Adding adult games is a recent addition from my understanding so they will probably add a filter to hide adult games with an adult tag in the future.

Yeah Galaxy has been a money loser but I wouldnt write it out yet. According to CDPR's strategy update, they want Galaxy to be the foundation of their online experience strategy, using Galaxy to grow an online community for online elements they plan to add to their single-player games. Not sure what this means since the strategy presentation doesnt go into too much depth regarding their online strategy but I dont think CDPR is letting go of Galaxy anytime soon.

Ouch.

That could be announcing my exit from this Galaxy.

Possibly not enough people care about preserving games and if that is the case, that is just evolving consumer preference and nothing can be done about that. GOG bet on the wrong horse and lost. Also pretty sad for the games industry since that means great games will be lost as we get inundated with the same open-world do a million tasks games that are tedious.

Many storefronts seem to mimic steam because most users seem to want Steam features, namely the community, achievements, and access to alot of games. I personally prefer galaxy's UI to steams (easy to just download a game and play, easy to see the game's achievements list) but I know im not the norm.

And by preserving games from Steam, do you mean using steamless to remove the DRM? If thats the case, yes thats true but that isnt something steam wants to happen, given they are only selling the license to access the game.

I know that it's easier for companies to have sites like Steam sell their games but personally, I would still buy games and have them shipped to me if companies still released them in box form. I miss the days of hitting a computer store or retail store and finding a new release on the shelf.

Considering HoMM 4 was extremely poorly made and HoMM 5 more or less returned to mechanics of HoMM 3, game can hardly be called revolutionary. Besides, copying mechanics from Master of Magic isn't really revolutionary.

All my games were boxed until Steam became a forced install on every game i purchased... just became rather pointless purchasing a Boxed Disc version of it when you still had to install Steam even to play it.

Translation from PR speak into plain English real words: they intend to use Galaxy as a DRM-gate for even more games, just like they are already doing with Cyberpunk 2077.

Thats kinda what i was thinking when i read that.

Maybe true. Honestly have no idea because the discussion of their online strategy is really short so details are scant.

My assumption was they wanted to make a Witcher Online and Cyberpunk online multiplayer open world like GTA Online or Red Dead Online where they can make more money through microtransactions. GTA Online is a money printer for Rockstar to the point they honestly dont seem to care about anything else (right now the Red Dead community is up in arms about the lack of attention to Red Dead Online and I get it). Have also seen comments on the witcher subreddit about people wanting an MMORPG set in a time period when witchers were prevalent.

I can totally see a witcher online world work. Create a witcher (and can be male or female even if it breaks lore because PC), you get to do quests to hunt monsters for money, level up for abilities and grind parts for armor. Big and legendary monsters need to be taken down by groups of witchers (which you can meet through the Galaxy hub), etc. And you can use real money to buy gold.

Personally not interested in these kinds of games but I can see that such a thing could be a hit.

It should be a hit on other sites or platforms instead of on what is supposed to be a DRM-free store. Really, the fact that a company once known for DRM-free would be willing to go this direction is concerning enough. People have demanded multiplayer and online in various games over the years, but some devs have held out to keep the integrity of their visions and series intact. In an absolutely amazing example of what is certainly just coincidence, the more corporate a dev/pub gets is when we start to see their interest in themselves making this content ramp up to insane degrees, to the point that future singleplayer expansions and games get postponed or scrapped entirely. Why might that be?

It’s is true. They have said that cyberpunk was designed primarily as an online mmo (it really shows if you have ever tried playing it). If CDPR want to go that way then fine, but someone else needs to buy gog.

Although MMO/multiplayer angle is just speculation on my part, CDPR did mention in their strategy update that they want to move from their focus of AAA single player experiences to single player + online with the single player "adding another aspect to the single player DNA."

In what they envision as online, they say they want to implement "online elements in their games where it makes sense." Although they mention that they are "rethinking their MMO cyberpunk game," they are refocusing on bringing online to all of their franchises (so Witcher and Cyberpunk).

To me, this still sounds like they want to add online (and therefore DRM) elements into their games. At best, something like Mad Max where an online server provides occasional free currency or the Shadow of series where servers provide random fights against orcs as "revenge battles" since those orcs killed another player once. Even if the servers shut down (which they did for Mad Max), the impact is minimal to the single-player experience.

CDP want their own "GTA Online" cash stream

...and hopefully they will succeed. Anything that draws customers to GOG is good as it makes it easier to attract other companies to offer games DRM-free