Seems to have happened a couple of times now, but then disappears again.

I saw it briefly before switching pages, then when I went back it was no longer there.

Perhaps there is a Bot War going on.

Since when is "DRM-free" the only thing that matters? That's common at GOG when they post links, almost always cleared up in an hour or two.

Pretty sure if you're complaining about the offline installer not being up yet it's because you care about DRM.

I would say that's an indication that he didn't particularly care about DRM.

Jump!
- How high?
2 feet.
- Ok, thanks for the info. <leaves without jumping>

Hey, you didn't tell me to jump when you say "jump", but just to ask "how high".

Since it became an option.

I never cared about DRM-free to the exclusion of other important considerations, such as customer support or how well the installers are kept up to date.

Not even sure what we're talking about now?

Considering his Steam comment, I am guessing he is more anti-client than anti-DRM though, if that's what you mean. If he's gonna be forced to use a client he'd rather use Steam, even if it has DRM and Galaxy does not. Still silly as heck though.

Yes, the OP overreacted, and the ragequit always looks a bit awkward, but I personally think it's in part understandable.

To be fair, when you spend 25 bucks on a game on day one of release, you want to play it immediately and it's incredibly frustrating when it plainly doesn't work.

It's not acceptable that the "DRM free backup installers", formerly known as THE ACTUAL GAME™, are just treated as an afterthought that may or may not work upon upload. There's nothing "silly as heck" about wanting to use .exe installers instead of a supposedly "always optional forever we swear by our mothers' graves" library organizing app.

But what really must go is this motherforking service bot, which always adds insult to injury. I believe that this thing is, as of right now, the third most heinous stain on GOG's reputation, right after "users can downvote reviews" and "users can write reviews even though they don't own the game".

Honestly, that makes no sense to me.

It is clearly indicated whether the reviewer owns the game at GOG or not, and because they own it elsewhere shouldn't be a deterrent to providing feedback. It makes sense to get as much feedback as possible, especially where no-one has bought the game at GOG yet or not done a review yet, or there aren't many.

And honestly, reviews are often not worth a pinch anyway, when they stray from certain aspects that are important to know, and just head into opinion territory, often stated as gospel fact.

Is anyone here doing otherwise?

Sure some folk come to GOG, just chasing a game, and don't care about DRM at all. Whether they might now be the majority of customers I don't know.

However, the GOG faithful who do care about having DRM-Free, what the store is based on, would also care about support, and especially Offline Installers being up-to-date. It is only the Offline Installers in reality, that are DRM-Free.

If you solely use Galaxy, and don't download and backup your GOG games, then you are really relying on a web connection for every installation, and not really engaging in DRM-Free. Such usage while available through Galaxy, is not really what GOG was created in the first place for, and why so many are anti-Galaxy ... though to be fair, Galaxy can also be used to download the Offline Installers. Personally I don't like the bloat of Galaxy, and would much prefer an option to make it Galaxy Lite or a separate second official downloader that is that.

It's either that for GOG or providing other, possibly more costly safeguards against review bombing. For certain publishers, developers, and games, "doesn't own the game" means 95% fake reviews. I've attached a recent example. GOG will of course display the overall rating more prominently than the verified owners rating. From their business clients' perspective, that's horseshit.

Even more heinous of course is when fake reviewers downvote positive reviews, which also happens here 24/7.

Not to sound flippant, but of course user game reviews are as subjective as humanly possible. It's art criticism, plain and simple. There's no one objective measuring stick for that. Yes, they are often "not worth a pinch".

They are also indispensable.

GOG is now pretty much fighting for survival. They will have to ask themselves what upsets their business clients so much, and they will have to ask themselves what keeps users from posting more positive outlooks.

Both questions, in my subjective opinion, have obvious answers.



Thank you! I honestly don't see why we would ridicule the person, particularly seeing how his beef is simply with the basic functionality of the vendor platform.

When people are completely unreasonable, what else are you to do? Had the guy posted "Hey I have a problem. Do I need to refund, or am I doing something wrong?" People would have been mostly helpful. They would have told him the best way to handle it. But When you come in "I couldn't properly download my game. Fuck you GoG Instant refund and never shopping again!!!" What are you supposed to do. Completely out of proportion response to "I couldn't download a game the first time I attempted it." and for someone who's been here more than half a decade and should be passingly familiar with the situation, it's genuinely laughable.

To be fair, I start frothing at the mouth when gog sends me to that godawful chatbot. I applaud everybody who gets chatbotted and doesn't murder people afterwards.