I can't imagine reworking the code to make at least the singleplayer campaign progression work completely offline to be that hard and/or cost-intensive for IOI.

I think it's more of a question whether IOI wants to be the one responsible for creating a precedent with essentially conforming to GoG's specifications and rework a high-profile title such as HITMAN into a superior version compared to the ones available elsewhere.

From a financial standpoint it would likely be quite lucrative to make a "GoG Edition" of not only the first HITMAN, but the second and ultimately the third one as well. I for one would gladly pay the full asking price for "mostly DRM-free (where it matters)" HITMAN, HITMAN 2 and HITMAN 3.

Dude, are you seriously suggesting that it's even on the table that GoG purposely used an outdated versions with DRM in it as some kind of overtone window. This is conspiracy theory, it is not helpful or meaningful in any way. for fuck sake stop giving IO a free pass for this shit because you desperately want to villainize GoG

Outdated version with DRM in? Are you under the impression that a version without the online progression problem exists but IOI didn't give it to GOG because... what, they wanted to be evil? Now that's a conspiracy theory.

Outdated just means not updated, old, forgotten. Compared to Stellaris Sid Meir's Alpha Centauri is an outdated game. Hell given how old it is alpha Centauri could be called outdated entirely. IO wanted to throw Hitman onto a store in the cheapest lazyest way possible. Updating the game to modern hardware and a new UI for the new store would take money and time after all. I don't think it's a far stretch to call IO lazy when they chucked their old game to GoG stores without bothering to update it it for said store. I wouldn't even call IOs release "evil" just, lazy.

The point is IO being lazy and selfish is on them. Saying this is a plan from GoG and they were totally involved and okay with it for some grand plan to incorporate DRM like Denuvo or Galaxy login into a game, is nothing more a conspiracy theory. My apologies for not making that a bit more clear.

I think part of why that wasnt "clear" is your earlier statement:
At least to me this did imply malicious/deceptive intent and not just laziness.

I reckon you are probably right, and they probably already made a killing here, if not quite the one they hoped for, so one can be entirely cynical about how long GOG took to stop sales of it here. Or maybe they knew what was likely to happen, and everything was done to a plan. Just another step in easing the store toward DRM.

With lack of transparency (clarity and explanation), all sorts of conspiracies can come to the fore.

I see Hitman GOTY is now on sale at IndieGala at something like 86% off.

In all likelihood they will just milk things as they are, and then maybe, just maybe, but probably unlikely, consider GOG again as a way to get more sales and revenue. With a certain saturation level though, it will be harder for them to justify making the necessary (costly no doubt) changes to the game. Profit rules all.

P.S. If GOG had stopped the sales much earlier, then the chances of the game coming here again, would have been much greater, with more customers to buy it. Presuming it would ever have come here in a proper DRM-Free state.

Here's the thing:

IIRC, these NuHitman games do online checks for all the levels the player owns. I suppose this was patched out of the gog version (or else the levels themselves would be DRMed too). This also means that theoretically, if the sequels were to show up here, there'd be no easy way for the game to perform such a check, as it would have been patched out, which would mean that gog players couldn't play 1's levels on 2 or 3's engine.

Ergo: It would probably make the most sense for gog to sell a DRM-free trilogy bundle eventually.

A lot of rebuilding to do, for sure.

It has been coming for some time. Just, stop, taking us, for idiots.

We're happy to pay your wages, if you treat us with some respect....

not only that. GWENT is also DRMed and you can't even download offline installers for that game if you're not using Windows. The page is empty on Linux because gog (or possibly IOI lol) decided to hide gog galaxy from Linux users everywhere on site. Conveniently they moved GWENT forums outside of gog store so people complaints won't be that visible for other gog users.

Yes, unfortunately I am aware of GWENT, I say "unfortunately" as it is a clearly DRMed game on this store, but thank you for bringing it up as I feel it does not get enough discussion/flak compared to what it represents here. I purposely left GWENT out of my own question there, however, because often the counterargument I get is "it's an online game, that's just how it's designed!". One would think that particularly in a topic about IOI's defective (i.e. DRMed) design of the Hitman online game, it would be ridiculous to try and make excuses for CDPR's similar "gotta be connected" design, but that doesn't necessarily stop people :)

I was not aware they moved GWENT forums as I don't think I had ever sought them out. A better solution would be to move GWENT itself off-site too, Cyberpunk off-site, any DRMed game off-site until it can be fixed to work completely DRM-free on this site. No one is saying these products can't exist (though, I would argue there shouldn't be any DRMed products anywhere and that they are objectively bad). Just if they're going to exist, they should be in a more appropriate place. If I recall correctly, GWENT is sold on mobile app stores so there's no reason it couldn't exclusively be sold there or on CDPR's own corporate page, etc.

What about games like The Division etc?

I'd love to see always-online games like The Division, GR Breakpoint, and other always-online MMO's properly re-worked into offline games, if they could figure out ways to make the game work w/ bots, AI, etc for offline mode; or re-tool the game to work w/ one player.

After the fiasco of Hitman, I hope they'll be carefull with the two last Tomb Raider games that were just patched to remove Denuvo, but Square also added Epic Online Services. And since GOG seems to be in good terms with Epic...

If you read this, GOG staff, we don't need Epic shitty services, particularly on GOG, and worse, if it require to login to an Epic account as it currently do.
Don't mess Rise of TTR and Shadow of TTR releases, be careful with Square.

Not only that (about the EOS crap getting added), but many on Steam couldn't even play single-player TR 2013, Rise of the TR, and Shadow of the TR while offline.

We need more games to have built-in offline single-player support & Achievements support built-into the engine right into the game itself.

We also need this games for installs while offline too, if need be - for these games to work and install, when not tied to the service online.

I'm really growing tired of this locking single-player progression crap that New-Hitman games are doing; the always-online crap Back 4 Blood is pulling for solo mode & that progression, stats, and/or Achievements can only be done while doing multiplayer w/ other players online; and now what TR 2013, Rise, and Shadow are doing w/ EOS to play a single-player game that you need to be always online.

This crap started with AC2 on Uplay (at least that got pulled w/ its always online nonsense) and got worse when D3 did it - and Diablo 3 PC is the worst example here, as it STILL has always-online for even when you solo.

This non-sense that Steam-versions of TR 2013, Rise & Shadow of the TR is doing to require EOS to play always-online for a single-player game is garbage. This needs to stop. And it's not like these games are new - heck, TR 2013 came out around 8 years ago or so, for crying out loud.