I wouldn't call it a duck because it is far better than having no one to ask.
About the non-issue: Sorry if I'm misunderstanding something but isn't it obvious that this music issue is just temporary? Do you have to go to the menu every time you start the game? Haven't you ever tried reloading/restarting the game or am I missing something?
I suspect that "we know it's broken" means "we know you have to restart/reload the game/save every time you go to the menu and we can't fix that"

You're basically saying that support knew a fix/workaround but didn't bother telling him about it. I highly doubt that.

The idea that there is a suitable workaround to an old game's issue, but that because GOG didn't turn it up in a prescribed time-window - so that somehow represents that their refund policy is a bait-and-switch.

That isn't selling me for some reason. Comes off more as a "SJW/Outrage™" thing than an actual issue.

No, it means that they know it's broken and there's nothing they can do. I would have been completely fine if they had told me to save the game then load it. They didn't. They just said "sorry of the inconvenience" and did not offer me a credit until I called them out in my response to that message.
They did not tell me that they would get back to me after doing some research. Here is their first response to my service ticket.

"Hello,

I'm sorry for long response time. We are currently overwhelmed with work.

Unfortunately this is a known issue that can occur on never configurations. There isn't any know fix on this issue. I'm sorry for inconvenience.

Regards,
ZłyBratBliźniak
Customer Support Representative
GOG.com

This answer concerns ticket number GF3AYKWC, which is now closed.
You can reply to this e-mail to reopen the ticket."

You'll notice that the service ticket was immediately closed which meant there would be no further communication unless I respond. Yes, this is the exact message. He possibly meant to type every instead of never.

Uhm. You know what, you convinced me to try Corsairs Gold again and if it still has the same problem i'll contact support (because the framerate problem on that one is what i consider game breaking).

Edit: Ironically i tried the game again and this time the sluggish framerate is gone but the game crashes after a few minutes of gameplay...

More likely 'newer', which mean this doesn't occur on older systems. I'm not going to downrate you or anything like that, but I disagree with your assertion that the return policy is 'false'. I'll leave it at that.

Here is the entire conversation I had with the support member from GOG for whatever it's worth. Take from it what you will. If you think I'm being unreasonable, that's fine. Again I'm putting this out there so people know. It's not my wish to pull people away from GOG as I've chosen myself to pull away. I'm hoping that GOG will either change their policy wording to match what their policy actually is or actually make their policy mean what it looks like it means. If they do I will more than happily return to buying games from GOG. So without further due:

GOG Support-

Hello,

I'm sorry for long response time. We are currently overwhelmed with work.

Unfortunately this is a known issue that can occur on never configurations. There isn't any know fix on this issue. I'm sorry for inconvenience.

Regards,
ZłyBratBliźniak
Customer Support Representative
GOG.com

This answer concerns ticket number GF3AYKWC, which is now closed.
You can reply to this e-mail to reopen the ticket.

Me-

After all the time I waited for you to get back to me; "I'm sorry for the inconvenience" is your answer? That is not at all acceptable. You guys are knowingly selling a game that is broken. I bought this from GOG specifically so I could play this game with the music. You can give me my money back now.

GOG Support-

Hello,

As I stated to you, we are currently overwhelmed with work and I got to your support request as soon as possible.

I cannot issue a refund in this case. I can, make a one time exception and convert this purchase into store credit that can be used toward buying another game.

Regards,
ZłyBratBliźniak
Customer Support Representative
GOG.com

This answer concerns ticket number GF3AYKWC, which is now closed.
You can reply to this e-mail to reopen the ticket.

Me-

You better check your refund policy that is plastered all over the front of your website. I'm within 30 days of purchase, I have contacted you for support, you cannot get this game working like it's supposed to, you owe me my money back. It's that simple. Normally I would be a lot more lenient and accept a credit because I've bought a lot of games from the site you represent. However in this case you guys knowingly selling me a broken game and then saying that you're not going to honor your return policy is making me rethink ever doing business with your site ever again.

I don't know whether you actually read my initial response email or if you just read the first sentence. If you read the entire thing you would have understood that the lack of timely manner in which you responded was not the issue. I understand that sometimes customers need to wait as I deal with customers face to face everyday. However when I do have to make customers wait, I better have a plan or a viable solution for them when I do get back to them. Simply telling them that their stuff is broken and sorry for their inconvenience is not acceptable.

I'm not going to give you an account of all the praise your site has received from me on other sites or tell you how many games I've purchased and planned to purchase from your site because it shouldn't matter if I am a first time customer or a long time customer. You have a refund policy to honor. There is no "one time exception" store credit. It is your policy spelled out in black and white. The fact that I even have to write this email explaining all of this to you has damaged my relationship with GOG and I will certainly think twice before purchasing a game from your site knowing what I have to go through in order for you to do make things right. It's now your job to change my mind as well as give me my 4 dollars back. I will escalate this as high as it needs to go so it is in your best interest to take care of this at your level.

GOG Support-

Hello,

Once again, I cannot make a refund in this case. Yes it's spelled black on white:
"If, within 30 days after the purchase of your game, you experience technical problems or game-breaking bugs that prevent you from finishing your game, contact our customer support."

You didn't encounter any technical issues or game-breaking bugs that prevent you from launching, nor from finishing this game. Once again I'm sorry for this minor inconvenience, our product was informed about this and they will try to fix that.

Have a nice day.

Regards,
ZłyBratBliźniak
Customer Support Representative
GOG.com

This answer concerns ticket number GF3AYKWC, which is now closed.
You can reply to this e-mail to reopen the ticket.

Me-

After your refusal to honor your money back guarantee I tried out something I thought of on my drive back home which ended up being an acceptable workaround to the problem with this game until it gets fixed. I'm sure you'd like to know what that is so you can tell other customers who are having the same problem what to do so they can actually enjoy their game until this problem is fixed. You'll be able to find this work around in my poor review of this game where I will tell everyone the problem, the fix, and that GOG support is not only useless, but also does not stand by their guarantee unless the game simply doesn't work or crashes constantly. I suppose this is the reason why there have been so many complaints about Interstate 76 in which the community ended up fixing the major problems with the game since GOG doesn't consider games that startup to be broken which is utterly ridiculous. I could have just lied to you and told you that my computer crashes when I run the game, and you would have not been able to prove otherwise. But I didn't. I told you the truth. Stupid me, right?

Well I certainly hope this was all worth the 4 dollars that you saved the company because as of yesterday I am no longer a supporter of GOG. Not because of the money, but because I know that GOG doesn't back their promises and will redefine what a broken game actually is in order to save a few bucks.

Oh, and YOU have a nice day.

GOG Support-

Hello,

I'm glad that you where able to solve this issue.

Have a nice day. :)

Regards,
ZłyBratBliźniak
Customer Support Representative
GOG.com

Me-

Oh, this doesn't end here for you. I want your supervisor's name and contact information.

And that is the good, the bad, and the ugly. As I said take this as you will. The last guy has not responded and I don't expect him to at this point. This is my final post in this forum. Take this as you will. You've been fully notified on what could happen if you actually have a problem with your game that cannot be fixed that does not cause your game to crash or not startup. You can choose to ignore this post or not. I don't care if you downvote me or wanna issue personal attacks. It doesn't matter because I won't see them.

It's the truth of gaming that games will have bugs.

It was even truer back in the days: game programming was younger, there were less high quality third party tools, PC platforms were less stable over time and because PCs were less powerful, so they did all sorts of hacks to get every last drop of performance.

You get a retro game, you just need to cope with the bugs that are in the game (sometime, they can be annoying). It's part of the landscape. GOG doesn't put their hands in the code so they can't fix 95%+ of those lingering problems.

Frankly, if you paid less than 10$ for it, it's not like you have a lot at stake anyways. They did give you a credit, which is more than what 90%+ of customers who were around at that time (and know what games were like) will even expect for a retro game that retails at less than 10$.

It's more annoying to pay 20$+ for a buggy recent games (that's part of the reason why I wait for the price to go down and stability to go up... the first batch of customers tend to act as the last bunch of testers :P).

The only bone I'll throw you on this is that if GOG knows about the bug and it's big enough, they really ought to go full disclosure and state it in the game's description. Then again, some IP owners might take exception to that (GOG doesn't have 100% of the decision making power here) and that needs to be factored in as well.

PS: Personally, I don't get the whole retro obsession. I only get the retro-themed indie games that borrow some of the retro feel with a more modern outlook. Overall, the technical aspects of game making (from the stability of the code to GUI design, controller design, toning down some of the monotonous aspects of gameplay, etc) has gotten so much better over time.

I'm not sure if someone already pointed this out but I'm 99% sure that it's supposed to say "on newer systems".

You're right, that's not accurate.

With all those"te*t*cles" you have, you should be making love, not war.

Hey man, I just live here. :P I wouldn't hurt a fly.

It depends on the games you play, if you like braindead action games then yeah,GTA V is probably much better than Barbarian or whatever and then retro makes no sense for you. But there is no reason not to still play MadTV, Pizza Connection,Fallout 2, Planescape, Imperialism,Capitalism or Patrician 3 if you like these types of games.
And it is not an obsession, simply a case of games that have never stopped being fun.

About the bugs...that is supposed to be what the refunds are for...we already knew games tend to have bugs.

The way people portend it at times, you pull the wings off of them.