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General discussionBoycotting DRM and Game Censorship on GOG, 2021-2022(5216 posts) (5216 posts) 
(5216 posts) 
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This is my favourite topic
Posted January 22, 2021
And now China/Gog sends their troll armies to defend their facebook posts.


Lame, very lame GOG.
Posted January 22, 2021
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Time4Tea: 1) Release Devotion immediately.
2) Remove Gwent, No Man's Sky, Absolver (and any other DRMed games) from the store.
3) Remove DRM from the bonus cosmetics in Cyberpunk.
4) Cancel the deal with Epic.
5) Stop providing free games/incentives only to Galaxy users.
6) Assign adequate resources to maintenance of the offline installers.
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TheDcoder: I am sorry, I am new to this thread so I apologize in advance if some of these questions were already answered:
No problem. Yes, they have been discussed already in this thread and most of these list items have their own dedicated threads, where the issues have been discussed extensively. I will summarize my take on them and post links to the individual threads, where I can.

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TheDcoder: 1. Isn't Devotion being pulled out by the developer, and not by GOG?
No, it was pulled by GOG following supposedly 'many messages from gamers' asking them to pull it. No evidence of those messages has been provided and GOG have completely ignored the pleas of several thousand users who have asked for the game to be released.

https://www.gog.com/forum/general/devotion_is_coming_to_gog_on_dec_18th

https://www.gog.com/wishlist/games/devotion

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TheDcoder: 2. What's the DRM in No Man's Sky and Absolver's single player modes? (GWENT as far as I know is a multiplayer game, so I am not discussing it)
These issues are explained clearly in this thread, the first two posts of which contain lists of all the single-player and multiplayer games on GOG that are known to include DRM (those aren't the only examples):

https://www.gog.com/forum/general/drm_on_gog_list_of_singleplayer_games_with_drm/page1

Gwent contains DRM and microtransactions and clearly does not belong on GOG. I don't subscribe to the view that DRM in multiplayer games is 'ok' or 'necessary', or that CDPR should be allowed to break their rules with their own games.

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TheDcoder: 3. What kind of DRM are we talking about in Cyberpunk? How is the bonus content behind DRM? Is it a Steam exclusive or something?
Cyberpunk contains cosmetic 'reward' items that are only available after online authentication via Galaxy. That is by definition DRM, regardless of how minor or insubstantial the content may be. mrkgnao mentioned that it is only present in the Galaxy version, not the offline installer, which I wasn't aware of. Still, I think that is a worrying precedent, to have different versions of a game for Galaxy and offline. Also, it ties in with number 5, which is about rewards being given only to Galaxy users.

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TheDcoder: 4. I don't see the problem with the Epic deal as long as it doesn't hinder the DRM-free aspect
As I understand it, the purpose of the Epic deal is to allow DRMed games on their store to be sold via Galaxy. In a sense, that is similar to if GOG made DRM-free games just one 'category' on the store. It is inherently damaging to the DRM-free cause, because if developers can now reach GOG's user base with DRMed games, it will reduce the incentive for them to release DRM-free. The whole thing seems to be motivated by a desperate desire to grab a slice of the DRM pie.

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TheDcoder: 5. I have heard from my friend that only Witcher 1 was given away as a freebie for GOG galaxy users exclusively (it has been used in past campaigns as a giveaway too, it's probably the most given-away game at GOG, I also got it when I signed up for GWENT). I don't see the problem with Galaxy-exclusive giveaways as long as they are kept to a minimum, they need to promote their client somehow.
To me, how substantial the freebies are is not really relevant. It's more the principle that offends me. As a non-Galaxy user, it makes me feel like I am a second-class customer. Like they value my business less. Why should I be treated like a non-preferred customer? Am I paying less for my games than Galaxy users? If they need to promote their client, imo they should do that by emphasizing its quality and features, not by resorting to bribery.
Post edited January 22, 2021 by Time4Tea
Posted January 22, 2021
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Captainchicken84: And now China/Gog sends their troll armies to defend their facebook posts.

Lame, very lame GOG.
Why is someone disagreeing with the outrage over one game a troll? Do you even have proof that GOG sending people to defend them?

Edit:
I look at the Facebook post and people outrage over this are starting to look ridiculous.
Post edited January 22, 2021 by SuperLibby72
Posted January 22, 2021
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Captainchicken84: And now China/Gog sends their troll armies to defend their facebook posts.

Lame, very lame GOG.
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SuperLibby72: Why is someone disagreeing with the outrage over one game a troll? Do you even have proof that GOG sending people to defend them?

Edit:
I look at the Facebook post and people outrage over this are starting to look ridiculous.
Ya'know, I'd like to see what THEIR reaction would be if a game THEY were looking forward to got pulled because of "messages from many gamers"...
Posted January 22, 2021
(This is a response to Time4Tea's answer to TheDcoder's Devotion question. I'd quote but GOG chokes whenever I try.)

Even if these messages are real, canceling a release just because a bunch of people complained is a ridiculous reason. I see games get released and business practices happen in gaming that I absolutely hate ALL THE TIME. Wanna know what *I* do about it when it happens?

I vote with my wallet and I don't support that game.

What I DON'T do is get an army of trolls and bots to attack the storefront until they pull it.

I said this before and I'll say it again: Every time the release of Devotion gets fought, all it does is reignite a dead horse that was reduced to ashes a LONG time ago. In fact here's an open question for the thread: Who else only knows about this Winnie the Pooh thing because of the big deal people made of that texture? I seriously wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if at least half the memes out there were made specifically in response to this controversy.

If GOG had said these messages were threats containing personal information and GOG had to delay the release until the matter got sorted out, that'd be one thing. But canceling a release and just giving "we got a bunch of letters from gamers" only serves to make you look like you cave under the pressure of a bunch of whiney spoiled bullies.

I'm not giving them my money for this and I don't care what anyone has to say about it. Almost all the games I want are on other stores anyways and to top it off, I never even ONCE had a problem with DRM. So the DRM argument means nothing to me. If GOG wants to do the right thing and release the game while telling these spoiled brats to piss off or at least giving a GOOD reason for doing what they are doing, I'll start buying from them again. Otherwise, I'll be on Steam.


P.S. that I can't fit in post writing: What? Is the ENTIRE COUNTRY of China going to boycott GOG if Devotion gets released? Is the amount of messages received even enough to amount to a FRACTION of China, the FORTH LARGEST COUNTRY ON THE PLANET?
Posted January 22, 2021
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Captainchicken84: And now China/Gog sends their troll armies to defend their facebook posts.

Lame, very lame GOG.
yep and they started to - vote here too
Posted January 22, 2021
DRM bad, censorship even worse!
Posted January 22, 2021
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WeirdoGeek: Even if these messages are real, canceling a release just because a bunch of people complained is a ridiculous reason.
Yes, that is a good point. My working assumption is that GOG's line about 'messages from many gamers' is a load of bunk. However, even if it were true, a reasonable and proportional response would have been to block the game from sale in China. Pulling it worldwide and imposing Chinese censorship on those living in the free world is not a reasonable decision.
Posted January 22, 2021
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WeirdoGeek: (This is a response to Time4Tea's answer to TheDcoder's Devotion question. I'd quote but GOG chokes whenever I try.)

Even if these messages are real, canceling a release just because a bunch of people complained is a ridiculous reason. I see games get released and business practices happen in gaming that I absolutely hate ALL THE TIME. Wanna know what *I* do about it when it happens?

I vote with my wallet and I don't support that game.

What I DON'T do is get an army of trolls and bots to attack the storefront until they pull it.

I said this before and I'll say it again: Every time the release of Devotion gets fought, all it does is reignite a dead horse that was reduced to ashes a LONG time ago. In fact here's an open question for the thread: Who else only knows about this Winnie the Pooh thing because of the big deal people made of that texture? I seriously wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if at least half the memes out there were made specifically in response to this controversy.

If GOG had said these messages were threats containing personal information and GOG had to delay the release until the matter got sorted out, that'd be one thing. But canceling a release and just giving "we got a bunch of letters from gamers" only serves to make you look like you cave under the pressure of a bunch of whiney spoiled bullies.

I'm not giving them my money for this and I don't care what anyone has to say about it. Almost all the games I want are on other stores anyways and to top it off, I never even ONCE had a problem with DRM. So the DRM argument means nothing to me. If GOG wants to do the right thing and release the game while telling these spoiled brats to piss off or at least giving a GOOD reason for doing what they are doing, I'll start buying from them again. Otherwise, I'll be on Steam.

P.S. that I can't fit in post writing: What? Is the ENTIRE COUNTRY of China going to boycott GOG if Devotion gets released? Is the amount of messages received even enough to amount to a FRACTION of China, the FORTH LARGEST COUNTRY ON THE PLANET?
So why support companies that will work with the Chinese government to please them? How can you be upset about GOG not releasing Devotion but go back to steam?

The main issue is GOG is afraid of controversy, same with hatred. To GOG, pissing off Chinese crybabies will bring a bigger hammer down than some piss off gamers. China is known to have groups of people just for hacking and attacking western companies. By the way, I do not agree with GoG decision.
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WeirdoGeek: Even if these messages are real, canceling a release just because a bunch of people complained is a ridiculous reason.
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Time4Tea: Yes, that is a good point. My working assumption is that GOG's line about 'messages from many gamers' is a load of bunk. However, even if it were true, a reasonable and proportional response would have been to block the game from sale in China. Pulling it worldwide and imposing Chinese censorship on those living in the free world is not a reasonable decision.
Are we really free world when big tech, media and democrats been censoring anything they don't agree with?
Now we even have news like this: https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/big-tech-now-the-fourth-branch-of-government/
Post edited January 22, 2021 by SuperLibby72
Posted January 22, 2021
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SuperLibby72: Are we really free world when big tech, media and democrats been censoring anything they don't agree with?
Now we even have news like this: https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/big-tech-now-the-fourth-branch-of-government/
The free world doesn't stay free by itself. The freedom most of us enjoy and take for granted wasn't given, but won through the shedding of countless swimming pools worth of blood. It is constantly under siege from those who would subjugate and enslave us by stealth (usually the rich and powerful).

This is why we all need to stand up for our freedoms and vigorously defend them, whenever they are threatened.

Note: having said that, by 'defend our freedoms' I mean through peaceful protest, democratic action and choosing who and what to support and how we spend our money, not through violence. I also don't want this thread to get sidetracked into a wider political discussion.
Post edited January 22, 2021 by Time4Tea
Posted January 22, 2021
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Time4Tea: I would like to announce that I have decided to boycott GOG for 2021. This is in response to several decisions the site has made over the past year that I believe have been deeply misguided:

Firstly, the continued slippage of GOG's DRM-free values. The promise of 100% DRM-free is what the site was originally founded on and yet GOG seem to be allowing this principle to be increasingly eroded. The games No Man's Sky and Absolver are two examples of games that include single-player DRM, which GOG is aware of and has failed to address. CDPR also seem to continue to believe the rules on GOG don't apply to their own games, firstly with Gwent and more recently the DRMed single-player rewards built into Cyberpunk. In addition, GOG's recent deal with Epic appears to be a cover for GOG to start selling DRMed games.

Next, the continued heavy pushing of Galaxy and the lack of maintenance of the offline installers. Several times in recent months, GOG has given incentives only to Galaxy users in the form of bonus content or free games. This has the effect of making non-Galaxy users feel like second-class customers. Also, there many well documented cases of GOG neglecting to update offline installers, even though they are updating the Galaxy versions, so they clearly have the updated files. This is not acceptable - offline installers are the core of the DRM-free concept. All of this points to a worrying trend which may ultimately lead to GOG abandoning offline installers entirely and making Galaxy mandatory.

Lastly, the recent debacle with Devotion. I won't repeat everything that has been said about this in other threads, but GOG's decision to be complicit in imposing Chinese censorship on non-Chinese users is simply unacceptable. The game needs to be released on GOG immediately.

Actions I would like to see GOG taking:

1) Release Devotion immediately.
2) Remove Gwent, No Man's Sky, Absolver (and any other DRMed games) from the store.
3) Remove DRM from the bonus cosmetics in Cyberpunk.
4) Cancel the deal with Epic.
5) Stop providing free games/incentives only to Galaxy users.
6) Assign adequate resources to maintenance of the offline installers.

For me to make any purchases on GOG this year, #1 needs to happen and at least a couple of the others. I.e. I want to see clear signs of a change in trajectory of the site, away from it's current misguided direction towards being a weak Steam competitor and back towards the principles it was founded on. I had been planning to spend $150-200 on GOG this year, but instead I will be spending that at Zoom Platform, to help build up a viable DRM-free alternative store.

Is anyone else intending to boycott GOG? Who is with me?

(current as of post #707)
1) Release Devotion immediately. have no idea what this game but if the game came out without the chinese government censorship in the first place then i can't see why it would be on the game outside of china
2) Remove Gwent, No Man's Sky, Absolver (and any other DRMed games) from the store. no man sky has been a shit show from the start still have no interest in the game
3) Remove DRM from the bonus cosmetics in Cyberpunk. i agree with the 100% DRM free that was why i joined all those years ago
4) Cancel the deal with Epic. don't like Epic anyway so so why not
5) Stop providing free games/incentives only to Galaxy users. why? I get free games and incentives without using galaxy have done for years
6) Assign adequate resources to maintenance of the offline installers. this is a given to any company that has this function but not boycot worthy

there are only 2 reasons i see from this list that i could consider boycott worthy but I'm still not interested because I know that in reality more and more publisher are hiding behind their own version of steam and locking down more of their content.at the end of the day GOG has always been fighting an up hill battle.

oh and if you want to get back to what GOG was like in the GO days then you wont have any new games ever and all current new games would be removed too.
Post edited January 22, 2021 by camdy
Posted January 22, 2021
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fronzelneekburm: Where'd this thread go? :P

https://www.gog.com/forum/general/does_gog_employ_any_actual_customer_service_people/page1

I guess the OP got his answer. xD
Imagine how users must feel.....they try to get a support ticket through, which might get delayed for a month or so....then when they make a thread on the forums to bring that to the attention of staff they either have the thread locked while being told to read a PR spiel sticky thread, OR their thread gets yeeted entirely.

And then some other people (for some reason) still wonder why we criticize GOG and feel the way we do sometimes.

=-=-=

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Hexchild: Why?
Because stores try/want to make profit, and one way is by promoting their own goods and services.....many stores including non game stores do this.

(of course i'd like to see non-galaxy users also shown some good/fair treatment as well)
Post edited January 22, 2021 by GamezRanker
Posted January 22, 2021
(Again, I can't quote due to the comment being too big for GOG to process.)

@SuperLibby72 regarding how I can support Steam and not GOG:

The only time Steam ever pulls games off their storefront, it's because the developers requested it and not because a bunch of trolls flooded their inbox.

Case in point, as has been mentioned a few times already, the reason Devotion was pulled from Steam was because Red Candle themselves requested it. It wasn't because the store was hit by a bunch of whiny e-mails. The reason it hasn't been put back on is because as first, Red Candle didn't want it to be known as "That game with the Winnie placeholder" and know, if I have my facts right, it's because of a situation with their Steam publisher.

Red Candle's other game, Detention, is still available on there (complete with OST even) despite the fact that it got review bombed to Hell and back by Chinese "gamers" following Devotion's pulling. Pretty similar to this situation really, yet Steam still has a Chinese market despite keeping it on there. Odd, that.

Also, I don't have a problem with wanting to have a Chinese market or even blame this on the entirety of China. In fact, a good chunk of the country probably wants to play the game too! I understand the point of that comeback. Businesses aren't supposed to be your good buddies, they're there to make money. I just hate the "many gamers" responsible for this garbage.

In a choice between the two, to give my blunt and honest opinion, Steam is the far lesser of two evils here and the place where I have most of my stuff set up.

Edit: Also, I've refunded games on Steam before and the longest I ever had to wait was a business day.
Post edited January 22, 2021 by WeirdoGeek
Posted January 22, 2021
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Captainchicken84: And now China/Gog sends their troll armies to defend their facebook posts.

Lame, very lame GOG.
Tbh I think it's more GOG's move to just delete posts from social media stuff....not troll. If anyone is trolling on those posts it's likely either CCP supporters happy with the devotion decision or just random trolls on those sites trying to stir the pot. My advice, as such, is to ignore them. :)
Posted January 22, 2021
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If Devotion is someday available in GOG I am to boycot it.

I have seen a lot of idiocy in my life but this is incredible.
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This is my favourite topic
Community
General discussionBoycotting DRM and Game Censorship on GOG, 2021-2022(5216 posts) (5216 posts) 
(5216 posts)