Stadia calls it quits, the Intellivision Amico, NFTs & Metaverse grift, what would you say were the finest follies of the year?

Any thread that starts like this but will inevitably dive into politics and flaming.

Blade Runner Enhanced Edition might win greatest folly.

But at least they did separate if from the original for those who wanted that.

I'm still waiting for CHASM: The Rift to be separated like that or drop enough in price.

Thanks for reminding me on its existence - to the wishlist with it.

GOG having no Linux support when the Steam Deck released is pretty bad. Users generally have to choose between their PC and their Deck if their games are on GOG. And you might say, but Steam Deck...

It is user repairable and upgradable, It is Linux and 100% customizable (I could put Windows on it should I so choose), and is a moderately powerful handheld gaming PC. It's Ironic that Valve is doing more for open source and user choice than GOG is. GOG gives you games that are DRM Free. Valve is making hardware that is, and isn't expecting you to be beholden to Microsoft and Windows to use it.

Maybe, but this is also a forum where adult games are peddled so the points may mean nothing after all

What else would you play PC games on? And GOG games work fine on Linux. You make no sense.

It would be nice if the Galaxy client supported Linux.

But the Deck is whatever. I can understand not bending over backwards for a device put out by your competitor & designed for their store. So? Valve is a huge company looking to make even more money. They don't care about you. You're delusional if you think they chose Linux because they care about users. They are big enough to enforce a no DRM policy but they won't because it would cut into their profits. They chose Linux because MS is their competitor and the Linux platform had already done most of the work for them.

The underwhelming "release" of SpaceVenture comes to mind.

The game was released almost 10 years behind the estimated time, in the messages leading up to the release they hyped the few days crunch time as an achievement, and when they finally made it available, they knew it was so bad that it's not publicly sold anywhere, so only Kickstarter backers are able to get it.

I suppose not too many people are even aware of that release, because it was almost kept secret rather than made public. It didn't help that it came out at the same time, almost on the same date, as Return to Monkey Island

Let me guess, it's another "Edge of Space" situation?

...Wait, now I remember. Two guys from Andromeda released an underwhelming nothingburger.

How many games at GOG with a Linux version, don't exist at Steam?
And how many Linux version games does Steam have?
And how many games at GOG that don't have a Linux version that is available at Steam?

Clearly if you want bigger and better support for Linux games, Steam is the place to go. Linux is almost an afterthought here, and I collect every Linux version here I can ... for the games I like anyway, so have hundreds.

While GOG provide many games with Linux versions, GOG is primarily a Windows game store, that is really all about DRM-Free, at least for single player games ... a small number of iffy ones aside. Even multiplayer is often just an added extra at GOG, and more often than not a DRM variant where it is provided.

One could pose the notion that Steam Deck is somewhat like giving a game away for free, that is very paired back, then having lots of micro-transactions, which is where they actually make their money. Similar to how cheap consoles are, but the games for them often cost a lot. So Steam clearly have some kind of not so altruistic motive I reckon.

Now I don't use Steam Deck or even care about it, so I aren't any kind of expert, but on the face of it it does not seem a suitable thing for GOG to support.

This feels more like an advertisement.

Biggest fail to me is GOG's incoherent "commitment" to DRM-free gaming while adding DRMed content to The Witcher 3 update and still (evidently) refusing to remove the DRMed content associated with Cyberpunk. Saying things to the effect of "developers can design their games how they want" (as long as the DRM and DRM-like schemes are at an arbitrary level but can be greater than "zero").

I guess it depends on perspective but stuff like Stadia doesn't even register for me. Don't get me wrong, I'm thrilled it flopped, but I'm viewing the topic from a more personal perspective as to what disappointed me. I am happy to see Stadia, NFTs, and other crap like that fail, so their failures are in effect viewed as a "success" by my perspective. Oh here was another fail: GOG locking the boycott topic as well as the topic about other (fully) DRM-free stores.

Honorable mention: whatever the heck was the deal with Hard West 2 DLC being added to accounts and now apparently removed automatically (after several users including myself wrote to Support and had ours removed manually, I assume). There's a separate forum thread or two for that one.

My Crusader Kings 2 runs.

This:
https://www.gog.com/forum/general/delisting_unreal_games_unreal_tournament_2004_ut_goty_unreal_2_the_awakening_special_edition At least the original DOS version is included, even if the price you are paying for it is unjustifiably high. If you look at other games, such as Z, where only a shoddy remake of the original is available, the current situation is still a lot better.