SargonAelther: Hitman 2016 was not booted because it was shovelware asset flip. It was booted because many features needlessly required an online connection at all times in order to work. At the some time, GOG plasters
"DRM FREE. No activation or
online connection required to play." on every game page. Hitman 2016 was violating the offline play advertisement. Hitman 2016 is a very good game and I want to see it return to GOG, WHEN they remove the online requirement and bake those online challenges and rewards into the offline client.
Timboli: I likewise would like to see the game return in a proper DRM-Free form for GOG customers, but I have no idea why you brought the specifics up, as they don't change anything I said, just confirm it.
I brought hitman up with the specifics PRECISELY because details matter.
I want curation to be limited to objective verification of the presence of DRM and needless online connection requirements. Whether or not a game has DRM, or if a single player game works offline, as per the GOG ad on every game page, can be verified objectively. There is no doubt there.
All other forms of curation are subjective. What the curator may find bad, I may find good. What the curation may find good, I may find bad. No one can make that judgement for all. It's like trying to curate food. Curate whether its expired or not, don't try to curate taste!
SargonAelther: On the other hand, we already have some asset flips here, further increasing the inconsistency of GOG's curation. Just stop it, GOG, focus your curation on the presence of DRM and leave all other matters to each individual player. Heck, those asset flips that I mentioned may still be enjoyable for some people and it's not for me, or anyone else, to bar them from DRM-Free preservation.
Timboli: You've lost me. If a game is DRM-Free wherever you can buy it or obtain it, then it will be preserved. It is not the sole responsibility of GOG to preserve every DRM-Free game.
And I will say again, I for one, and I'm not alone in this, don't want GOG flooded with a games, just because they are DRM-Free. Leave that to Itch.io and others.
Not every game has to come to GOG and be available at GOG.
GOG's criteria should be about more than just DRM-Free.
Yes there are other DRM-Free stores out there, but they are far less known and far less feature-rich. GOG offers a blend of modern features and DRM-Free sense of ownership, and preservation via offline installers, should the unthinkable happen. The competition only has the latter. Can I get cloud saves, achievements, or easier game downloads on Itch, Zoom and Humble Bundle? No. So while I highly appreciate their efforts, they still have a long way to go before they can measure up to GOG in terms of service and feature offerings.
I want as many games to come to GOG for the same reason that most people want most games to come to Steam.
These platforms are the largest and most feature-rich within their respective markets (Steam's most popular in the general audience area, while GOG is the most popular in the DRM-Free audience).
I do want GOG to be "flooded", because that's a good thing. People often point to Steam and tell me it's an example of a market flooded with junk. I am aware that there's junk there, but I don't see it for myself. I don't get junk offered to me on the front page, nor do I have to sift through it to find good games. The store gives me offers based on my purchases. So if someone finds Steam flooded with crap, dare I say that it's probably because they tend to buy that very same crap.
itch is a bad example, because that store has hardly any big-budget productions. Everything there is extremely indie and low budged. It's filled with prototypes and proof of concept ideas. There are no AA or AAA games there to shuffle the store with. Steam has all kinds of games to shuffle the store with. So does GOG.
Steam has curation. The best kind of curation. It's the community curation (look it up). You can subscribe to many of the community curators available on Steam and that will alter the ads that you see on the store, with the curator's recommendations. You can find a curator with similar preferences and mainly see those kinds of games, without blocking entry for other games. I will NEVER accept arguments that forbid entry for games. It's easy to be pro-barring until something you wants gets barred too.
It's hard enough to convince developers to go DRM-Free, so the last thing we should do is bar willing ones. Every game deserves to come to GOG and GOG's criteria should focus only on determining whether a submission meets the DRM-Free requirements for games as well as offline play for single player games. Everyone likes different things. The only way to satisfy everyone is to allow all kinds of games, while providing improved filtering and community-lead curation, which are also filters in a way. Have some empathy. if I were to turn my empathy off, I'd start an anti-sports game campaign, because I think they are all copy-pasted garbage. The fact that they are based on real life games with set rules means that they cannot be anything other than copy-pasted garbage. That's just my personal opinion though and there are plenty of people who like sports games. Heck, EA wouldn't be so rich if there wasn't a market for it. I have empathy though and because of it, I will fight for all sports games to be allowed to GOG, despite personally hating every single one of them. It's not for me to judge, nor for anyone else. All we can judge is the presence of DRM.
And this view of mine will not change, so we may as well agree to disagree on this.
