Absolutely this. I cannot stand achievements, but unfortunately they work with me. It's fine for some games, but more often than not they press a game into a rigid structure. I have to check if I have to do something in this part of the game. How do I have to structure this playthrough? This is an RPG and my choice of character should be a defining part of my experience, but there's achievements for all of the classes, so there goes that. I beat a game and had a fulfilling narrative experience, but the achievements tell me I'm not done. There's DLC with new achievement for a game I 100%ed - guess I have to buy that. It's horrible.

I have to admit, just because of that post I've flip-flopped hard in this thread. For all of Gog's faults at least I'm not forced to deal with achievements here.

1st bit: Don't forget all the MP ONLY achievements....some feel the need to get those as well, and if MP needs a gold account /similar to play MP you have to PAY to get those achievements(and be good enough against everyone else).

2nd bit: You forgot the galaxy ones.......gog's attempt to get that chunk of the market with it's own variant of the system. Of course those are optional, thankfully.

The picture isn't entirely inaccurate though.

I doubt they'd have contracts that would prevent them from unilaterally removing games from their platform, but we have no way of knowing for sure. However we do know that GOG have continued to accept games from publishers that have repeatedly abandoned their previous games here; it's highly unlikely they'd have any contracts forcing them to accept new games so the obvious conclusion is that GOG aren't particularly bothered that this happens & keeps happening.

That has been tried (again, Armello: DRM-free Edition comes to mind), but as I recall it did not sit well with the community and only bolstered GOG's reputation for selling outdated versions of games, further making it seem like something they are fine with.

It feels like some publishers just want to use GOG as a means to provide a "paid demo" :/

I've written to & emailed a lot of publishers asking about bringing their Linux games here, there's not much else I can do about the situation. In some cases it's simply due to them not considering it profitable enough due to GOG's smaller size (e.g. Age of Wonders 3) or ideological reasons, but in others we've been told that the reason for the absence of a Linux release here is due to wanting to provide feature parity between all platforms which is prevented here by the lack of Galaxy client for Linux.

Ironic, that, isn't it? ( Regarding the state of Witcher 3 on Linux. ) Valve's/ Steam's great Linux support and ease of use is the main reason why it is currently my primary platform for PC gaming.

Also, someone else mentioned that "Valve is only doing that for the money" -- Well, no kidding, they're interested in making a profit and keeping their business running -- I'm shocked. ( And in that process, they are achieving positive things for their customers and all Linux users in general. How terrible of them. )

Funny thing is, I thought the general stance was "Everyone ignores Linux as a platform, because there's no money in it." I suppose we should consider ourselves lucky that Valve isn't merely looking at short term profits, but the long term future of Linux, Steam and PC gaming.

I'm saying GOG wouldn't effectively hand over all control of what gets to be on their storefront to the publishers - they'd want to keep the option to decline a release for whatever reason. Especially when they make such a big deal about curation!

Please explain where you think I've contradicted myself in any of my posts here, and what you think is "painting GOG unfairly".

I've been a member here for over 10 years and throughout that time I've checked here almost daily and have supported GOG almost exclusively. I've emailed and written letters to publishers about getting more releases here, I've run many GOG game giveaways and based projects like my Linux guides and Wine wrappers around GOG, I've always promoted GOG elsewhere etc. - if anything, I have a pro-GOG bias. But the fact is that GOG have been dropping the ball for quite some time in numerous ways (as I've outlined in my previous posts) and it's been happening so often and for so long that it's getting very hard to give them the benefit of the doubt any more.

1st bit: They would still want to keep devs and such happy and give them incentives in said contracts, and they'd likely sell the dev's games to keep them on board and making them money(which would be on their part and a minus against them) even if it wasn't stipulated in a contract with a dev/etc.

2nd bit: I wasn't trying to make you look bad unfairly....I was just stating what it seemed to me from my pov....i.e. that you seem/seemed to be putting more emphasis on gog's wrongdoing in these regards and less on devs and others. Just my two cents and I hope it didn't offend you in some way.

As long as the games will work completely Standalone and without Galaxy or Online Connection
they ll have my money. If that ever changes and Galaxy will be mandatory for the games to
Launch or ll start when i start the game without the launcher i ll abandon this platform.

So yeah as long as i am allowed to really OWN the games i purchase, i ll support GoG
even ll use the launcher too ;)

Perhaps. But by repeatedly allowing publishers to abandon their games here while keeping them updated elsewhere they're damaging their reputation in the process. In the long run it's going to work against them as more potential new customers get discouraged by it and existing users get fed up with it and leave.

Both are at fault, but it's more GOG's fault as it's their store and they keep accepting this behaviour, and (at least as far as we can tell) don't seem to be taking any firm action to stop it happening again - in some cases even appearing to support such behaviour.

1st bit: Some(varying percentage) might leave but I think many here would not care as much ab out such and more about sale prices(many like to save a buck) and the drm free aspect for SP games. I do not think it would make a noticeable difference for some, though.

It's like with me.....if GOG dropped galaxy/achievements/cloud saves/etc and just sold srm free games for a fair price(including sales) i'd likely stick around even with the problems.

2nd bit: To me it is more the dev's/etc fault if gog's hands are tied with contracts and trying to lure more devs to the site by not dropping them too much......both seem viable here to me.

I've noted over and over again. Companies that get beyond a certain size and after the original founder is gone, tend to go outright corrupt.

Don't forget Activision was an upcoming company back 30+ years ago against the corrupt corporations like Atari. Fast forward to today and they are one of the most corrupt companies out there.

I would never go Unconditional with such companies. If they are acting in good faith and providing good products, then great i support them. If they are constantly doing crunch and ruining employees lives/health but it's the only source of the game i really want, tepidly buy games but protest about it. If they introduce microtransactions, gambling mechanics and obviously want all your money and will keep trying to fleece you, give them the middle finger and move on. No matter how may fans will justify and say it's necessary it's obviously greed fueled and no amount of money would ever make them happy.

I'm still on a game-buying strike for GoG, Steam, Activision/Blizzard, EA, and several other companies. And in the time things have gotten much worse in some places than when it started.

Or buy the games in deep sales so they don't get hardly anything....or buy used and give them no money.....both are also good options.

As to the last bit: You DO get that that harms and negatively impacts you much more than them for not much real gain, right? :\

I've probably bought over $1,000 in games from GoG. That's a pretty nice chunk they got overall.

Regardless, no one else is benefiting either from me on this strike. Gotta stand up for my principles.

I'm glad to see so many downvotes being shot out like the bar scene in Inglorious Basterds, hopefully we can destroy GOG from within. >:-)

I was talking in general with the first bit.

Also principles are nice and all, but they usually don't amount to much in the end(just saying) beyond a good feeling inside.

*upvotes GOG/Ion Fury*

Mwahahaha

;)