While I am a proud refunder of Cyberpunk preorder (shame on me thinking they wouldn't pull some planned microtransaction/online-locked content after GWENT/GWENT was bundled with Thronebreaker), nonetheless I view CDPR and GOG as inextricably linked. I see what you are saying though.

Well, I know you suggested maybe it is coming from "above" that Cyberpunk must retain the Galaxy requirement to access the singleplayer cosmetic content. But, it seems to me there is a third option: fix the "offending" games to work without client or online requirements, as they should have in the first place. Clearly, this would be harder when it comes to third party games but when it's something of their "own" like Cyberpunk I don't see much obvious excuse. I also think in theory there is room for a "1a." option such as "Suspend sale of the games until fixed, then if and only if they are fixed, do they return to the store." I say "in theory" because for some developers they will not be willing to do so and will instead deem GOG more trouble than its worth (some do this already anyway). I think that is where curation could shine in actively seeking out developers/publishers who actually want to be here and are willing to provide complete offline working products.

To answer your seemingly rhetorical question at the end, a large number of games here would tie directly into having content/modes locked behind a Galaxy requirement, if there were such a filter or indication on store pages to display such. This sort of unpleasant conclusion is proof positive imo that Galaxy functions as DRM in such instances.

Right, agreed with all of those improvements, though I think they'd have a marginal effect on boycotting if any at all. I would counter by saying even these sort of small tasks are a use of resources that could maybe go elsewhere. In other words, even if they don't have the full resources to address the DRM/Galaxy problem, I would prefer some small steps be taken in that direction instead of attention diverted to other things that are not making any difference in people spending money here.

My apologies for not responding to this earlier post sooner; the reply system can be kind of wonky.

GOG went completely unhinged. Some time ago I went through a hell to just get my profile picture deleted. The fact that you can't do it yourself for security reasons in instant is ridiculous and problematic and GOG has absolutely no infrastructure for data protection or control about who has access to it on their side (whoever that is). They have absolutely no levels of data gathering and access you would be able to opt-out from or object to except their newsletter (object to these things is your right and there are whole guidelines about how to build your sevices because people have right to object to additional and not needed data gathering - and also it is so they are able to control access, etc...). All their privacy issues - and about gaming completely - are so far gone I was having EDPS on my side to give me some things to study (I know that EU laws are controversial, especially about privacy but having some control is good, I believe.. and this whole issue goes way back beyond 2019 as well.. just now everything went into complete offense regarding privacy violations). Plus, I have many experiences with privacy issues in the gaming even so unbelieavable that literally until today I have gaming accounts I am not able to close because nobody wants to answer to my legal request for data removal or right to be forgotten to stuff I got literally from lawyers (not paid to represent me, otherwise they would care). There is a huge difference between closing of an account or deactivating it which is the only thing that companies sometimes offer to do for yourself and that is on purpose to mistake that so they can keep the data. And even in communication with them, they like to "misinterpret" that, because if something legal would come up "Sorry, ops, mistake.. bad employee...". Still worth practice to do for them overall. Or I was not able to find any contact, at all. Maybe even most of the times. No joke. And I am talking big names like EA, etc... So serious issues I don't use phone, social media or gaming online anymore at all.. for many years. When finally employee started to answer to me about the picture here (but was not able to answer any basic privacy questions) she sent me some jaggy handmade picture to replace it myself. I told her I want to remove it. So after I got message about how she changed it herself. Right after I was going to log in and my 2-step verification code was 0000. Backend is obviously a lie and they have ways to bypass those things and have so messed up infastructure here, they are probably directly logging into your account because GOG has absolutely randomly built services with random employees with random access. Any questions and sceenshots of it were dodged. I have screenshots of everything. You have to today, it's sad. I refuse to believe being that "lucky" in such a specific time. That is like winning in a double lottery. Still my picture didn't dissapear from embedded answers in forum when I tried to point it out once here.

Recently they gave away SteamWorld Dig 2 for free. I made my first review because (despite of the game being boring as hell) there is some company cashing money on it (and not a little for what it is), while the whole series is funded by EU goverment = us taxpayers. So we payed it (yes, EU is funding millions into games, especially those with political issues and aimed on kids if possible and those companies keeps all profit - guess like with "what else" now). Some company is cashing on it and GOG is using that for advertising purposes (value) while they are trying to look good as giving that away for free and all it exists because there is a propaganda in it like "vaccination molotov - never stop vaccinating" and transhumanism theme (and don't get me started about what I found out about the studio and it's political employees). When I just pointed that out (without taking any stance) - as it is very hard not to, because you are vaccinated as a robot and it even doesn't make sense in the game - my review was silently removed because I guess "someone" requested it, because it was around the time people were looking at the site. Plus, I am very sure there is some "bot" thing going on around downvotes before that happens, only downvotes came in chunks. Interesting that positive-spam reviews, meme reviews, randomly-pressed-keyboard but positive reviews and reviews from developers itself are absolutely fine here (yes, developers and co-workers do make reviews here like I saw with MDK, etc). So.. I am since trying to get an answer why they deleted it and I got no answer and realized that now is Zendesk involved when I got auto-reply about my ticket. Zendesk is a scam (firewall) company protecting often companies with chinese or "globalists" or progressive (read: agressive) related interests. If I would be about to join GOG now and knew it has Zendesk I would never join these days just because of that. The most funny is there was full size full fletched profile picture of me attached in the e-mail, the one I was literally talking with lawyers about to get removed way before. I am not aware of them being even with GOG back then when I asked for removal of the pic. GOG is refusing to answer until today about these things and I warned them I will go social if they will continue. So, I was about making a post yesterday and I am blocked from making any new topics - it doesn't work - despite me not being active on social forums and they didn't reply to me once since but blocked me from posting after I contacted them (excuses about being overwhelmed? - they obviously are aware of me). I made once post about these privacy issues. (Btw, I never asked for a single refund I am not even talking with support about everything - and here are games that are literally missing files to work) I was sharing experiences about these things to warn people also about how Zendesk, design of sites (Or Couldfare) works and I was for example going to post about my experiences with Zendesk in general refusing to answer to even legal letters or to give me contact for legal department and blocking people from posting on forum warnings about things like, for example - on Nintendo Switch in Waframe people are automatically broacasting their voice just because they plug in headphones with built in microphone (almost all headphones today). When I tried to contact Warframe-Zendesk-Nintendo they never answered but they blocked me if I reached people about it to warn them on their forums. I heard people doing sex stuff while I in the same time heard kids talking to themselves in a team, because people didn't know it automatically broadcasts them. People eating in it all the time. It puzzled me for weeks because I was thinking people grew so ignornant to not care. No indications. No control. I heard family talks daily from the living room. Trust me, if parents would know this, they wouldn't be happy and this was something that supposted be in the news back then. Things like this are erased from the internet and that was one example and often companies like this use Zendesk. Then I realized that the company (Warframe) was bought by Tencent=China and the whole tone of the game changed to aim on kids. China is targering kids, because that is the generation that matters. Yesterday I pointed out here on GOG forum under some another porn game release title news thread that they are refusing to anwer to me and give me contacts for their legal department for months and how their advertising about stellar support is literally illegal false advertising. It got removed.
People think there are no problems on a scale there are because (especially) people pointing out privacy issues and hard-legal issues after being ignored are completely blocked from everywhere to post these things generally for many, many years (there are whole systems) and these people like me don't use social media, duh... Contracts are just for you to follow. Same as the law. People in EU don't even know they have rights to opt out from some stuff and they are stated in the contracts itself but in the moment you stop to consume and ask for your rights they made you to sign themselves, the company burries you because they are not going to lower their squeezed out and maximized profit to actually care about anything and to create systems that are their legal obligation to pay for. That is just a comedy. And the saddest part is there are people defending it about how hard is to have a company and how things cost money. Yes, they do and yes, companies should pay for stuff too. We are not here for them to make profit they don't have to pay for. Same as if company is overwhelmed with replying, they should hire more people, not to make excuses about it. I am literally waiting for a disc big enough to backup my games and to leave this place. It's just sad because gaming was my whole life passion but sometimes people have to realize that things died and went to hell... like movies a long time ago. GOG was just my last place to play games, except open-source. Talk to me about privilige. It's a lawyer. That is all.

Except you aren't boycotting as you are buying games from GoG, just like Time4Tea, HappyPunkPotato, and many others. So, get off your "high horse" as you've proven you have no conviction.
"Many" is arbitrary and completely vague. It's all or nothing with boycotting someone.

I'm not exactly who you're directing that question to because I'm not still buying games but between Dec 2019 and Dec 2020 I spent over £200 on GOG. From Dec 2020 until now I've spent less than £10. Presumably GOG can tell how much people have spent. How would they know you're not buying anything? I actually wonder if making a purchase might have been a good idea anyway, to remind GOG that I am still a potential customer and not someone they have lost for good.

i would like to suggest the following reason for a boycott regarding old titles on gog. and please keep in mind, that english is not my native tongue.

since it was founded, an implicit feature of gog has been ensuring that old games can be played on current hard- and software before release and also the maintance of already released old titles. in addition to drm-free, uncensored, complete (with regard to expansions, dlcs, etc.) old games as well as small prices 6 or 10 bucks. so download and install an offline installer. it should work out of the box with no extra work for the customer.

i assume gog tried to make sure of this at least till 2010. after that, it increasingly degraded to a do it yourself solution. gog seems to have almost stopped using the money earned through old titles for ensuring that old games work out of the box and instead wastes it on galaxy and other nonsense.

that's the main reason why i haven't spend money here since mid 2016, aside from leftover store credit and leftover value on a paysafecard. for me that reason is even more important than drm free. gog should keep the previously published old games playable out of the box and ensure out of the box playability before the release of further old titles.

from my perspective this is an additional top level theme for a boycott.

I agree with you. However, I would also say this could perhaps be included into the top level theme of increasing DRM. Namely, Galaxy as it has been currently implemented. For example, it is my understanding that games which previously worked on Windows XP had their compatibility broken by Galaxy files on the newer updated versions (I assume from .dlls?). In other words, whereas the "old format" installer would have apparently worked, the new format installers with the parenthesized numbers would not work. That said, since all we have for new games now is installers with Galaxy dependencies incorporated into them (even the offline installers, to be clear about this point), it is hard to tell if new games would otherwise have worked in, say, Windows XP, or not.

Also I am sure you will get some pushback about how GOG doesn't promise to support old operating systems, their job is (supposedly) to make sure games work on new operating systems but that's it, etc. Personally, I don't see why an old "legacy" version couldn't be included with the extras of the offline installers.

That post was composed by a text generator. Thought you should know. ;p

it is a nice feature to have installers available which would work on old hard- and software. but as far as i get it, gog was more about old games working on current hard- and software. although its hard to draw a line between old, current and new. regarding galaxy, i changed my opinion pretty quick as the whole galaxy thing started. at first i was neutral to the idea of gog client, but then and still i'm seeing that waste of money as big pain in the b#tt. galaxy dll's breaking support for xp is just one more reason to add to the big pile of 'why galaxy sucks'

Holy shit. That's like the most coherent thought I've seen you translate to page, and it wasn't just "GOG sucks, you shouldn't buy here!" Awesome to know you can have a nuanced view of things. I want to talk to this apehater more often.

And I generally agree with you. I like Galaxy to an extent, but Playnite, Launchbox and Lutris (for the Linux folk) do virtually the same thing only better, and they don't break compatibility with old OSes for people who choose to use them. The only thing Galaxy does that those apps don't is allow for Achievements and time tracking, though playnite has time tracking in it if you start the game from it as a launcher. Ultimately, I wish they'd just leave all the Galaxy crap completely out of the offline installers. If I want to run Galaxy, I can figure out how to run it and install from there.

lol seriously.

Also.. I would like to add something for people that don't know.
I already mentioned how many games are funded by EU. Sometimes whole studios and games from the scratch (in a way), yet they generate "private" profit. Cyberpunk, CD Project Red and the whole company complex (I can't even follow the legal gymnastics of companies about how they separate or merge to get fundings and to evade taxes) is funded by the EU. You can look it up on the internet and their own sites as well (those that are not meant to be in the face). Specific example - development of the whole city (cities) in the game was funded by the government as multiplayer technology, cinematic feel (whatever that is), animations, etc... There are whole pages of what was funded regarding just this game and just CD Project Red. How that is legal.. I don't understand... Basically.. YOU paid the whole game (if you are from the EU) to be at first place.
Most people don't even know that and that is why it is happening. Otherwise this would be a hot topic because I don't believe people would be happy knowing they are paying development of things they are paying for (there is much more regarding that).
Funny, considering that CD Project Red, GOG whatever they identify as of now.. are "the most valuable company" in the EU. They should be the one funding others if something, not the other way around.
Interesting is that the government is paying and funding games with really specific futuristic propagandas (and political views). And reviews of those games are controlled very strictly and negative reviews are just dissapearing almost real-time. Hardly a coincidence. Go figure.

You know, I thought about that one again and you're right. If they can't convince their sister how DRMed content on a DRM-free store is slightly suboptimal, that's a problem in itself.

This sounds sexy. Shouldn't that be the case already?

It's all good. The topic's rather complex.

Also: PM sent.

I suppose this is basically reiterating what you said in a sense, but I imagine it's their sister's shareholders who have to be convinced, assuming they'd be the ones more eager to push online/microtransactions/etc into the future. Who knows though, it could be CDPR too. I have said several times how I don't want to fund what I see as their immature dream of becoming a Rockstar.

It depends which users you ask :)

I do see arguments for wanting the maximum amount of games possible here, i.e. ease off curation more, or entirely.

That said, I personally think it's best at this point to have a smaller number of games whose devs/pubs truly want to put in the work to be here and who won't cause problems. Essentially, ones that will play nice and not try to sneak in DRM or DRMlike schemes, also ones that will stick around instead of just releasing their game never to support it or be seen again (note: this latter part could be tricky to analyze and judge when it comes to bringing in new devs/pubs, so GOG might go through some growing pains if actively pursuing that goal). As a contrasting example, something like the Hitman Online DRMed release seems more trouble than its worth given all the controversy, users upset, users boycotting, users refunding, eventual removal, etc. GOG should try to avoid unnecessary fussiness imo.
Are you sure? I'm not sure I follow. I can't find it but btw despite our disagreement on language in here, I did like a recent comment of yours in another thread...not going to elaborate further since I don't want to get accused of being political. But just to kind of extend an olive branch, as it were.

Ramor_'s post. It's not a random text generator, but some kind of "smart" text generator, or a post-bot. Post-bots can be hilarious if they're programmed right.

I'm not into grudges, rj. Last thing I'll say is this: if this is a "limited" boycott, that should be in the title. This thread is way too long to expect newcomers to read it in it's entirety.

Peace.