though I’d bought games in the past on GOG and not liked them, or they hadn’t worked, I had never refunded anything. After this Devotion situation occurred and GOG just ignored requests for the truth, I did refund my last order for a number of games. Then sales came up, when I always bought more than I needed: I didn’t buy anything. It’s been three months now, and not only have I not bought anything on GOG when I would have spent a significant amount of money in the past, but I deleted my wishlist and stopped going to the site, stopped visiting the forums daily, stopped following them on social media (well, them blocking me also added to that). I’ve stopped promoting them and their games. In fact, in conversations about games, this is the topic that keeps coming up. Does one person have much effect? Well, it might be possible to calculate that maybe so far they’d have made £100+ from me in the last few months, and people I introduced to GOG might have doubled or tripled that. Over a couple of years that could well be an impact of a few thousand pounds, just from one super fan. I know I am not the only one disillusioned by this. Obviously GOG decided a few thousand from a few hundred customers isn’t enough to compare to access to the Chinese market, and they may well be right (though it is daft to think it has NO impact – over a decade, where people discourage friends from buying games there, rather than encouraging, the figures may be higher. Who knows.). They also decided that the effects of treating customers like this, and the way it affects their reputation, are outweighed by potential increased profit. Again, they may be right, though in business there is an increased focus on the importance of reputation, super-loyal customers, your perceived honesty and so on. Those can have unmeasurable but real effects over time. Only time will tell. I think the saddest thins for me is that it probably was some financial weighing up made by senior staff: the point being, they were weighing up profit, and not applying much importance to non-financial considerations like reputation, ethics, fairness, customer opinion. All the things companies like to say are important to them can be thrown under the bus immediately when they see a chance at making more profit for the execs and shareholders. That reveals what a thin veneer the ethics often are over the core business, and how successfully people are manipulated into believing in the ethics.

Again, I’m sure there are good staff at GOG, who believe in the original mission. I’m sure many are frustrated. Many will be sick of this topic, and also hate the silence enforced on them. Hey have bills to pay and can’t risk their jobs. So the senior staff get their way. They decide it’s time to get rid of their long-term supporters, because maybe there is more profit nowadays in adapting to be more like Steam. After all, if they stick to some principle like DRM-free, they reduce the number of games they can sell; and, since they get a cut of each game sold, they are choosing lower profit and ethics over increased profit. With the decision about Devotion, it’s fairly clear, reading between the lines, that they decided to actually go for the option that makes more money, and to sideline honesty or customer-focus. Maybe it’s an experiment, to see how it goes, before making more radical changes that could boost profit even further. They know that if they are going to change so much, they’ll lose the “old guard” anyway, the ones with them from the start, the ones evangelical about DRM and ethics and customer-focus. So maybe it’s not a loss to them after all, just part of an inevitable emulation of the big game companies that make huge profits without worrying about ethics. So what if games on Steam require multiple accounts and forms of DRM and big publishers put in huge prices and push DLC and loot boxes … as long as they make increased profits, that’s the thing.

I return to my point earlier: every person and company is presented with a choice. On the one hand is sticking to your principles, behaving ethically, being honest, but accepting that you will make less profit or have fewer material gains. Or you can go the opposite route. As a person who has always favoured ethics over my own convenience, preference or income (e.g. choosing librarian/educator over advertising unethical products; never owning a car and not flying; choosing not to have children; avoiding games I would have otherwise enjoyed because I won’t support DRM; adopting a vegan lifestyle favouring local and seasonal produce; shopping in small independent stores rather than supermarkets, to name a few) it is second nature to me to make my primary effort that of living by my beliefs, and telling the truth, and keeping my promises. I try to surround myself with similar people. In this case my disappointment is because I made a mistake in one of my choices.

I apologise that this is a long post and rambles on a bit. I feel like there is a lot I wanted to get off my chest. Maybe it’s not even all bad. Since this occurred I’ve started buying games on Itch, and enjoyed many that aren’t available elsewhere. I’ve also been spending a LOT less money on games. That’s been a bit weird for me, as someone who started playing games in the 1980s on my Atari 2600, moving on to a C64, then Amigas, then PC, but who has never stopped playing games. They’ve always been my main hobby, sometimes to the point of obsession - https://www.karldrinkwater.uk/2014/11/the-doom-wars.html and https://www.karldrinkwater.uk/2016/04/the-hexen-wars.html are just the tip of the iceberg. I spent years playing Dungeon Master and Blood Money and Hired Guns almost exclusively back in my Amiga days. Before that I was obsessed with Ghosts N Goblins, Antiriad, Skool Daze and Alleykat on my C64. I’ve only just finished a 12 month campaign of the massive UFO mod, X-Pirates, and started another co-op playthrough of all the HoMM3 missions with my nephew. But I don’t need to keep pumping money into GOG. Maybe they did me a favour by alienating me, and making me question where I spent some of my leisure money. I suppose it is like splitting up with someone, it can be a shock at first, but sometimes you realise maybe it’s for the best.

[PS Apologies for any typos, this has been one long brain splurge.]