Games are so treated like a service, it's really hard for me to buy Day 1 anymore. "Release now, patch later" is the attitude - and this really doesn't benefit someone wanting to Buy on Day 1; might as well wait until things are much better.
This is often why I do not buy games Day 1 anywhere anymore. You often get the worst of the game, on Day 1 - and this is now even if it's a re-release to be done later on a certain different service.
I really miss the days when I bought a game on retail & got the same exact version without any DRM on GOG - and could just buy it on GOG, knowing nothing would be different. No achievements, no online-only stuff - just play offline and go.
We never know what can go wrong, say from porting from one version (Steam) to another (GOG) - especially if DRM got fully checked, online-only requirements, etc etc.
We've seen what happened w/ GOG version of No Man's Sky (especially in updates locking out content to not work offline) and Hitman 1: GOTY (2016 reboot), right?
And also, you might not even be able to pull your saves from one-version (Steam) to another (GOG), depending on the changes in the background w/ them making different version, re-porting, and whatnot.
Always buy later, often when games are much cheaper too - likely when most of the issues w/ DRM, etc - have been already taken care of. Day 1'ers are often unfortunately just paying Alpha Testers or paying Beta Testers.
These are going to be trying times now w/ more games leaning into proprietary online service features & things like Steamworks, Epic Store, etc - and then going to have to port them over to GOG. Dev's are going to have to re-work and/or re-port games, their features, what works offline, etc etc - more so than ever b/c of not making good offline modes for EVERY single piece of single player content, if they're going to bring this stuff properly to the GOG Crowd who loves this stuff.
I love DRM-FREE - and many of my reasons for re-buying on GOG has nothing to do w/ Galaxy and that stuff. I just want the game and ALL of its SP-style content to always work offline, w/ no need of Galaxy and no need of Internet-connected stuff. Sometimes, I ain't in a place where I can get myself Internet-connected - and I want to get this stuff going offline. This stuff doesn't always work offline w/ Steam-versions, Epic-versions, Origin-versions, etc etc.
I really love the Hitman games - and honestly, for now, I'll just stick to my old Hitman games (Hitman Codename 47, Hitman 3: Contracts, Hitman 2: SA, Hitman: Blood Money, Hitman: Absolution) that I own all over the place (some from retail, some from Steam, some from GOG, etc) and my Steam-versions of Hitman 1 and 2.
And really, I was so glad to see Hitman: GOTY (2016) come to GOG....until this. No wonder I don't buy much on Day 1; dev's, publishers, and/or services keep giving me less reasons to do so.
Post edited September 24, 2021 by MysterD