I appreciate what you are 'trying' to do. HOWEVER, anyone with sense would not team up with Amazon for anything.(least of all use AWS/their cloud services for anything you truly care about) Why? Look what they did to Parlor. I cancelled Prime after they pulled the rug out of Parlor to silence free speech (likely in conclusion with the government, an issue that is going to the Supreme Court right now) It would be smarter to build your own platform for Cloud gaming or find a way to partner with Rumble. I could see how you might THINK that something like this relationship could not have ill consequences down the road. Most people my age cannot believe that a GREAT MANY topics are controversial in the slightest right now. But here we are. What I am saying is, these people do not deserve your business. I assure you, they need you more than you need them. Amazon is way too powerful. That is never good for the little guy. Never. Just my two cents. Just don't get too mixed up with these folks. It's bad mojo.

... and there's the Hitler reference. Godwin's law has taken effect and we can officially close this thread.

Late to the party but... Never heard of it before (or heard and successfully forgot:) => another stuff that is not important for me.
Love the "work" around with offline installers. This is enough for me. Keed it forever DRM free and I'll be there as well.
Thanks

Dude, you are not only arrogant, but also ignorant. My last Thinkpad cost well over 4000 EUR, and it won't even run recent games at anything close to max. This was because I wanted to use it not only for work, but also for gaming, and still keep it relatively mobile. Virtually all people I know who don't work from home (and even quite a few who do) don't even have a stationary PC, because they don't have space in their flats to dedicate solely to a computer/work. If you haven't noticed, we are living through a serious worldwide housing crysis, with rent and prices going through the roof.

You either have problems with reading comprehension or don't even read the posts you replly to: I even told you I already own a Steam Deck, but many games don't play well on a tiny screen, or with such limited controls. I also literaly said that offline installers are GOG's USP, that oftentimes I buy games for the second time here for that reason. The fact that you can't see the benefit of something or don't want something doesn't mean others don't, the world does not revolve around you.

(I just tried fckdrm.com and it redirected to GOG. Has it been that way ever since the campaign ended or is this relatively new?)

I can understand how people see this as GOG boiling / continuing to boil the frog in regards to DRM. I also see GOG as a company with something like less than 1% market share (making ~$48 mil, and ~$2 mil in profit, last year compared to the billions spent on PC gaming in general), so I'm willing to try to be understanding when they try something new like this. They aren't in a position to just sit still like Steam is. So if this will somehow get GOG's name out there more and potentially bring in new people, and ideally help GOG gain clout and somehow get more AAA titles here including of course DRM-free installers of those games, all right, cool.

But at the same time of course I hope GOG is doing stuff like working on a solution for the issue some people have apparently had with the God of War installer. These things take time so I think some patience for this matter is worthwhile.

I imagine GOG has already tried by now, but it'd be cool if Reflexive Entertainment titles could show up here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reflexive_Entertainment (They were bought by Amazon back in '08 and merged into Amazon Game Studios, at least according to the Wikipedia article.)

Reflexive's Zax - The Alien Hunter has over 1k votes - https://www.gog.com/wishlist/games/zax_the_alien_hunter

I don't like this.

There is not a single Big Tech company that would be interested in preserving the GOG way. Not just the user and ownership friendly nature, but also the freedom (of speech, thought, opinion and expression) of it's users.

I read the full post, I understand that you say it would be "just" a new option/feature. But what I started wtih is why I don't like GOG going anywhere close to one of them. The nature of the deal is irrelevant.

I also missed the part of the linked blog post where you'd assure us that Amazon wouldn't get access to our user data - at least those who don't choose to use this "feature". Same about some assurrance that we wouldn't get annoying amazon ads (to clarify, all ads are annoying).
Don't point to some book lenght legal text, write it there - if that's the case. It could've been done with one or two sentences...

I'm adding my "voice" to the crowd of worried people.

However you want to spin it, siding with any GAFAM (AKA privacy-trampling) companies can only be cause for concern (no, I'm not happy with the Google crap already in use in GOG's website; yes, I block it all).

Even if (and that's a big IF) there's no Amazon scripts/CDNs/XHR/whatnot added to GOG at any levels, if you allow me a couple idioms: that's poking the bear and letting the fox guard the henhouse.

I indeed find it funny (read: sad) that the claim is that "GOG will remain DRM-free" (which supposedly protects us from intrusive software-"protection" technologies), all the while they'll be working with yet another company that is all about being intrusive to its users' (and even the world's, at large ?) privacy/use of personal data/you name it...

The future looks bleak(er ?).

It's an opt-in. You go to luna.amazon.com (or co.uk, or whatever), log in to your plain ass account (I don't have Prime), and then link your GOG account. You can't link GOG yet, but you get the point. I have just linked my Epic account, without subscribing to anything or creating any new accounts, but I don't have any games on Epic. If you don't want Amazon to know anything about your games, you simply don't link your account. GOG cannot share your data with Amazon without your permission (at least for EU customers, can't say about ROTW). I guess we'll need to read carefully the next changes to our agreements.

Remember you can make a new amazon account solely for Luna if you don't want Amazon to link your GOG account to your amazon purchases. You'll need to run them from separate browsers, and use something like Libre Wolf or Brave in the first place, but that's true for all accounts everywhere you might have. Amazon tracking cookies or scripts on GOG don't even matter. People who care about these must already use special browsers or many privacy plugins with custom scripts to defend from them, and everyone else's information is fully transparent to all corpos anyway.

As far as I can see, Luna itself is free; you need to pay subscription for Luna+ if you want to play games you don't own, but if you bought a game on Epic (or, in the future, GOG), it seems that you can play it for free (otherwise it wouldn't make much sense). Can someone confirm it? The easiest way would be to link your Epic account if you have any games there, and see if you can launch one.

If I am mistaken, then the whole deal is indeed meh at best. But an ability to play PC games for free, presumably from my iPad for example, is great. I just hope it doesn't cost GOG much.

The naysayers contradict themselves. Many devs who otherwise could/would sell their games on GOG do not do so simply because they deem sales here won't cover the cost of adapting/uploading their games (their words, not mine, I can't vouch for it). That is, oftentimes it's not DRM-free that's the issue. If we want GOG to have more games, GOG has to sell more games and earn more to implement features which might change the devs' minds (or pester them). The market for DRM-free offline installers without added features is, sadly, not large enough for GOG to have a bargaining position. Anything that means they sell more games is great for me.

It's like cosmetic DLCs. Many people hate them, and even declare they won't buy a game which has them, but I see it as an additional revenue for the devs coming from those who care not about money or simply want to tip them. I don't feel like I'm missing anything by not buying them, and they cost the devs basically nothing. More money == better games (fewer bugs), at least in principle.

I didn't see any mention of data sharing with Amazon which is concerning.

What, if any, user data or info will gog be sharing with Amazon?
if there is going to be some sharing then will it be opt in?
Will gog be allowing Amazon to add it's own tracking cookies etc to their site?

This is a pretty complicated topic because there are, as always, pros and cons... and hopefully the "pros" can outweigh the "cons".

The main issue simply is, on PC, Steam is owning almost the entire market and "the Others" can only really survive or last "well" if they in some way try to become united... OR... if they are serving a extremely high niche market... for example "small Indies only". Neither GoG, EGS nor those cloud-service providers such as "Amazon Luna" are niche enough in order to serve a market almost without direct competition to the mainstream-market. So, in some way, those 3 distributors i already named are not really niche, but at the same time will have to provide some "alternate options" able to become a "alternate value" vs. the by far most huge platform. If they just try to be "Mini-Steam"... it will be a failure... as no one will need it. So, they need a own identity giving some "unique value".

There is the other issue that those "alternate distributors" can not really stay totally niche, yet... do not own a market share big enough in order to make it absolutely worth it for nearly any publisher. At the current time, either they are at the mercy of the publishers or... have to give nearly self sacrificing conditions for making it happen to them.

So, it makes sense for them trying to "unite" in order for handing out some "package" nearly unable to face resistance by many gamers and publishers. Well, the story of Stadia is well known... a mighty company in theory was failing... and i am even glad for various reasons (i will not spell it out... it will become hurtful). I do not even think cloud-gaming is the future... well... not by itself... but indeed, i have to be realistic and there IS a demand for it up to a certain level. Although, the demand is not sufficiently strong in order to let "Amazon" just steamroll over anyone else... and "go their own way"... but it is sufficiently strong in term there is some meaningful cooperation which can give some additional value for everyone.

I worry... and this is the con... that the "DRM free gaming approach" may lose even more power... yet this is not even certain because cooperation also could mean gaining more market share, which is the thing GoG (and yes... Amazon or EGS too) will need the most. The pro is that in theory it could lead to more support in general, for those that are already somewhat struggling. If wise decisions are being made... it may not be a bad thing but it is a very sensitive topic and it is very important for anyone involved STAY UNIQUE... do not let go this unique approach and do not try to be some "backup of a big ruler"... if this can be executed properly..,. with the own unique approach; guess it could lead to some open potential. I say "IF"... because this is critical... staying true to the own approach, even when united in some way.

I understand where you're coming from, and that seeing GOG veer away from its original principles with mainstream industry practices might be disconcerting and dangerous for many.
I also find it regrettable that the offline installers are not sufficiently highlighted and explicit enough for newcomers; many don't understand this .exe/.bin system.

I'm happy with any colab that will bring more AAA games to GOG.

Ironically "devs don't sell here because store-specific features need adapting for, so even more store-specific features will persuade them" is a literal contradiction in itself. You're correct that it isn't DRM-Free that's the only reason we don't have more games here. But it also isn't store features either. Almost no publishers are waiting for "GOG Streaming" to bring games to GOG they otherwise wouldn't have. The bulk of the time it's rights issues. You could sit there taking a selfie of yourself streaming a stream of you streaming a game whilst wearing a GOG T-shirt and the biggest "I Love Amazon" hat you find, and it still won't bring Age of Empires, No One Lives Forever, etc, here any quicker.

GOG's real problem isn't features, it's Support Fatigue, ie, many publishers just don't want to support more than 1-2 PC stores (and they pick the biggest ones (Steam, Epic) first. PC used to be the platform, ie, "I own the game on PC" was all that needed to be said. Thanks to Valve, Steam became a "closed software console within a (formerly open) hardware platform". Now every other store wants to follow suit and the result is a hugely fragmented mess. No matter what features very small stores add, many publishers just don't want the burden of 15x patches turning into 150x uploads per game by selling on 10 different stores. That is the real-world bottom line. "All we need to do is make GOG Achievements, and a GOG Deck and GOG Streaming and they'll soon change their mind" is 100% wishful thinking.