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WinterSnowfall: I grab them and if I'm totally uninterested I'll just hide them. That will allow me to easily filter them out in future searches on GOG, considering I now own them.
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HIRO kun: I think your method is smart, so I'll take it myself. lol.
Goodbye for a while, BEAUTIFUL DESOLATION, Crime Cities, Genesis Alpha One, and so on...
I wouldn't recommend it. Myself an a couple of others have had a bug which removes the ability to view hidden games on the hidden games page via browser. You can still get to them in Galaxy, but browser just shows an empty list.

Don't use the hidden games feature on games you might even have a passing fancy on. It might bug out on you too.
Always, there's no downside- you don't have to download them until and if you decide your interested- and who knows what I may be interested in later or what my circumstances may be? They are just digital games in an account, they don't even take up any of my digital storage space if I decide to not download them. I'm under no contract by taking the freebies, no one is going to break my door down, take me away and turn me into a Human-Cent-I-Pad (that south Park episode left me scarred).

As for people that do or don't grab freebies based on some moral choice, I don't understand that at all. Free games on platforms are negotiated. They are usually not free at all really, the platform holder has simply paid for them on your behalf as a type of advertising- like department stores just trying to get people in the door. Occasionally some really are genuine giveaways- the rights holder may want to gain goodwill and awareness for another of their upcoming games for example.
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CMOT70: As for people that do or don't grab freebies based on some moral choice, I don't understand that at all. Free games on platforms are negotiated. They are usually not free at all really, the platform holder has simply paid for them on your behalf as a type of advertising
That should be the case, and usually it is, but there are cases where some games have been made freebies against someone's wishes.

I believe that has happened at least on IndieGala and Itch.io, and I know for a fact that it has happened with Humble Steam keys, as one freebie was later removed from my Steam account. And there may or may not have been some hassle with the recent Epic freebie, where the freebie version was changed without notice.

To some extent it even happened with GOG's Daggerfall version, although that's a very special case, as everything was just free mods, but some modders hadn't given GOG permission to use them the way GOG did.

So there are some cases where there are some questionable proceedings somewhere, but few single incidents don't really make the whole freebie concept or claiming those games unethical.
I grab them all and probably always will, better safe than sorry I think. The only reason I wouldn't is that I like for things to be organized and it may bug to bloat my library but that hasn't stopped me yet. I can understand people who don't for moral or economic reasons, though that doesn't factor for me.
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ReynardFox: [...] something I find truly aesthetically offputting (Like that grotesque Unity port of Daggerfall) [...].
Daggerfall Unity itself is, by all accounts, objectively excellent. It's just the misbegotten GOG Cut that sucks. (Assuming it's the dubious graphical "upgrades" that you're referring to, those are from mods included in said GOG version. I haven't tried DfU, but, AFAIK, you can natively make the graphics look pretty much exactly like they would if the game were running in DOSBox.)
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Acriz: If it is free, I take it. Simple as that.
^ Agreed, preach it brother
Post edited December 30, 2022 by ZocomMAX
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BreOl72: "better to have it and not "need" it, than to "need" it and not have it"

With that said (tongue in cheek), I take most but not all of the freebies.
Certain games (or genres) simply don't appeal to me. And that won't change in the future.
So, no - I don't always take freebies - on some, I pass.
This is more of my style. I think the only game(s) I've actively not claimed was EA sports games on Epic's Store. Otherwise it only takes a minute and if i choose to try it i can, and if i never download it or play it, it's no loss.

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octalot: I'm curious about whether Gog pays something to the publisher for the freebies.
Logically it's just a database entry and once in the system it doesn't cost the online store anything to give someone a game.

With the understanding that you might be depriving devs/publishers of income, then yes I'm sure they get compensation for the game(s) claimed for free. As for how much? Don't know, they might say 'we expect to give away 10,000-50,000 copies, so how about $10k for this giveaway for a week?'. Probably better to do it on games that are 2+ years old, where sales have gone stale.

Though i've seen a few games that are repeats (Usually with a second game).
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HIRO kun: (I forget the title name, only remembering the game is about riot action).
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Ice_Mage: Tonight We Riot was on giveaway from April 30 until May 2, 2021.
That is the game, I remembered it. Thank you.
And I checked my hide games just now and to my surprise, found it here. It seems like I actually got it and immediately hid it and forgot it completely. lol.
Post edited December 30, 2022 by HIRO kun
Only those that align with my own interests.

I don't worry much about the possibility of missing out in the future; I reserve backlogs as a list of those I would certainly (or probably in some cases) launch, given enough time.
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HunchBluntley: Assuming it's the dubious graphical "upgrades" that you're referring to, those are from mods included in said GOG version. I haven't tried DfU, but, AFAIK, you can natively make the graphics look pretty much exactly like they would if the game were running in DOSBox.
Oh so I could disable the ghastly AI upscaled sprites and have it looking like real Daggerfall? I guess I'll get it if that's the case. Cheers.
Only the ones I want to play, but thanks GOG anyway.
I usually take them, but sometimes I skip some of those that really aren't my thing.

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Braggadar: I wouldn't recommend it. Myself an a couple of others have had a bug which removes the ability to view hidden games on the hidden games page via browser. You can still get to them in Galaxy, but browser just shows an empty list.

Don't use the hidden games feature on games you might even have a passing fancy on. It might bug out on you too.
I noticed this bug recently. Is there any fix, other than Galaxy? I guess it's from that stupid Hard West 2 free DLC, when they started messing with the hiding function.
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HunchBluntley: Assuming it's the dubious graphical "upgrades" that you're referring to, those are from mods included in said GOG version. I haven't tried DfU, but, AFAIK, you can natively make the graphics look pretty much exactly like they would if the game were running in DOSBox.
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ReynardFox: Oh so I could disable the ghastly AI upscaled sprites and have it looking like real Daggerfall? I guess I'll get it if that's the case. Cheers.
No problem. :) Just make sure to get it straight from the source, and you should be good. (And check the screenshots in the various posts on that page for examples of how unmodded DfU can look. I'm not sure if those are using default settings, but there seem to be quite a lot of things that can be changed just within the base Unity port itself. Point is, if some form of texture smoothing is on by default -- which it may be -- it can be disabled.)
I think there was one freebie I didn't take - or maybe it was a Connect offer - for Trine. This is like back when I was annoyed about GOG selling new games so a long time ago.

Other than that yeah I'll get them since I don't mind unsubscribing from the ad emails each time, fair trade-off imo even though GOG didn't used to automatically subscribe people.

https://www.gog.com/en/account/settings/subscriptions
New here. Probably not in the future, but right now I do as they are helping me to get used on how this store works without my money in the middle. If the service is good then I'll probably start purchasing. I'll see.