Only if they're convinced that they are being adversely impacted by this "boycott".

That was exactly my point with that phrasing, yes. But if it stands between assuming they won't be and taking into account the possibility they might be, the latter is clearly the better option.

Given that GOG seems to be incapable of learning from it's mistakes, it might be worth considering whether it's capable of changing how it does business.

That said, I think it's also worth thinking about how the boycott could be improved in terms of gaining enough support that GOG has to acknowledge it.

"I'm never buying a game from GOG again! Let's boycott GOG!"

Yah, let's just destroy the gaming platform that we've painstakingly helped to build over the last 14 years and and burn it to the ground for no logical reason whatsoever. What a brilliant idea!

In all seriousness, I'm sick and tired of seeing these dumbass posts on GOG's forums. I'm sure we'd all love to live in a world where we only support businesses who make the most perfect decisions, but that's never going to happen. Why the hell would you actively work to destroy the only business that began with the sole purpose of providing gamers with a platform that cherishes classic games and provides their customers with a DRM-Free gaming service? Let's face it, GOG could have taken the easy way out and started offering DRM-filled games a long time ago, but they chose to take the harder path. Despite struggling to maintain profits year after year they still remain faithful to their customers, and are still one of the only DRM-Free gaming websites on the market. I realize that GOG has suffered from making poor decisions in the past, but try to keep in mind that GOG doesn't owe you a damn thing. They could just as easily switch to a service that's riddled with DRM and I'm almost positive that it would bring them more profits than what they're bringing in now. Do you not realize how many games GOG has to turn away, simply due to the fact that they contain DRM? You can make all the excuses you want, but I really don't think you realize how hard it is for GOG to continue the fight for DRM-Free gaming when they have so many obstacles to overcome ... even obstacles from their so called "supporters".

That being said, I do agree that GOG needs to be held accountable to their mission statement, but we also need to check our own motives and try to remember that no company is perfect. Sometimes we need to cut people a little slack, it's that simple. Boycotting GOG is going to do NOTHING to fix the problems that GOG are facing ... as a matter of fact they will only make the problem worse! I really don't see why anyone in their right mind would think that boycotting a platform like GOG is going to do anything but harm to the very platform that's trying to make a positive change in the gaming community.

As the old saying goes ... you're cutting off your nose to spite your face.

Why not try a different method? Why don't we all throw a little encouragement GOG's way? Send them an email telling them how much you appreciate their work, and offer a few constructive points that you think might help them to become more successful. If you want GOG to succeed, then why wouldn't you want to encourage them, rather than tearing them down? After all, the company's made up of people just like you or me, so let's try to give them the respect that they deserve.

Then you really should stop reading your posts! If you had taken a second to read any of the posts, which detail in great depth the hundreds of issues that have been posted, system breaking issues such as changelogs, broken updates, missing parity, drm/online gated content/microtransactions etc. all have which have had wishlist entries, countless posts, tickets raised etc. and none - not a single one - has been even acknowledged in years. And your answer to this is to throw a little encouragement at GOG and keep sending them money? Yeah, good message, keep ignoring everything and we will still pay you.
No one wants gog to fail or close, simply to start putting resources where they are needed and fix things. It’s gone on long enough and they have had more than enough time to do even the slightest little thing towards any of the issues, and yet nothing, it just gets worse year on year.

Or maybe people have higher priority on "game" part of the purchase than the "DRM-free" part.

If I have an option to buy it on GOG or Steam, I prefer GOG. But I am not going to start buying smut games just because they are DRM-free in the hopes so that GOG keeps running and I could download my good games.

If you see a service is going down the drains, it would be irresponsible for you to put more money in it.
I have gone thru several services shutting down and it is really a problematic experience to download all the data and keep track of the backups yourself. Not to mention that you will no longer receive updates to the games you bought.

Hrmm what happens to 2023 do we make a new forum again :P

I was going to make a comment that the discussion about sexual content was off-topic for the thread, but then realized that a discussion about censorship is actually quite relevant, given the Devotion issue. However, I feel like preventing adult content from getting into the hands of children is quite a different case to political or artistic censorship.

I mean, adult content is called 'adult' for a reason - because it is not suitable for children. I am a parent myself and to me it seems perfectly normal and reasonable to want to prevent children from coming into contact with sexual content. For example, Nickelodeon doesn't show porn because it is specifically aimed at children. That isn't censorship. That is them making a decision about who their target audience is and being responsible.

So, my take on this whole 'porn game'/sexual thing for GOG is that really its a decision that GOG needs to make about what their target audience is. I have no problem with seeing adult games on the front page, if GOG is aiming to be an 'adult' games store. But then, they are going to be flagged as an adult store, by parents and by agencies that compile child browsing filters. If they want to be seen as more 'family-friendly' and target children, then they would have to either not host the adult games, or do a very good job of hiding them away and/or putting in place strong age restrictions so that kids can't access that stuff.

Again, it's really a choice for GOG to make - there's no right or wrong answer there. But, they cant really have it both ways - either they are aiming to be family-friendly or they are aiming to be adult.

As has been said numerous times during the course of this thread: the purpose of this boycott is not to cause GOG to fail. We (at least most of us) are boycotting because we care about the site and want to push for positive change and for GOG to stay true to their ethical principles. The only way we can do that is through their income statement, because that is the only thing they are going to listen to (apart from their shareholders).

No, they are not the only one. It's just that ... perhaps you're not looking?

Something you might not know.
Maybe because you are looking at it from a very US centric perspective.

Violent content, let it be movies or games, are seen as an adult thing in germany.
While hard core pornography is nothing for children, softer things are often considered for 16 years old here.
For example Game of Thrones is FSK ("voluntary" self control of the tv and movie industry - if they wouldn't do it voluntary and acceptable to the government somebody else would do it...) is 16.
Not so much because of the many naked tits you see or the sex, but more because of all the violence, including sexual violence.

And we got a similar thing to the FSK for games, called USK.
There are several USK steps, including 16 and 18 and not labled (18+ with more restrictions).
We got so many 18+ games on GoG...
We gernans see "adult" content on GoG for many years now.

So, arguing with "I fear my children might see adult content here and I don't want it" feels hypocritical for most ears from europe (and even more german ones), because we got a lot of adult content here before...
While we even had games with sexual content for a long time here. Larry and Biing want to greet you.

The only difference is, it was blood, violence and gore most of the time.

Please enlighten me, where is the difference? Because I don't see it.
Is a Wolfenstrein, that is about shooting Nazi heads into pieces better suited for the front page than some hentai game that does not even take itself serious?
Is Shadow Warrior, where you cut demons into pieces, better suited?

For real?

Btw, I would love GoG bringing up some verification system, because for now some games are blocked in germany vor different reasons.

GoG was always a storefront for adult old timers...

Oh no, I totally agree that some violent content (particularly if it is extreme or very explicit) should be flagged as 'adult' and not suitable for children. I have a 6 year old kid and I totally understand that. I focused on sexual content in my previous post, because that seems to be what most of the recent debate on the forum here has been focused on. I don't see why I am being hypocritical - I am not trying to say that violence is ok for kids, but sex is not.

Again, the gist of my post was to say that there is no 'right' or 'wrong' path for GOG to take on the matter. Simply a choice for them to make, as to who their target audience is. And, as you pointed out, they have the added complication of having to cater for different countries and cultures, which might have different ideas of what constitutes 'adult content'. So, if they want to be seen as a 'family-friendly' global store, they would have to either go with the lowest common denominator, or implement different age restriction schemes for different countries.

I don't understand where the idea of GoG wanting to be a family friendly storefront comes from.
From my perspective GoG was always a storefront for adult old timers, that has opend up for other groups.

None of the big storefronts is a "family friendly" storefront.
I would even say most storefronts are nothing for children and that you even have to be careful what your teens do and see there...
There might be stores aimed for younger audience. Maybe this robolox thing, maybe the Nintendo digital storefront.

GoG always aimed for adults.
They always sold adult games.
They don't got any kind of "protection" system (beside reporting) for the strange PN-Chat system and for sure no automatic systems for those things (there is a german chat plattform with rooms for children with strickt automated censoring bots).
Or any other system for protecting young people on here.
And they don't hide stuff based on your age you can make up anyway.

Btw, GoG is a european storefront. So it is most likely they would follow european points of view.
Just saying...


Btw, it was just because you just went for the "sexual" content, we already got on here and called only that the adult content.
For me this is a very US-specific thing to be fair.

I am not saying GOG is or necessarily should be a 'family-friendly' storefront. I simply said they need to make a choice about what they want to be and what their target audience is.

If they intend to be an adult-oriented store, that's fine. But then, they are going to get flagged as such.

I don't entirely agree with this. Steam has pages that ask for the user's birth date, before they can be accessed, so there is clearly some effort being made to restrict more mature content by age. GOG also has its green button, which they recently introduced. I don't think either is a particularly effective form of 'age filter', but they do at least signify a desire to somewhat restrict more mature content, which implies they are trying to also target the younger audience.

Such people may be part of the boycott but they are certainly not helping me and those who care about DRM-free at all. In fact I would say they make it even more difficult for us. The position of "wellll...I really don't like that it's DRMed, but, what the hell, I really want the game and will buy it anyway!" does not need any more assistance, direct or indirect. It has been the default since Valve's Scheme client ruined the PC gaming market forever, and, tbh, even prior to Scheme in some cases. A hardline stance of "DRM-free or nothing" is what needs additional support, now more than ever.

I'm with you there mate. Like you, I didn't completely zeroed my purchases on Gog but the amount I spent here ever since they hit a point where my displeasure hit a turning point (with the release of DRM'd CP2077 and the unrelease of Devotion) was just an insignificant fraction of what they would have gained from me if they hadn't made poor decisions.

As expressed by another post I made in late september, in 2021 I spent 7.83% of what I spent in 2020. Bearing in mind even this 2020 figure isn't complete because their mess-ups made me not buy anything in the last two months of the year and I would have easily spent $15 or $20 more otherwise in the winter sale.

I'm fairly certain that Gog's finances don't stop being in a troubling state because of a very small amount I decided to give them to indulge in my favorite hobby. If we boycotters were to do it en masse with a substantially high % of our projected expenses, sure. But that's very far from what is happening here.

So, in essence I'm saying I disagree with the ridiculous and useless nitpicking by Amok and others regarding whether the "dictionary definition of 'boycott' " is being met. What really matters is whether the boycott is having the desired effect, not whether spending 1 cent or 1 dollar is enough to strip you from the "right" of calling the protest a boycott. The fact that they recently talked about "going back to our roots" or something like that is an indication it is working,so let's continue until we see positive action in that direction.

i boycott steam instead :D
...since begining of it

is that all right too? :D