That could prove difficult, seeing it is no longer available on the GOG store.
Upvoted.

LOL at all the low-rating every post. Sorry, corporate fanboys. The customers have a legitimate gripe and it is still essentially UNresolved as, despite the removal, we need to know how the game ever got here in the first place and what GOG's stance is on DRM going forward/for our existing games.

Honestly I don't understand why some peoples act like if it is some sort of unresolved millennia old mystery or weird conspiracy.

The game is playable from beginning to end while being offline so Gog considered it was "good enough" to be sold here. They underestimated the amount that was online only (i.e. the extra costumes, alternate starting route, etc...), it was a mistake, peoples rightfully complained about it and therefore they removed the game... then end.

Again nothing magic, strange, impossible to understand. Hopefully next time they will be more cautious, double check or better ask peoples opinions in case there are some doubts.

I see no way to prove your assertion that GOG "underestimated the amount that was online only". How do you know that is what happened, instead of "GOG knew the amount that was online only but tried to push it through anyway"? Weren't you one of the lucky ones who visited GOG HQ? But I doubt you were privy to their reasoning here :)

Since we don't know one way or the other what happened, it would be useful to have further explanation from GOG so that we have a clearer sense of what this store even is. I know the DRM-free branding has been eroded here at GOG (and people have constantly made excuses for why that "had" to happen) but this game was quite the leap.

And, again, if it is apparently okay to sneak through this release (regardless of whether that was IO or GOG responsible), we need clarification on whether our existing games (that is, not necessarily new releases) are going to be safe from such "improvements" and "developer decisions" in updates.

It's just that often the most obvious and logical answer is the correct one. We know that Gog don't care about online content as long as it does not impact in a significant way the single player, for example the "un-lockable" weapons or skins, they mentioned it multiple times. So it is not far fetched to consider it is most likely what happened for Hitman (especially given how subjective what is "significant" or not might be).

The thing is that you cannot really have such guarantee because nobody knows not even Gog, maybe in 20 years they will still be DRM-free maybe in one month they will be sold to Apple and all games will requires an ITune account to run.

But the good thing with DRM-free is that you shouldn't have to care about that because the main interest of DRM-free is to allow you to make backups; so even if tomorrow Gog decide to censor and add always online DRM to all their games, your backups will be safe.

As a number have already said...

... wish this was resolved (or in process) and communicated to the community by now. Hoping for a positive response... but it may very well never officially be mentioned again.

Ah, I think I have now identified our source of disagreement...to me, the logical path GOG is taking is that of increasing DRM, so when I am taking the simplest conclusion, I am left feeling it was likely GOG is responsible for the state of the release. I guess we can leave that at that.

If you don't mind me asking, what do you think about the earlier point I and others have raised about GOG's duty to test games offline? In other words, if we give the benefit of the doubt to GOG and opine it was all IO sneaking online DRM in or something, doesn't this still reflect poorly on GOG, just in a different light? Put another way, even if GOG was not (directly) responsible for the DRM, isn't it nonetheless a sort of negligent thing to not ensure the game doesn't contain it? To take another example, the DLC of Deus Ex Mankind Divided initially was such that you needed to be on Galaxy for it to work (i.e. DRM). Now, I could understand the testing staff missing something like if you play an entire game and only after 50 hours is there some new content that happens to be hidden behind Galaxy, but when it's as simple as clicking a button on the main menu (as was the case in that Deus Ex example), it really calls into question the level of care being given to make sure releases work offline.

Um, why can't we have such a guarantee? The gamepages on this site have the sidebar about "100% DRM-free". That's basically like a guarantee but in the face of so many releases that have content locked behind DRM, I would like a more firm commitment and clarity of their definitions. As for GOG going out of business or being bought by another company, I believe that is not really relevant to the discussion as we are talking about the here-and-now. Were something like that to happen, obviously the guarantee would no longer be expected to continue, but in the meantime, I don't see why there can't be one. After the customer trust massively eroded with this Hitman Lame of the Year release, this would at least be a small step in the opposite direction. I agree about the advantage of DRM-free backups in case of such circumstances though again I feel that is also a bit off the mark as to the point I was making.

I don't think Gog is trying to "increase DRM", more that "online content" is increasing in games, often for stupid reasons that have nothing to do with DRMs, and that Gog is trying to find where to draw the line between what is acceptable and what is not for them and their customers and for Hitman they failed.

I think I have given my opinion on this subject multiple times in multiple threads: Gog should definitely make sure that games works both on Galaxy and offline installers, period.

If anything it should be especially true for offline installers as the Galaxy version is supposed to be the "less tested" version uploaded directly by the devs while the offline installer is supposed to be the version that when through Gog QA. Of course mistakes can happen but they need to be corrected ASAP.

This guarantee is only for "today" not for "tomorrow", you were asking about guarantees that your games wouldn't be modified to add online requirement / content in the future via update and that that's something nobody can give you because nobody knows for sure.

If you want an example you have NMS, the game was 100% offline when it was released and it remained that way for years. But then devs started adding more and more online content (some of this content was originally promised but that's another discussion) until, four years after release, we had the controversy of the daily missions and some currency that was online only.

That's a fair observation but as you seem to acknowledge there, GOG has control here. They don't "need" to accept games with anything locked behind online content (along the same lines, they didn't "need" to partner with Epic Fail to sell DRMed Epic Fail games through some app/store on GOG Galaxy 2.0). Of course, this is under the assumption that they care about being what people want in a DRM-free store, instead of seeking to lock their own content behind online requirements such as with Cyberpunk "My Rewards".

Here is the problem: even if granting for the sake of argument that GOG has the best intentions, by accepting any games with content locked behind online, they are trying to have their cake and eat it too. In other words, the line needs to be something like "the oil rig test" (i.e. can you take the offline installer, go out to sea, and play all the content of the game?) and not accept less. Anything else is ripe for brand confusion. Which is simpler to a prospective customer:
a. This store is DRM-free ; or,
b. This store is DRM-free, except for all these examples of DRM or psuedo-DRM ?

I know people argue that the more we go into the future, the more games will have the online content. I think that doesn't need to be a self-fulfilling prophecy, but regardless, there are several games that were apparently rejected, which would at least account for the ability to add more games to the store right now were curation to change its mind.

So, would you agree that GOG is at fault for not knowing the amount of online content within the Hitman Lame of the Year release? As, had they tested offline, it would be very apparent? Also, I am not sure how it works in terms of contract agreements etc but I don't feel the situation here was corrected ASAP. The situation with another game, where users are boycotting GOG after it got removed/cancelled the same day it was supposed to come here, is more what I would call "ASAP".

Yes, I am, because in theory this is under GOG's control. They don't have to accept online requirements/DRM in updates and in fact have removed games in the past for similar reasons (Wolcen changing into some type of online game, For the King DLC being part of the DRMed version and not on this store, etc).

Yes, and I'm saying it should have remained that way for perpetuity, not just a few years. If the devs want to add online content, they should provide an offline equivalent for GOG users and let people on other stores/platforms enjoy the online, since those aren't supposed to be DRM-free places. Due to the amount of compromises GOG has made with DRM and these online requirements (it's okay as long as it's only multiplayer, it's okay as long as it's only cosmetic content, etc). I recognize that GOG has no leverage to negotiate so really what I'm saying is that offending games should be removed until fixed, and if not fixed, kept off the DRM-free store.

-sigh- For crying out loud. 47 pages deep, so much verbiage, and almost all of it unnecessary.

Dear all parties involved,

The release is a messed up pile of crap. DRM-free gamers will be understandably pissed given that the developers have evidently started huffing from a makeshift cauldron of industrial solvents until they forgot what making the content of a game DRM-free truly means. No online garbage, no check-ins, no whatever, just pay for the game, play the game, get the content from beginning to end, that's it.

Also, because it bears mentioning, since you chose to bind yourself to this garbage festival, GOG, you're essentially one half of the conjoined twin combo in this debacle. Either figure things out to at least try to salvage some reputation and professional dignity, or bludgeon your DRM-free impaired twin with a proverbial kayak oar until it stops moving, beg forgiveness from all sides and lean into a whole lot of game refunds after you remove it from the store all together.

Edit: Go figure, one of the few times I feel compelled to talk, I forget to see that the game has already been removed. Personal mistake aside (apologies for that), it might be of interest to consider that I was so out of touch with the title after reading of how poorly its presentation to GOG went that even though I own all the old titles, I didn't see that this one had been wiped out.

Since Back 4 Blood is actually going to get patched w/ Offline Solo Mode with Progression, there's no reason this can't be done w/ Hitman 1: GOTY....and the future Hitman games too.

I'm not going to be a test lab rat for these developers and pub's, releasing games on Day 1 on its original service especially for full MSRP; and/or even now GOG releases.

This isn't the old days when we got full games in boxes out-the-gate. These are the days when games are always-online and then get solo progression mode patch to work offline later (i.e. see Back 4 Blood, which gets its new patch in December to remedy that). These are the days when the true-endings for games are locked behind DLC's - DA: Inquisition with Trespasser DLC and Mass Effect 3 with Citadel DLC, I'm looking at you.

I could trust GOG Releases to be totally DRM-FREE before Galaxy existed and for the games to work offline DRM-FREE style, but....can we really do that anymore? [shrug]

We got more & more games on GOG, having issues on Day 1 of their release somewhere b/c all these games lean into services like Steamworks, UPlay, Epic Store, etc etc; and even instances where base-games works without the service but DLC's requiring client-app's to run elsewhere before the GOG Release - and then we wonder why Dungeon Siege 3 DLC didn't work out the box for GOG...b/c they didn't test it without Galaxy or even try to do so.

Can we trust develops/pub's and also GOG after Hitman 1: GOTY? The complaints No Man's Sky had for a while while locked single-player content behind Galaxy? Locking rewards for Cyberpunk behind Galaxy?

I'd say: "Nope, can't trust 'em."

I'd rather let the game be out into the wild for a bit, see what hardware games runs on, see if performance is good, see if reviews are good, see if GOG version has issues (or not) - and then be informed....and go from there. And if they need to fix it, let them fix it first.

I don't think downvotes will stop the GOG doubters from watching this topic, because GOG simply hopes that this absolute failure is forgotten, it was that bad. Playing dumb doesn't work any more.

What? Has anyone ever cared about downvotes? It's usually more about pleasing the third party and providing a measurable metric to work with. There are precious few times I've seen them actually effect the speaker on -any- platform. this has not been the case here. I'm still seeing conspiracy theories and gross false equivocation without restraint, and I never pretended it was going to stop.

But then again, what do you expect when you spout malicious claims of conspiracy without evidence.

I agree, it would be nice if you stopped doing that. I don’t have high hopes though.