Sadly I expected this f**ked up reply in style of "murder victims don't care".

In games, I never killed unless in self defense. Are rapes done in self defense as well?

I think in terms of impact you have the assessment somewhat backwards. You are framing it from a positive-worded standpoint in which it implies GOG is, relatively speaking, happy, that people are spending 10% of what they used to since it is "better" than now spending 0%. I don't think they should be happy, though; I think they should view all reduction in spending as different degrees of "bad" and likely "necessitating changes made." Leaving aside the issue of a former-big spender causing more impact by a reduction greater than zero compared to a modest spender now spending zero, I would reframe your statement from what I think should be GOG's perspective: "0% of previous activity is worse than 10%, but both are bad and a serious issue if people are doing this."

Thank you for engaging with this point. With all due respect, I think there are too many variables which, to me, counteract what you are saying.

For one thing, there should be a fair amount of data at this point of the "new user crowd." GOG should be able to see how many people came here and bought Cyberpunk (or Witcher) and nothing else. For such people, it does not inspire confidence they are going to buy a bunch of games here. Along similar lines, I can only assume the reason what I lovingly term the "GOG Disconnect" program stopped was because the users there were only collecting the freebies associated with their Scheme games, and not caring to spend actual money here at GOG.

Anecdotally speaking, I don't see "new user crowd" talking about buying massive libraries here (they probably already have massive libraries on the other, DRM client-based, stores) or buying extra copies to put on giveaway. I personally frown on "calling out" individual users but I will say it is evident there are several "whales" from the old style users whereas I don't think there is even one example of a person who buys the DRMed Epic Games through Galaxy but is also a whale buying hundreds/thousands of actual DRM-free games here on the store.

As for old users having all the games they want, presumably, GOG continues to release games. So, there could still be new releases that a user who thought they owned everything they wanted, would be willing to buy. I believe this point will even be amplified if GOG continues to release more classic type old games, which was part of their forum thread recently. All in addition to your example of people who participate in gifting.

As an aside, my style of boycotting is drastically reduced spending from the past, but I will buy what I consider must-haves. These are based on personal preference and honestly pretty rare (I have passed up numerous games which in the past I would've bought without hesitation). I'd like to note too it is somewhat of a practical consideration with my approach as I have no faith GOG will actually have the offline installers in the future due to all the Galaxy pushing, so to me it is either buy them now or maybe never be able to buy them. Thanks, catering to new user crowd.

Oh...and how are old style users more of a strain on downloading?? When the new users are on Galaxy and getting updates all the time. This seems disingenuous. Though I assume the idea is the old style users have big libraries; I don't think it is accurate to assume they download all the updates. Some of us are afraid to download updated versions when there have been previous games inadvertently adding Galaxy requirements in (For the King) or introducing unwanted gameplay changes.

How about we let them - if they even exist - tell us for themselves, and then analyze how serious we think their responses are?

Even if granting that some or even all boycotters are inconsistent, that wouldn't change GOG's level of inconsistency. It would just mean we're both inconsistent. "The inconsistent boycotters are spending less money on the inconsistent store." Therefore it would be incumbent on the store to fix this situation if they want previous levels of spending, or, as perhaps you allude, to find a new audience to make up the difference caused by the reduced spending. Unless the argument is that the inconsistent boycotters will never resume spending even if GOG were to make changes to try and get them back.

When there is a choice of another DRM-free store selling the game, then I encourage people to get it there. Keyword being a DRM-free store, such as for example Zoom-Platform, not Scheme or Epic Fail, even if it could be played without the launcher there. As for waiting on a sale, I'm not sure there is a clear-cut easy answer for that, as one may want to support the dev or want the initial offline installer (since offline installer users who don't use Galaxy are apparently forbidden to get old versions of installers, buying a game from the outset is the only way to buy the "1.0" version which sometimes ends up being the best/purest/personally desired version), among other reasons.

Assorted other points you made I was going to address but in thinking about it I believe we will just have to agree to disagree. Thanks for great detailed points.

(underlining mine)

The "picket line" would work even better if it were "front and center"(i.e. on other sites like social media and etc) and not hidden away in "free speech zones"(on gog forums in one thread).......as that's likely a good part of why the hitman goty issue had such a better outcome than the Devotion issue.

=-=-=-=-=

note: Time4tea isn't the leader.....he's the thread OP(the person organizing the lists and etc)

That said, (as I said above to illiousinthal) I don't think the biggest problem is commitment levels of various participants, but visibility. Simply put, this thread is (imo) likely too "out of the way" and "hidden" to affect much. Still, it has other benefits no matter how much it accomplishes(for starters, it allows those of us who feel similarly about various declining aspects of GOG to come together and talk about such topics).

=-=-=-=-=

100% this

That's it.

Gog has decided to censor negative reviews for Lust from beyond, those complaining about censorship.

Ironic.

If this isn't solved and the reviews restored, I won't buy anything from them, and as with the Hitman crisis, I've asked a refund for all the product I bought the last 30 days.

Vechernyaya: Yes, it's normal for GOG to remove negative reviews. I think that in my case they didn't expect that I am making screenshots of absolutely everything, because I know the drill of gaming/social/any platforms. That is why I left all platforms ages ago. But.. if I engage, I do screenshots of my own stuff because they tend to silently disappear if they are in any way critical (or critical to some side that is usually friendly with the "staff" of the platform - if your post is not breaking any guidelines but "they" don't like it, be sure that some offended "user/s" will pop-up).

Moderators also do the same with posts (or edits of them). In my case moderator tried to spin my post and went silent after I pointed out it's a lie and I have a screenshot of the original post and he is not censoring me since because he knows I am having screenshots and he can't lie with me and shut me down on bases that he won't argue about something we can't see anymore and he has the right to do so in this case when there is no proof anymore. Of course, nobody cares it happened. Also that edit was all totally messed up case where it was not so much of an edit but more of collusion with well known pro-GOG troller (trolling and waging a flame war on all forum following users and throwing literal spam here but being protected by moderators) to state an opinion - 3 days after I made the post. Still waiting for an answer from support about that, but to "talk" with support is an issue of months and they told me they have to consult stuff with a lawyer and that adds more time to it :D. Anyway, this was pure misuse of his power as moderator.

Most people just won't notice, because they won't tell you and it just disappears (at least as far as reviews go) and people mostly don't control what they did "yesterday". And even if, they count on you to not have anything to back up your claim that it didn't break any guidelines. It's commonly used practice over the internet. Nothing new, tho...
I am more surprised with people still being fine with this being normal across platforms since I remember.

Regarding the review - to protect their actions they said that they can't review the decision, because of "technical limitations" they don't keep copy of it even for short time (not sure how that goes with the law - like anti-terrorism laws and such). I am still waiting for an answer from support about who is doing that (moderators/staff) and if somebody controls that and if it's done by moderators, how they can control them for bias/misuse if they don't know what they do. And I sent them screenshot of my review after they told me they don't have it but I definitely must have broken the guidelines (very subjective ones, btw). In my case it's regarding EU funded game (GOG/CDPR is EU funded too) that was here as promotion in "giveaway". I just pointed out in the review that the game has political propaganda in it - which is regarding the game. I also talked about the game a bit, even that itself would justify 1* in my case.

When they made the post about getting in touch with people again, I publicly told them that they don't delete nonsense positive reviews, meme positive reviews and positive reviews of developers itself (like 'MDK' has) - that these are getting promoted by them instead. So their claim about "merits" and the fact that they are not deleting reviews just for being negative is false. They didn't engage in that topic since.

Obviously, reviews like "gooooooooooooooooddddd..." (made-up but very close example) with 5* are better. Or those with checkboxes that became sort of a "meme". Or you know.. whatever but with 5*.
The game they deleted review from has almost no negative reviews. Plus it's very basic (well, indie like) while pricey which makes it weirder. No 1*, one sort-of-positive 2*. Whole series is funded by EU (and try to look up some picture of the developer team :D) with "vaccination molotov" upgrades in it and other propaganda. That itself wouldn't be an issue but the whole case is. It's protected and other opinions are silently removed. In any way, reviews are subjective opinions, they shouldn't be removing that for any reason (unless breaking the law).

GOG/CDPR recieved millions in funding from EU too, so I personally see they have a reason for doing that. They wouldn't get funded again, if they would allow people turning against funded products.
Things without positive outcome for government do not tend to be funded twice. (my own opinion)
Also, of course, they protect companies they do business with. Not actual buyers. They obviously have a reason to delete negative reviews to get more business. High rating swings people to buy a product.

People must focus on practical behaviour of companies. They can write whatever they want anywhere, but there is so much of practices that is worth of doing even if they get busted once in a while. I am more surprised that people (as mainstream) are so blind to this. Just now people are realizing that all, because of the global extreme of censorism that is taking a place now. Maybe it needed some buildup.

Krogan32 is the guy I was talking about, btw. :D The one protected by moderator and the one when moderator edited my post 3 days after and lied to just highligh Krogan32's "point" and to make a statement by that (and to put me out of context).

I was refreshing the site because I was editing some grammar.
I got downvoted instantly and he made a comment right after that.
Plus, he is using the absolutely same reasoning as the moderator (calling me for no reason conspiracist while I am sharing experiences).

Just throwing it out there.

EDIT:
Vechernyaya: I see that the game has 'only' one review with 3* but:
1.8/5 * overall rating
3.7/5 * verified owners rating
3/5 * filters based rating

Obviously negative reviews were removed. :D And yours popped up after I removed english filter.
And disappeard again after I clicked on it and back and can't see it anymore. You had 24 from 35 helpful rating (If I remember correctly). Didn't make a screenshot tho'... was going to but didn't expect it to disappear again forever after two clicks around.

I just discovered another very great reason why GOG needs to be boycotted even harder.

GOG just censored my review of "Lust from Beyond: M Edition" by outright deleting it!

Before it was deleted, my review was the "Overall Most Helpful" one with something like a 90%+ Helpful rating with more than 80 people who rated it as either Helpful or Not Helpful.

GOG support emailed me a copy of their review guidelines when they deleted my review. But my review did not actually violate any of their review guidelines!

The only thing that my review did was heavily criticize the devs for censoring the game, and for engaging in the deliberately dishonest behavior of labeling it as "M Edition" in order to mislead consumers into thinking it is NOT a censored garbage version, even though it is.

As well, several other critical reviews of the same game, which also did not violate GOG's guidelines either, were also deleted by GOG at around the same time as mine was.

So, the point being, GOG sometimes deletes totally legitimate critical reviews of games that criticize the game so hard that it will result in the game selling much less copies on GOG.

That means that GOG's review system is totally illegitimate, and it's more like a commercial advertising system, rather than a true review system.

I am shocked & appalled by GOG's censorship behavior which I've just described.

I'm really sorry to hear about this and I agree, it is completely unacceptable for GOG to be censoring negative reviews.

Please let me know if you'd like to be added to the list.

First time I see that this thread made it to be 'number 1' in 'Hot topics'. :D
Didn't even see it in the list before.

Well, that should speak of some significance...
.. for now... :D

Thanks for proving my point about conspiracy theories being bad for mental health. Seriously, go see a shrink.
Let me guess: Your "review" didn't even include anything about the game at all. Seems about right with your anti-GoG crusade. Btw, those "reviews" violate GoG's rules on reviews. You might want to review them before you come out here and whinge.

You are the one that is going head first into conspiracy theories, not I. Your behaviors keep on proving that I was right about your mental assessment.

Krogan's delirious damage control is hilarious.

Incorrect. My review was 100% about the game, as the censorship of a censored game is very much part of the essence of the product.

And as I said, my review did not violate any of GOG's guidelines, and nor did the other ones that GOG also deleted for no legitimate reason.