Further to my earlier post.

Some here claim, that GOG no longer cares about their customers. I think we need to examine that.

How many customers does GOG have, and how many really care deeply about DRM-Free?
If the majority now don't really care all that much about DRM-Free, then in that regard how are they not being cared about?

We can also look at what happened with Hitman GOTY.
A lot of customers here, certainly those who appeared in the forums over the issue, obviously cared. But still clearly a lot didn't care, going by reported sales here. Which one was the majority?

Then we have the Devotion incident. A lot of people cared about that, many even coming to the GOG forum for the first time, to have their say, but clearly not regular GOG customers or customers that generally haunt the forum. From all I have seen, while a good number seemed to care, most by far did not really care about the Devotion incident.

Then there is what happened with Cyberpunk 2077, where many members rightly felt let down by its release before being ready. That said, many like myself haven't bought the game yet, refusing to pay AAA prices. So by the time we get the game, it will likely be in a good state, if not already.

While I care deeply about DRM-Free, and are on occasion disappointed with GOG in that regard, a part of me recognizes what a tough job providing DRM-Free is. We as customers are not privy to the decision making that occurs and the facts driving it. It may well be that GOG feel their survival is at stake, and they are between a rock and a hard place. Perhaps that means some kind of compromise for GOG's continued existence, and I for one want at least some good level of DRM-Free to continue, as well as retain access to my GOG library.

Anyway, I think we really need to be careful, when we start accusing GOG of no longer caring about its customers. We at the very least need to say - which customers, because the majority may indeed be cared for. Minor groups of other customers may be harder done by, but when it comes to finances it is always a balancing act, and catering most for the customers where your greater profits come from, is always going to be a priority, especially if you are doing it tough.

Do good people become less so by choice? Or is it due to pressures and trying to keep the all-important boat afloat?

Many who start with good intentions don't last the distance. Politicians are the perfect example of that. Many stores eventually have to adapt and make changes they are probably not idealistically happy with, to survive.

I'm not going to give GOG a free card and excuse them for everything, as a good number of things piss me off. But I haven't walked a mile in their shoes, so for now they get the benefit of the doubt from me, until I have a really decent reason to do otherwise. One-off incidents are not enough for me, unless there is a lot of them.

In the end it is weighing up the good versus bad, and so long as the good is in the majority, I am going to keep liking and supporting GOG. I mean, what else can you do? What other comparable choice is there really? And they get credit for starting this whole DRM-Free movement off in a big way. One should never forget that DRM-Free is not a given in this world, quite the opposite. So GOG are still our biggest champion in that regard.

In my opinion gog has been stagnating (and sometimes even declining) for a few years now. Besides growing their game's catalogue, nowadays they don't seem to have much to show for or brag about that would compensate for their shortcomings, mistakes, and lack of values (the one they pulled with the non-release of Devotion was very very scummy); let alone excite anyone. Heck, even their 2022 roadmap was a bleak and somber corporate jibberjabber which basically said nothing. So if the disillusioned comments and the complaining are currently more ubiquitous compared to gog's youthful days, I'd say that to an extent, that's understandable. After all, disappointments and unmet expectations tend to layer themselves on top of one another if there's not enough sweetness in between.

But for me gog is for the most part its community, and since I try to stay away from the odd far right arguments and other nonsensical diatribes, I am glad to be more in than out of it. There're some really great people around and I've got a few fond memories from the times when we've all come together. For an online forum, I'd say that's quite the remarkable achievement. So in that sense I like gog very much, but in almost every other aspect I can't say I'm left with many reasons to do so.

Edit: well, after reading certain comments on this post maybe I should retract my previous statement :S

I like GOG but see that they have alot of stuff they need to improve upon.

The good

The game selection is pretty good and DRM-free is great. I got into PC gaming mainly to be able to mod my games and GOG with their DRM-free games allow me to do so without restriction. Being DRM-free which allows me to play and "own" my games as much as I can is also a huge plus.

The lack of new titles is disappointing but the focus on old games that are excellent is good and their focus on quality games is also nice. Havent tried the adult games but the indies Ive tried here have all been quite good.

The community is generally quite friendly.

The bad

Im not big on the interface but the "community" for each game is quite weak. Giving us options for "community contribution" such as posting screenshots, videos, guides, etc would make each forum much more useful. Right now, they seem to be more like general trouble-shooting forums.

The lack of equal features to steam/epic is also disappointing. Games missing achievements or updates is very disappointing because it treats GOG customers as second-hand customers despite the fact that they paid the same money to buy the game as their steam/epic peers. GOG users should get the same stuff for buying from steam/epic in terms of features unless that product is store-exclusive and advertised as such

GOG's customer service is a mess now with chatbot. Make an FAQ with chatbot to address general inquiries but easy access to a person to escalate a bigger problem such as refunds or computer troubleshooting.

Lack of AAA/AA games is a little disappointing. Yes, we dont come to GOG for AAA games necessarily and DRM-free is more important than AAA access but negotiating to get good ones that are DRM-free would be nice since GOG is the only one of the major three that also offers offline installers.

WHAT?! Don't be black-or-white (:-D) They (black people of course, but also gay or trans people, not necessarily indulging in one-day-old labels galore) exist!
(I probably can name someone I know...or someone I know could be one of them unbeknownst to me)
It's a whole different thing than approving of everything that comes out about them or presented as simply a way to support them.
Transgenderism is currently officialy a mental condition (not necessarily a disorder) in many places (not only speaking of far-away and backwards ones). I suspect it's more of a technical/social-security/bureaucracy matter though, so for them to have access to treatments (not only mental one, but it's quite easy to include it also...I can imagine not liking your birth sex is distressing as hell). On the other hand, homosexuality also was thirty or so years ago and directly for cultural/historical reasons, so who knows: it's not hard-science as physics or industrial engineering.

When I first joined gog I loved it & wanted to support it as much as possible & spread the word, back then it was just old games and that was what really mattered to me. In the early days gog felt more like a club than just another storefront; the community was tight nit & very decent (it's terrible now) and engagement from gog was excellent.

Gog in recent years has been incredibly poorly managed & those in charge seem more like arrogant conmen on the level of a used car salesman. Almost every moralistic stance or pro-consumer guarantee has been gone back on in the pursuit of profits and everytime there's a big enough stink they claim it was a 'mistake' lie that they're still true to their values then try & squeeze it in again later on more stealthily.
There's also been countless half hearted & I'll thought out attempts to branch out that have been huge failures (drm free movies, galaxy). Sadly gog is in dire need of getting rid of the muppets making the decisions but they're the kind to deflect by sacking staff instead.

If I didn't know any better I'd think gog was run by Peter Molyneux!

Should had he, it could be said he was certainly not (too prideful). Something to learn indeed

I used to like GOG a lot. Especially because they were bringing older neglected titles back to the market, and updating them to work on modern systems.

But over time GOG has devolved into just another Steam clone; a poor one at that.

My largest two gripes have been:

DRM titles have slowly crept their way onto the platform
and

Once they started working on Galaxy, they systematically started to end any real support for the GOG downloader.
GOG has yet to offer a tool that can download your entire library (Installers, Extras, etc) keep the installers sync'd to the latest version, and not have random broken files while trying to download stuff. Galaxy kind of makes it slightly easier in that I can MANUALLY work my way through my entire library via the interface and queue up downloads.. But that still leaves me manually cross referencing installer versions and other stuff

Other gripes are you can't easily access the forum from inside GOG Galaxy, and when you do try, half the time the link doesn't work and it redirects you to the main GOG forum instead of the games forum.

The latest round of virtue signaling for the establishment left is probably going to be the final nail in the coffin for me.
The idea that they could just cut me off from products is a very real possibility based on what we have all recently seen. Not buying able to buy is one thing I suppose, but I have 0 faith that they or any other company wouldn't go the extra step and completely revoke my access to my account at some point.


Also wish they would fix forum reply notifications. The purple dot next to Community on the site menu almost never goes away even after checking all new replies

I liken GoG to the large comfy chair that sits by the crackling fireplace, which houses my newspaper and comfy slippers. Said chair may have seen better days, with its patches, repairs, and discoloured material through age and excessive use, but is still the most comfortable chair that I know. Unlike all the other stores that are much like the fold-able plastic kitchen chairs that one uses when all other chairs are unavailable. Cold, uncomfortable and barely fulfil their need...

I like Gog, but sometimes their decisions disappoint me a lot. Some of them led me to boycott the store, in an attempt to send the only message that could reach the decision-makers. But if I didn't like it anymore I wouldn't sign a boycott, I would just up and leave.

I like their staff too. Those who do interact with us are great and nice people and not at all responsible for the decisions that soured the store.

Their recent decision to protest Russia was good in my eyes. It took courage and showed the sort of mentality I want to see fostered. (I wish it had been seen in the Devotion incident but oh well. Hopefully they learned from that mess)

So in the end I like Gog, despite them being far from perfect.

- When I install a game using an offline installer, I can´t launch the game just after installing it, because the "play" button of the installer launches galaxy.
- Gog treats offline installer users as second class customers. Not few are broken or behind the Galaxy versions.
- The customer support crew is clearly understaffed.
- The forum needs to be improved.
- Gog has spent a big portion of the store´s budget in the development of the Galaxy client. Leaving the rest of the store, underdeveloped and neglected.
- Gog now sells games for other stores (pro-DRM stores). Giving them even more visibility and some of the few resources the store has, and desperately needs.
- Now, Gog misstreat some customers too.


What´s left to like?

- wrong
- no
- agreed
- forum is fine
- agreed
- agreed, GOG have a real niche with their offline installers and they risk it all by becoming just another competitor
- wrong, refund policy is excellent, regular discounts and fixes/patches included in games

You will have to be more specific about what you think is wrong regarding what I wrote.

My last point was about the Belarus and Russian users´ ban.

I like GOG just fine. They have many games I can't find elsewhere and an excellent return policy.

Complaint is the lifeblood of gaming forums.The only time my experience was otherwise was the forum for City of Heroes when that game was live, until they announced the closure of the game and the forums for it declined to the usual standards for such.

The Russia/Belarus thing is an outlier and a prime example of why some topics aren't permitted on forums other than those dedicated to such discussion. If you're looking for civil discussion, online in general is an increasingly poor hunting ground on an increasing number of topics.

I like GOG to his day. I don't give a damn about politics. I am here for the games.

It's a shop, so I like it as much as I like any shop that I buy things from. That being said, I also don't worry about a lot of the noise on social media and the forum about things - the forum is basically like a microcosm of any social media (twitter, facebook etc) where some voices and views get amplified, but you can't use it to gauge the overall opinion of the userbase.