First post is updated - thanks to everyone that joined recently! We're on 115 people now full-on boycotting and we're sending a stronger message to GOG with every new person that signs up, that we will not accept the direction the store is going in :-)

It actually depends, if the game was developed first and foremost for Steam and is using some of its APIs, then there is some work to re-implement those features or remove them when releasing to Zoom Platform. And of course they will have to produce multiple builds every time they release a patch. Sure it's doable, but as a dev myself, I can understand why they won't do it if they don't think they will sell enough to cover those costs.

You are right of course, that's why even if I'm not completely boycotting GOG, I will in the coming years prioritize my backlog over new purchases (I'm certainly not participating to their birthday party) and I will only purchase a few selected games to support small studios (especially the French ones).

About this I think the main problems are minimum balance to get the money and reliability of the store.
Most people buy games on steam so the developer know it will get to the minimum balance (100$) to get paid sooner or later, even really small games, on steam and of course know and trust steam.
While if the minimum balance is 250$ like for the humble bundle widget and the game only sell a few copies of the game there it could be years to get the money out of there.
And if a developer don't know zoom how can they trust it that he/she will get paid?
For itch you can get the money directly on your PayPal account or request to be paid later, but if you get the money directly you are responsible to pay VAT for each transaction in multiple countries (not easy at all).
And you also need to upload each time the update to multiple stores.
Not sure how zoom works for this but I can understand why some developers don't want to use small game stores. Not just that, I remember the zoom team here on gog for a game that I don't remember said that that game was not available anymore because the developer wanted to rise the price... I think something like this can scare small indie.

Still I think a developer should at least sell the game in their own website and a itch or a humble bundle widget should be used (itch if payments are handle by them only require a transaction to be 7 days old to be payout and it handle VAT so I think that's a good deal... For more popular games humble bundle widget can be good too, and if you got your games on humble bundle too (but you should be approved for that by humble bundle), not just widget, it should be easier to get paid) + steam.
Gog and Epic are "curated" store (whatever that means) so you don't really know if you can sell the game on gog or epic (while if you pay 100$ you can be sure that your game is on steam).
While zoom and other minor store are a big question mark for most people (and for developers).

There is also the Microsoft store that pay without a minimum balance and with only 25$ one time payments on pc... For developers I think that's a good deal but the store is a pain in the ass even for them for multiple reasons (not just the default drm), for example if your apps don't support windows 10 S (stupid version) you need to say it in the description or, if your app crash for that reason, they will refuse it by default. Windows 10 S is a real pain to support.

Finally there are play store, amazon store and apple store. The play store works like Microsoft store but better (25$ only once and no minimum balance), but you can avoid drm. Amazon app store is free to use but is a pain because your game need to work on fire device. Apple store need 99$ each year and force drm so it's the worst kind. Of course the last 3 are for mobile version of games.

That is absolutely unequivocally NOT the main point of my boycott (or that of many others) and I think it is very confusing to outside readers for you to make a statement like that. There are people like me who believe ANY support of Scheme/Epic Fail etc platforms is harmful to DRM-free gaming as a whole, since those platforms are effectively DRM platforms or at minimum have no regard for advertising DRM-free and user-workarounds seem necessary to avoid using their clients, which I thought could even get your account banned on Scheme (technically, under their rules, but probably unlikely to happen), but I digress. I would be curious to know what you think of the "vegan restaurant" analogy brought up often around here. Essentially for the purpose of this discussion here, someone who cares about DRM-free but then supports Scheme is analogous to a vegan going to a restaurant that serves many dishes including meat. Would you, as the hypothetical vegan, be comfortable in supporting the meat industry by patronizing such a place?

I do get wanting to support developers but honestly from my experience I think caving and using Scheme makes that even harder for those of us who refuse to do so. There is a game which eventually came to GOG that I bought directly from the developer. Sounds easy, right? No. If memory serves, the developer was not initially offering the game for sale anywhere but Scheme (albeit he said it does not require the client constantly phoning home, etc there). Multiple people had to comment on a forum thread (outside of GOG forum) begging him to please consider releasing a non-Scheme DRM-free edition. I believe I had emailed him too. Again off memory, but I believe the developer then said he would do so, but he really prefers people buy on Scheme because it helps his statistics (or something to this effect). I ended up buying a Support the Developer edition from his page at a HIGHER price point than the Scheme version would be, and don't regret it one bit, as the game is great to me! I am just pointing this out for illustrative purposes.

Oh, I have no problem at all with you expressing your views. That's totally fine, of course, and I respect your opinions. I just wanted to clearly explain why I am not willing to add that particular item to the boycott list.

In general, that is true. However, in GOG's specific case, they have literally built their business on the foundation of upholding the ethical principle of DRM-free and based on certain promises to that effect. 'Being a business' does not justify or excuse them reneging on those promises and if they are deciding to suddenly abandon the principles that have formed the bedrock of their business, they can only expect that to result in serious business headwinds.

That's true, but as far as I am aware, Zoom Platform is able to do that work themselves. If they are able to strip DRM and other hardcoded dependencies from 20-year-old games, without source access or developer assistance, why wouldn't they be able to do that for Steam API hooks?

And then, of course, we have to consider that any game that has already been released on GOG has presumably already had those Steam API dependencies removed. Therefore, in those cases, it is absolutely true that all the developer needs to do is throw Zoom the exact same files they gave to GOG, no additional coding required.

It's a chicken-and-egg situation though. If even smaller devs aren't willing to be open-minded and give smaller stores a chance, then that inevitably leads to the situation we have now, where we may as well give Steam the keys to the entire market.

Imo, we should be applying pressure to smaller developers to support smaller stores. If a smaller developer is only going to be interested in Steam, I will not support that closed-minded attitude (regardless of how appealing their game is).

This I definitely agree with. I would very much like to see more devs selling DRM-free versions of their games via their own websites. As an example, I am interested in the game Edge of Eternity, which looks like a really cool recent JRPG. They sell a version on their website, but it seems to be just a Steam key, which is useless to me.

I don't know why should I boycott a store that don't lie about selling some drm games but do sell a lot of drm free games. It doesn't even make sense to me.
I only used gog because they actually said they were 100% drm free so it was easier for me to get drm free games and also contribute to a better gaming world but I don't want to support liars.
I'm not vegan and I cannot understand why a vegan should be upset about other people that want to eat meat or upset about a restaurant that sell other food not just the one that one like. I don't like fish but I don't avoid restaurants that also sell fish I just eat something else. A different thing is if I eat a plate that I think is meat and they say after that it was fish...

Because (imo) a store like Scheme or Epic Fail are perpetuating DRM in gaming. Scheme in particular. I believe someone posted their suggestions to developers that effectively recommend DRM on top of DRM, at least in my reading of the subject. So, even though individual games may be DRM-free, the platform as a whole is what I would call a "DRMed ecosystem" or similar term. These companies will all spin numbers to mean what they want, even if it seems to fly in the face of reality. I don't think buying games that don't require the client on Scheme/Epic Fail will necessarily be taken to mean "users want more DRM-free games and not to use the client". Especially when users have to have a modicum of knowhow on how to get the games to play without the client.


Understood. To me, it's DRM-free or nothing. That has informed my own brand of boycotting (discussed much earlier in this topic) where essentially I am willing to buy from GOG but only if it is what I consider a must-have title; contrast my previous purchasing behavior where I would support various titles thinking it was doing something good for DRM-free gaming (I know I know, what a maroon). In other words, even though they're acting like jerks imo, I am still in theory partially willing to make a purchase but it would really take a lot at this point (Legacy of Kain for example wasn't enough to sway me). However, if you rank store honesty over a store being DRM-free, your stance makes respective sense too.

Have you ever asked a vegan about it? While I suppose, technically, someone could be a vegan for strictly taste preference/allergy/etc type reasons, many vegans take an ethical approach. For example, if a vegan believes killing sentient creatures (animals) for consumption is bad (for the same reasoning it would be bad to do so to "human animals"), they may not wish to support businesses which either in part or in whole rely on the meat industry, the idea being that to support such businesses would essentially be perpetuating what is viewed as an unethical industry.

heey, well. lol.

i got my first mod edit, ever in 10 years of being here.

they just flushed away my VERY mild criticism in the legacy of kain thread.

good going, gog!

edited in later: i'm stupid. there's two legacy of kain threads and i was looking in the wrong one. also. i just woke up, so there's that :P

How can you be sure GOG's promises were made in good faith? All I see is a company that carved out a small, successful niche that had limited growth potential, and has struggled mightily to come to terms with a fanbase that doesn't want change. For me, corporate ethics is an oxymoron, so my expectations are fairly minimal. But honesty, I think, is a very reasonable place to draw a line in the sand: fine GOG, you want to grow, explain what you intend to do and how much time we have before offline installations are phased out. Do the right thing and give us 6 months to get the files we purchased backed up.

With boycotting gog means no gaming really

Except buying directly from devs.

So what is the alternative.

Boycotting gog leaves us with worse alternatives.

No, I cannot stand them XD. Jokes aside I don't impose my view to other people and I think even vegan use supermarket where they also sell meat.
For drm of course I prefer to support store that are standing for drm free, but I also like to go to the "supermarket" and buy drm free games for many reasons :
1. My trusted local store (gog) tried to fraud me selling drm games and I don't like that.
2. There are more available games (many of them just use the steam client or the epic client as a downloader and I don't see a downloader as a bad thing, for that you don't really need any skills and of course there is nothing wrong with using the exe without the client installed, skills are needed for games that actually use the basic drm that can be removed, i don't usually buy those game but if and when I get them for free from humble bundle as extras or free with giveaways I like the idea to be able to remove drm from them too, remove the drm is not against law and I don't think is possible to ban you for that (they cannot know you removed the drm since you will not use the client once you removed the drm so they will not see any modified files, also even if they could see the file they cannot know if it's just a mod)).
3. I don't always use stores. I love be able to buy directly from the source (the developer website). I only use them when there is no other way but the game is still drm free.

In the end the final point is what I actually think about after the whole gog hitman fiasco... If I could buy all games from the developer directly I could support more drm free gaming without supporting the store that can be bad both if it allow drm (for the reason you said) and if it don't allow drm (for case like gog when they fail to keep promise). On the developer website it's like we got a bunch of stores all with a few games and if I boycott a dev I only lose that particular dev games
Stores are not a bad thing on their own but since they got too popular if they try to impose their own rules customers cannot boycott without any damage (like the inability to get games they like). If you need to boycott gog and steam you will only access to a fraction of games

Since there is no more reason to believe in gog, I think the best way to handle the situation is to boycott them and replace them with the best next thing: don't rely on anyone to be good and just buy what I think deserve the money I pay for it. Even if they see my sale in the wrong way I don't care anymore, staying with a dying gog with too many compromise is the same as not support drm free... Supporting a fake drm free and spending more money is not what I want to do.
If there is no way to just support drm free, I'll just buy drm free where drm free is available. If there is no more drm free I'll just remove the drm. If I cannot remove the drm anymore I'll just stop to play new games.

I got curious and I decided to look at my orders history too. At least as far as 2020 - 2021.

According to my orders log, in 2020 I spent $105.68 on Gog. That would probably have been $15-20 more if they hadn't messed up by late november/early december with Devotion and CP2077. Those blunders got me so displeased that I didn't even feel like buying anything from their Winter Sale that came right afterwards.

In 2021 I barely spent $8.28 here, and that's only because they released Tomb Raider and that was a must-have for me (plus almost insignificant stuff at a huge discount). I just don't see that figure changing anytime soon. Quite the contrary; much as I'd like to finally experiment Blood Omen I can live without it. It would take something like a sudden release of GTA or Warcraft 3 (original) to get me to pause my boycott.

Or it would take an apology, actions against DRM (releasing CP2077 "My rewards" for offline users, removal of Hitman GOTY from sale...) and a letter of commitment to DRM-freedom to make me open the wallet again. Of course I don't have illusions of that happening anymore. Management would rather sink Gog than go back to their roots.

Oh well, it's not like I am short for games to play.

That's basically what I was alluding to in my earlier post. GTA 1-IV would be must-haves, Warcraft 3, old Resident Evils, Silent Hills. Of "mostly confirmed" games, I consider Succubus, Agony (assuming it arrives), and Subverse must-haves for me. ALL are conditioned on having to be DRM-free releases of course: none of these CyberHitpunk shenanigans.

As also discussed earlier, I do realize that those of us buying games is not a "full" boycott, obviously. I am coming at it from a practical approach on these must-have games...I feel that if we don't buy a DRM-free offline installer the minute it appears, we run the risk of losing the chance to buy it ever again, at least the way I see how things are going.

In other words, it is more about ensuring a DRM-free version to own, than it is supporting GOG as a company. Along the same lines, I am not some brand loyalist. If GOG wants to become the next Scheme, I am not married to GOG and making sad rationalizations in apologia...I'll just go to Zoom-Platform and hope it can grow.