Sorry if I came off sounding bossy. Just trying to stay upbeat.

You're not wrong but you're missing a step. Usually these companies go nuts because their original creator is replaced by the demands of investment stockholders, or gets his hands tied because stock. I will continue to advise every man of ANY kind of business to not touch the stock market, they are responsible for close to every recession in modern history. (the other being subsidized bank loans). So you are correct, you just missed a step. Far as I know GoG has not changed leadership.

no f*ing way!!! if you mean store as in selling games, overall, like a real store, not even close.

in my pretty good educated opinion it goes like;

steam
origin/ea
uplay/ubisoft
microsoft windows store (or whatever it is now unless dead/abandoned)
epic
blizzard/activision (even what's exclusive and not also on steam etc. maybe like latest cod? etc..)
humble store (not counting bundles!)
green man gaming
fanatical (not bundles but just outright single games)
indiegala (not bundles but just outright single games)
gamersgate
{something else i forgot}
gog
itch.io
etc..

tee hee. little do you know. ea just returned last year (or around that time, not worth me checking exactly when) after EIGHT YEARS gone. (left after some DLC fight. yes, most existing ea games stayed, sure, but no new ones. so for all intent and purposes ea fucked off steam and very interestingly came back eight years later) there is a story behind this for sure. someone (either gabe or ea, i think gabe) got on their knees and sucked, HARD!!!

as for ubi, did you not know? they pulled an "EA" and are gone (for any new releases, again, they too keep old stuff there, but so what?) since 2 or so years. will they return some time in the future? well, now that we have the EA story, yes, it's possible. but for now, and last 2 or so years, ubi be gone from "all powerful" steam, buh buh ubi!! personally i hope not, because it saves me money. yes, i love the far cry games and most all ubi major games. so them being gone, saves me dosh. though interestingly their latest versions for all their main games i actually honestly (not just posting b/s, or signaling) hate/dislike. watch dogs 3 is sjw cucked b/s rancid piss. kinda same for asscreed valhalla. that one more, the setting, for me, is crap. england shmengland. but it too has "strong" female leaders and all that diverse pukefest so yuck,

tldr; ea "just" returned to steam after eight years (very strange and interesting if we ever find out the real story) and ubi left around two years ago.

I forgot how much time passed since the release. Still in the first page, still nothing not even a "sorry we now accept drm" from gog.
How can anybody still trust gog at this point? Not even a warning with single player content where you need to use a connection. Just two stupid message where they say nothing at all. They don't even care

If you still trust gog tell us why because I don't understand

So, how many weeks has it been? I'm losing count.

For staff monitoring this topic, please answer my question about whether our existing games will at least be SAFE from online-requirement "improvements" and "innovations", nonwithstanding what releases you bring out new.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BwSts2s4ba4

Too many, and yet apparently not enough. The GOG Paradox.

You lose count quickly if you can't count to two. But I have also watching this topic vehemently (even though this is my first post in it) waiting for a statement from GOG about what they will do to fix the situation or if allowing DRM is their new stance, in which case they left the final advantage they had over other stores after all the other broken promises and they've entered the road to ruin and bankruptcy.

Hey look, it's off the top of the "Store" tab at the top of the page. Now let's hope it goes off of the store, literally, until the online requirements are patched out. It's not in the other tabs either (such as "Bestsellers" tab). Hopefully the reduced visibility does not coincide with reduced discussion. Games with DRM/online connection requirements do not belong on GOG and this evidently needs to keep being reinforced since GOG has gone in such a direction.

Looking at the financial report (I am nowhere near an expert at reading these things) GOG made a bit over 5 million USD in 2020 and lost somewhat over 1 million USD in the first half of 2021. That loss is less than the increase in "selling costs" vs. the first half of 2020, so the loss may be in part (or entirely) due to the support cost of CP2077 appearing mostly this year while sales mostly appeared last year or earlier (the financial presentation mentions that CDPR spent almost 12 million USD on CP2077 support in the first half of this year, more than GOG's total operating expenses in the first half of this year or all of 2019). GOG's profit in 2019 was less than 1 million USD and revenue in all of 2019 was a bit over 1.5x revenue in the first half of 2021. So overall GOG seems to be growing, although its direct profit is only a tiny part of CD Projekt profit (the only mention of GOG in the CD Projekt strategy presentation is the phrase GOG GALAXY; they also spent $125 million USD on a dividend this year, as much as GOG's total revenue in 2019 and 2020 combined).

It looks like GOG is keeping a bit over 29% of its revenue (last year, less than 28% the first half of this year) after paying for the games it sells (I am suprised that a nearly 30% cut isn't enough to always make a solid profit). I think the percentage difference between last year and the first part of this year may indicate that GOG is considered to keep 30% of the revenue from CDPR games sold on GOG while others sometimes get slightly better deals. If the revenue consolidation eliminations in the report are 70% of the sales of CDPR products on GOG it looks like about 1/3 of total GOG revenue last year was from CDPR games (10ish% the first half of this year, a bit less than 10% in 2019).

I am very curious what the discussions at GOG are like and I hope some journalist who has written about DRM issues before is starting to look into how it came to this Hitman release (if so stories that include sources in the company take a bunch of time to write so we most likely wouldn't see it for a year or so). I think it would be a very interesting window into the game industry and large companies.

"All right, who ordered the bloody pineapple again?!"

Dear GOG,

Thank you for looking into the HITMAN GOTY issue. It has been two weeks since the issue was brought up, and we'll be entering week three in 24 hours.

Rest assured we have not forgotten about said issue, so there's no need for panic. We appreciate the fact that you are keeping abreast of the issue, and are looking forward to your input concerning how the situation is progressing.

Trusting in your early reply,

Your patrons.

I noticed that too. However, we need to make it clear to GOG that the discussion/complaints are not going to go away until the game goes away.

Absolutely. It is still relevant to other games too. Obviously every new releases is suspect and, as far as I can tell, we have no assurance that our existing games remain safe from "innovative" "cool" new designs that lock functionality behind online connections.