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The end of the year and the beginning of the new one, is a very special time that allows us to take a moment to look back, and sum up everything that has happened. Those reflections are crucial in gaining more knowledge, celebrating our successes, and growing in pursuit of providing you with the very best experience while using both GOG and GOG GALAXY.

Having said that, 2022 was a year full of excitement, great new ideas, overcoming challenges, as well as finding and implementing new improvements and initiatives. And today, when we are looking back at this year, we are happy, proud and grateful. Happy, because we’ve managed to achieve goals that we’ve set for ourselves and for our community. Proud, because when facing challenges, we ended up better than we were before. And grateful, for you – our community and fellow gaming enthusiasts, because, simply, you’re the best.

Now, allow us to take you on a walk through 2022’s highlights, and see what we’ve managed to achieve together this year. But don’t worry, we’ll try to keep it short and sweet!

At the beginning of 2022, we focused on providing better platform experience for our community. We wanted to make sure that buying the game of your choosing, browsing the catalog, checking the best deals and new releases, finding hidden gems, or discovering what next to play would be as smooth and pleasant as possible. That desire manifested in releasing the new and improved catalog with more customized searches, and ability to sort and filter games by price, release date range, genres, and tags. We also made the main view in GOG GALAXY more dynamic and alive by highlighting all the events, giveaways, deals, and all the gaming goodness that took place.



Moreover, we increased our activities around classic games as a tribute to our roots. That means more classic releases, interviews with their creators, celebrating their anniversaries, adding the “Good Old Game” catalog, and more! Or, and that’s all thanks to you, gathering more than $4,000 USD for The Video Game History Foundation, which supports, preserves, celebrates, and teaches the history of video games.

Later in 2022, we raised a very important, both to you and us, topic of DRM-free gaming, our commitment to it and what it means to us. Everything we said back then still holds true and will continue to do so: the single-player mode has to be accessible offline, games you bought and downloaded can never be taken from you or altered against your will, the GOG GALAXY client is and will remain optional for accessing single-player offline mode.

Somewhere in the middle of the year, we also launched our blog! Creation of such a hub allowed us to post our editorials in a place, where its various engaging contents, filled with highlights of classic and new games, interviews, guest articles, gaming reflections and gaming’s universes deep dives, will be easy to find and always accessible through a few clicks. New editorial pieces will still appear there with even higher quality and interesting topics.



And when Halloween was just around the corner, we tackled another important topic of online-only games on GOG. We understand that some titles are meant to be played with others, and their multiplayer-only modes is also one of many beautiful gaming characteristics. Because we love games as much as you do, we wanted you to be able to scratch that multiplayer itch on GOG as well. And while we assure you that this will not influence our DRM-free approach discussed earlier, we opened our platform for online-only multiplayer games, which are marked as such on the gamecard, and we leave the decision up to you whether you want to play them.

Finally, to end the year on a high note, we’ve added new awesome feature to further improve GOG and GOG GALAXY experiences – OpenCritic implementation to our gamecards. By partnering up with one of the most renowned and respected review aggregation websites for video games, we want you to not only grasp a better understanding of games that you are interested in, but also help you make better decisions when making purchases and expand your library with titles that suit your gaming needs best.



We wholeheartedly believe that all that we’ve managed to achieve in 2022 are great steps towards becoming the favorite platform for everyone that loves, and still keeps falling in love with games. We absolutely can’t wait for all the incredibly exciting things that 2023 will bring, and we believe that for you, and with you, we are able to achieve every goal we’ll set for ourselves. Hope you all had a wonderful year, and the next one will be even better – see you in 2023!
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Lodium: The tread is essentially concluding if i have to go online to play the game or using or acuiring a dlc, cosmetic or multiplayrer feature by using a tool like galaxy , hammachi , mail, etc then that is by deffiition a drm measure
you arent offline when using those as i understand the thread
DRM-free online multiplayer is a thing too, and was actually quite common before the hegemony of Steam. Think about all these games that would allow you to host a server on your machine, what we usually called "direct IP connection".

I have no problem with multiplayer modes requiring a server, as long as I am given the ability to host an instance of said server. If on the other hand there is only a central server outside of my control, we are back into DRM territory.
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Lodium: The tread is essentially concluding if i have to go online to play the game or using or acuiring a dlc, cosmetic or multiplayrer feature by using a tool like galaxy , hammachi , mail, etc then that is by deffiition a drm measure
you arent offline when using those as i understand the thread
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vv221: DRM-free online multiplayer is a thing too, and was actually quite common before the hegemony of Steam. Think about all these games that would allow you to host a server on your machine, what we usually called "direct IP connection".

I have no problem with multiplayer modes requiring a server, as long as I am given the ability to host an instance of said server. If on the other hand there is only a central server outside of my control, we are back into DRM territory.
I dont really see online multiplayer games as drm free¨
Tooo much risk of stuff happening if you ask me
Somone can buy out the drm free feature
there can be a hostile takover
it can be hacked
you can be blocked out of your content that you have earned by progressing in the game by aquiring xp, loot, equipment, progress and tousands of hours of gameplay by a power hungry hosts, hackers that want to mess with people
People that want too screw up the gameplay for other than themself, bots etc
the list is long
Post edited January 02, 2023 by Lodium
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Lodium: using a tool like ... hammachi ... then that is by deffiition a drm measure
What? Hammachi is just a tool to make it easy to do port-forwarding for noobs.
Anything that you can do with Hammachi you can do by hand by manually changing the settings on your modem/router.
Comparing that to DRM is a complete non-sequitur.
Post edited January 02, 2023 by Blastprocessor42
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Lodium: using a tool like ... hammachi ... then that is by deffiition a drm measure
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Blastprocessor42: What? Hammachi is just a tool to make it easy to do port-forwarding for noobs.
Anything that you can do with Hammachi you can do by hand by manually changing the settings on your modem/router.
Comparing that to DRM is a complete non-sequitur.
somone can buy the hammchi tool or the rigts to it
and then force anyone that want to use it to pay a fee to use it
so while youre corect that its just a port forwarding tool the acces to it may still be restricted by a paywall

so the only way to avoid something like that to happen if you want to stay on the legal side of things is either using anoter simmilar tool that doesnt have a paywall
or just own games that only have local multiplayer and doesnt go online and back up it up before the owners of said game change or its policy change

or back up the tool before it happens but i think thats a gray area

or trust that the devs arent dickheads
or will become one

Edit
i just visited Hammachi and they are now running subscriptions
https://vpn.net/
basicly a paywall

the prices are under pricing
Post edited January 02, 2023 by Lodium
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Ganni1987: Definitely a great year for new releases and I was happy to buy so many games.

At the same time though I'm also very disappointed by GOG and CDPR in general, as if the Cyberpunk My-Rewards DRM wasn't enough, you also added it in an older game of yours. It doesn't stop there though, you're also requiring players to play one game (GWENT) to unlock content in Witcher 3.

it's a year worth remembering all in all.
Yes, in spite of GOG owning CDPR, CDPR is actually one of the worst offenders here when it comes to try hollowing out what they claim to be DRM-free. That seems like an awkward split within this company that has to be addressed.
The locking of the EGS DRM tracking thread was a slap in the face to members of the GOG community as well, admin. Especially the way you handled it: without notice nor consultation. No effort was made to help remove any linking to other platforms so that we may keep it (with conditions), you just locked the thread down in complete silence despite its existence having nothing to do with deliberately steering customers to a rival (now a partner!) platform. The thread was fostering normal gaming community cooperative information-gathering about the games we purchase and play. Often this played to GOG's favour when EGS's game versions were DRM-infested/client-locked and yours were not.

The memory of this and other thread locks still smolder in my mind. It was a move which showed very little care on GOG's behalf about the time and effort community members put into works like this, and this was done in favour of capitulating to a minority of complainants.

In other words you sided against the innocent in order to appease the guilty. I won't ever forget this.
Great year GOG, keep it rolling!

My only small requests would be:

1. Bring back GOG Mixes
2. Bring back shelf view in Galaxy - or take inspiration from other launchers (Launchbox, Playnite for example)

Otherwise, I'm overall pretty happy here at GOG
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Lodium: Somone can buy out the drm free feature
there can be a hostile takover
(…)
you can be blocked out of your content that you have earned by progressing in the game by aquiring xp, loot, equipment, progress and tousands of hours of gameplay by a power hungry hosts, hackers that want to mess with people
This can not happen with a DRM-free self-hosted server.

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Lodium: it can be hacked
(…)
People that want too screw up the gameplay for other than themself, bots etc
And this already happens with DRMed central servers anyway.
It actually is easier to avoid with a self-hosted server, because you can share it with your friends only.
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Lodium: Somone can buy out the drm free feature
there can be a hostile takover
(…)
you can be blocked out of your content that you have earned by progressing in the game by aquiring xp, loot, equipment, progress and tousands of hours of gameplay by a power hungry hosts, hackers that want to mess with people
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vv221: This can not happen with a DRM-free self-hosted server.

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Lodium: it can be hacked
(…)
People that want too screw up the gameplay for other than themself, bots etc
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vv221: And this already happens with DRMed central servers anyway.
It actually is easier to avoid with a self-hosted server, because you can share it with your friends only.
No computer is 100 % secure
all it takes is time and skill and maybe some software/tool

Sure its a lot safer
and usally one can trust the closest freinds
and its much easyer to monitor
but if somone really wanted to
it can be hacked

Heres a story from the early computer years
1988 – Kevin Mitnick
Without his own computer, Mitnik went to Radio Shack and hacked the computers and modems that were located in the store. Just like his idol, John Draper, he used social engineering and with some friends, bluffed their way past a guard into the headquarters of the telephone company and stole technical manuals at the age of 17. He was arrested and served a juvenile sentence.

In 1988, Mitnik hacked into computer giant DEC and copied details of secret software and was soon arrested and served a year in jail.

After his release, he hacked the passwords of investigators following him while he was on parole. This counted as breaking his parole and quickly a judge issued a warrant for his arrest. He spent the next two and a half years on the run and became at one point the FBIs #1 Most Wanted.

When he was finally arrested in 1995, he was held in county jail for four and a half years without a trial. In 1999, he was sentenced to five years in jail, though he had already served most of it and was released on supervised release in 2000.

Security have increased since then so its much harder to hack computers
but i woudnt say its impossible
Post edited January 06, 2023 by Lodium
GOG embracing DRM is never going to be a good year.
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Lodium: No computer is 100 % secure
all it takes is time and skill and maybe some software/tool
(…)
Security have increased since then so its much harder to hack computers
but i woudnt say its impossible
You're right, of course, but DRMed multiplayer does not really help against that.

It actually makes the game a more interesting target because you only need to hack into the central server, instead of a multitude of small distributed servers. Another argument in favour of DRM-free multiplayer, it is more resilient against hacking ;)
Post edited January 06, 2023 by vv221
I wonder what people were doing when adding a launcher for GOG spent quite some time at the top of the community wishlist, with people actively clamoring for it on different threads as well. You got what you wanted, and while not perfect by any means, it represented a sign of gog listening to the community.

The state of Cyberpunk and The Witcher are of no excuse, but I'd be willing to be more tolerant with problems caused by other companies. Most of the times, their demands are draconian and *have* to be met in order to have games released in platforms that aren't Steam. GOG is your weekend flea market in comparison to Steam, which could be seen as Amazon if we're going with the retail analogy. The launcher was a demand from companies as well, in order to check which players were actually buying their games vs who were pirating them. A great fear of companies when it comes to GOG is that their offline installers make pirating extremely easy, just drag and drop. You don't even have to take steam checks out of the code and even a caveman could do that. Ironically, indies are way, way more wary of this than AA/AAA companies, which is ridiculous since GOG would be a much better platform for indies than the landfill that is Steam.

All in all, DRM free gaming hasn't been the norm in the history of gaming, and yes, you still had forms of DRM with your "old games". In some ways DRM free gaming is a pipe dream of sorts. I'm thankful of several things GOG has done this year but I'm also wary of a lot of them. I still buy here primarily but I'm considering to migrate to Steam... I mean, I already have a Steam account and I buy there, but I dunno. Other than the SR4 situation I don't feel particularly bothered by anything else.


EDIT -- I think Daggerfall's mini scandal happened this year as well, right? Initially they took some mods away because "the modders requested it". This happened to not be true. However, I did some digging and the removal might've happened because the code used for a certain mod was taken from other code that legally belongs to the MIT!
Post edited January 06, 2023 by user deleted
high rated
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GOG.com: see you in 2023!
Not even half a month into 2023 and GOG fails to communicate the shutdown of Steam-Connect.

https://www.pcgamer.com/gog-has-quietly-killed-off-its-steam-import-service/

Good start, GOG, good start! /sarcasm
Post edited January 12, 2023 by dyscode
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dyscode: Not even half a month into 2023 and GOG fails to communicate the shutdown of Steam-Connect.

https://www.pcgamer.com/gog-has-quietly-killed-off-its-steam-import-service/

Good start, GOG, good start! /sarcasm
...And nothing of value was lost. It was a great start to end this ill-fated program if you ask me. It was a bass-ackwards program that favored Scheme customers, who would claim free copies here and still have the audacity to basically complain it was only for some games, rather than every game in their Scheme library which also had a GOG release. I don't have access to data, of course, so I am only speculating, but the rational way to look at it would be to assume the people who came over from Scheme thanks to the program didn't spend enough here.

Thinking outside the box, a better program to offer and publicize would be to occasionally give free GOG copies of games away to anyone with a GOG account, though this would need some sort of failsafe to prevent it from going to spammers...maybe an account would have to have at least a couple purchased games to qualify. In this way, people who have made some commitment to shopping on GOG would be rewarded rather than directly rewarding Scheme customers with no benefit to GOG-exclusive customers.

FCKDRM campaign was an example of a good idea...there was even an anti-DRM type of quote from "Gaben" on there iirc...let that be the Scheme-centric folks' introduction to GOG :)
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GOG.com: see you in 2023!
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dyscode: Not even half a month into 2023 and GOG fails to communicate the shutdown of Steam-Connect.

https://www.pcgamer.com/gog-has-quietly-killed-off-its-steam-import-service/

Good start, GOG, good start! /sarcasm
I don't think it's a big deal; unlike Fair Price Package when it was stopped, Connect hasn't been used for years and I'm not sure what benefit making a news post effectively saying "Hey remember this thing? It's dead!" would have for GOG's overall public relations.

We still get various game giveaways and currently people subscribed to Amazon Prime get GOG codes.

If this thread is dedicated for ranting and raging against GOG and being angrier than Angry Joe, I'm sorry for not contributing.
Post edited January 15, 2023 by tfishell