You have hit the nail on the head.
I am one of those people that don't care all that much about DRM, especially as long as it does not require a permanent online connection.
I mainly bought here because i do not need an aditional client to run the games
And if i had the choice of buying a DRMed game here or over on Steam, i would use Steam any day of the week. If only to appreciate the work Valve does with Proton.

It saddens me that you are right, you know? But the truth is that they are not going to do anything. And if you think about it, it has been their strategy with any issue brought up by the community.

Makes you wonder why you put up with late releases and cut releases. Buying here a "DRM-Free" game means having to keep an eye out on each darned release to see if you got the update. And now you have to also keep an eye for your game to be actually DRM Free.

Its really sad that after having forgot of Steam during more than 6 years, I'm contemplating coming back because hey, at least there I know I'm going to need something "extra" if I want to preserve my game.

to be fair games shouldn't need updates , releasing broken games and holding back content on purpose is not something customers should accept in the first place.

I'm a software developer, and believe me there's not way to release such a complex product without needing some kind of updates. Also, the trend of "early access" games and to a lesser degree the "game as a service" and "live games" development has made the concept of "finished game" somewhat blurry. For better and worse.

But here the point is not if the updates are more or less, but the fact that the updates are not coming here and we didn't got even a "welp, sorry" from GoG.

I think that not doing anything is not an option for GOG here. For one thing GOG can not allow those numerous negative one star reviews about Hitman to stand. Hitman is a very valuable IP. I'm sure those reviews have extremely pissed off IO Interactive. If GOG loses the support of publishers then it's business goes down the drain. To keep IO Interactive happy GOG needs to find a way to get rid of those reviews. The only way of doing that is to completely remove Hitman from GOG so that the store page and the reviews are gone.

The delay is that GOG needs to wait for the 30-day refund period to expire. Once 30 days after the discount ended has passed we will see some action. I think that's what they're waiting for.

Whether Hitman comes back is another question. IO Interactive may feel burned by their GOG experience and may not be keen to list their games here again.

Me trying to figure out what's "better" about it.

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here's a thing for some to consider. i personally am not confident they will "now" release 2. as for 3 on gog? are you insane. that, i am willing to bet will not happen (if at all) for several years. but back to my consideration. even if they release 2 on gog, what i guarantee is that it will not come bundled (like it should) with the "better" version of 1. i mean they could make it like on steam, where if you own 1 already, you do get 2 with an included and "updated" 1 in the 2 engine. so tldr; i really want 2 for the maps/game of 2, of course, but also because the 1 in the 2 "install" is supposedly better in several ways, at least graphically. i'm not ashamed to admit this, but i am a graphics whore. and i read that 3 has both 1&2 in that version if you own 1/2 separate. so the supposed best versions of 1 & 2 are the ones now upgraded in the 3 engine. so holly molly, i really want the 1/2 with the newer engine updates, this one we got here is the original one, so to me, drm b/s aside, is already an "inferior" version.

i want hitman 2016 using the hitman 3 engine and graphical updates. and that is unlikely to happen on gog. if/when 3 comes to steam, it will happen, so there is that in that regard, but even if 2 and 3 come to gog, i have a feeling due to how gog works, we will never get the "enhanced" versions of 1&2.

i guess what i am saying and predicting, is that even if we get 2 & 3, and even if they change drm for them to what "y'all want", to me, unless we also can get 1&2 enhanced ones, we will never have the "best" versions of 1 and 2. that with this release we did not already get the enhanced version, is telling. for the price they are charging they certainly could have included it.

Has not been "not doing anything" their strategy on most issues? They have done nothing with the outdated/cut games (games that treat GoG customers as second class citizens), they did nothing with that Taiwanese game that was bombed by "a lot of players", they have done nothing to at least give us some information on how's that GoG is the only platform that already had the game that hasn't received the Quake Enhanced update.

It's been like this over and over again. If you buy a game here, you enter on a roulette of the game not having all the features, being left out on updates or events and now not even being functional without a continuous internet connection.

And hey, I hope you are right and that I'm getting angry for nothing, but come on. Today's HITMAN, tomorrow will be another game. In the end, only the "old" games here will be actually DRM-Free.

Hey, there's games like Terraria that got where they are thanks to being able to update and add new stuff, and all of that without reliance on a third party server or whatever.

Honestly I don't think IOI really cares that much, if at all, about Gog's reviews on a five years old game.

I mean its certainly an investment. However it could mean that more people become interested in the GOG version.

You, and businessmen in general should ask the question whether or not a potential costumers sees something unique in GOG compared to the other stores. Since this game still has an online-required/forced online mode, I don't think a lot of people do see a difference between this game being sold on store compared to Steam. Naturally, this leads to people buying this game on the larger store, which would be Steam.

If the game however is unique to the Steam version (as it actually has a full-fledged offline mode) this would mean that this version has something unique that may attract people who exactly seek it. This would also lead to more people being interested, as it would cause buzz. Furthermore, a lot more people would buy this game on here who're on the fence, because a lot of people would like it but don't want to since it still has a form of DRM on it. Not only that, but GOGs image would also become better. Its a honest win-win for everyone. Good morals will always be rewarded. Don't offer a game that still has partial DRM on it as a DRM-Free game compared to offer the option to just turn that stuff off while offering a substitude/workaround, even if that means slightly less convinience (see my previous example).

On the contrair if GOG ever ceases to exist, it won't be solely because they've done things people disagree with, which makes them stop buying. It is because GOG becomes known as "the drama place" (for years now, a lot of news about GOG is regarding similar drama they've been involved in). It is that public association which they must avoid. So if they can turn around this (as in the news stating that IO updated their game to be fully/optinional 100% DRM-free) that would be really nice as that implies GOG taking care of things, rather than stepping back more and more. That, or actually taking a stance.

I'm fully sure about this because this happened before. Once GOG actually released Good Old Games (instead of what they usually do) these games became absolute bestsellers and top-10 rankers after a few months of being on the store. Its not rocket science to figure out that whenever GOG does things that people really associate and like about them it counts as beneficial to their business.

Well stated. Wars of ideology and standard are just that. Wars you have to keep to it and be willing to accept both an opponents surrender and know how to hold ground. If you call boycott on the spot instead of just a loss of implicit faith or give up hope spouting spiteful "they're just greedy monsters now who care for nothing," then it gives basis for the company to never bother listening, you're already gone and unlikely to come back(I can link an Aydin Paladin video to discuss that, yeah, those customers usually don't come back.)

But at the same time, just running back to steam going "there's no hope I give up," means nothing changes. To change tradition you have to actually stay in place and stick to your guns as best you can, perhaps even to the point of some minor self destruction. So just spend a few minutes a day checking up and discussing how great being able to load your game without a performance dropping software additional or a login you have to upkeep.

There's a reason I've been playing Sid Meir Alpha Centauri more then Stellaris lately. And that reason is the AI, but a few times the "I can't be fucked to login to steam" is a basis

at this juncture, i certainly hope not.

while i am firm in my belief that they're just going to "do nothing," i think it's also important that we DO in fact keep pushing back. which generally means keeping this particular conversation alive and well [and also making sure that if we find other drm'd games, we keep adding those to the pile of already drm'd games that gog sells and keep talking about those, also.]

i think that particular number keeps growing a little every day.

absolutely agreed.
for me, at least, i was buying on gog:

a) because it was a bastion of drm-free releases.
b) because it strongly believed in that principle [until gwent, at the very least]
c) because i generally preferred gog's "moral stance" on various issues that were related to that.

sometimes, sure, that meant buying at a higher price, but if i could send the signal that i preferred drm-free to publishers and developers, and have that signal amplified by other people also buying that same version, then my hope was that - even if gog never got /very/ big, at least there'd be a place where i could go to find neat games that didn't also try to hijack my computer.

i'm pretty sure i'm not alone in that boat.

but yes. those are now all problems - all things that we have to take into consideration when buying from gog. and that makes the proposition far less enticing.

while i know the answer is money [because that's all this equation boils down to, really], it surprises me that gog wanted to ACTIVELY do away with the idea of people buying games on a whim.

it's far better for them if i "just know" that the gog version is going to work out better than the steam version, so i keep buying here, but...apparently that's just not true for gog?

weird. :)

assuming ioi and gog are having the conversation i think they're having [which basically amounts to gog telling ioi to just hang in there, this'll all blow over], i think we can safely say that - assuming this venture made money for ioi and gog, we will EVENTUALLY see both 2 and 3 on the store.

it'll just take a while. [so, given that it took five years to get hitman 2016 here, i think you can more-or-less count on hitman 2 + 3 showing up around 2026.]

oh, don't worry. i'm in this for the long haul. [and for what it's worth, i absolutely hope that the people who are in this thread discussing it in the hope that gog will change it's stance are ALSO here for the long haul.]

despite the way i feel about gog [and i've felt this way for a super long time - all the way back to 2017, in fact] - i still want gog to earnestly sit back, think about what they're doing and reverse course.

and if they don't, that's sad [and frustrating and kind of dumb], but i bought almost 500 games from them in the years i've been here. i have PLENTY of games to keep me occupied.

long story short: i'm not throwing in the towel. i'm just stating the facts as i see them.

I doubt they WANT GoG to fail. There's an appeal in having a platform where they can have 100% of profits for their games. However, it's becoming clear they don't know what they're doing. They want to have it both ways - a curated game selection, but hands-off once the game goes online - and they have to realize that doesn't work.

GOG is the number 3 store behind Steam and Epic, and if anyone thinks that GOG taking this PR hit is going to make IOI or any other AAA developer view them as anything more than the redheaded stepchild of the industry, I've got some dry land in the Everglades to sell you.

This is what the sensible people keep telling the doomsayers - GOG losing DRM-free is basically GOG shutting down. The people who don't care about that are going to go to Steam for the insane sales or Epic for the exclusives. GOG has nothing else. I just don't see what GOG gains by continuing these blunders other than giving itch.io or zoom platform a chance to carve a bigger niche.

It's the same reason GALAXY has failed to be anything more than a stand-in for the old Downloader, and why you'll never see a new EA or Ubi game here. Steam is the only store with the clout for those two companies to not just shut out in favor of their own stores.

GOG needs to just step back, realize what market they have and what their ceiling is, and either shut the shit down or focus on that. If there are any smart people in CDPR, the latter will happen. But they need to start looking outside their own offices.