Thank you for replying. It's always interesting to see other peoples' points of view.

So, for you, even if, over time, 50% of GOG's catalogue becomes fully DRM'd, but GOG still kept the offline installers, you will continue buying here?

Out of curiosity, do you buy games elsewhere? Steam? Epic? Humble?

Not buying hitman is best thing the customer can do. Show GOG DRM lite games are not welcome.

To anyone hoping they'll fix this, they won't. This game's had content locked behind its online mode since release, why should something change now all of a sudden?
Plus, apparently quite a few of the user base don't give a shit, the game is number 1 on the bestselling list. which is a damn shame. :/

Edit2: I gave the game 1 star and will now try to forget this games existence. And again, a disclaimer would be nice since the description of this being DRM-free is misleading/not true.

Lots of people probably don't know about the DRM or read GOG forums. Some people see game they like and buy it blindly.

Let's be honest: DRM has more or less won (in the AAA game company sphere) and will likely be around for quite some time....even if a handful don't buy DRM games on stores like GOG.

(that is one of the reasons why I just strip out the DRM out of any DRM laden games I buy to make my own DRM free backups)

A lot of those people might think it was finally made into an offline game, and will refund when they find out otherwise. That's probably the only thing that could turn this around really, a deluge of refunds. We shall see.

Really!

All those little dirty arguments of yours, how people "getting used to DRM" doesn't matter.

There is a big elephant in the room, for GOG buying power being stance for defending and promoting DRM-free. Once you get rid of it, like Hitman(2016) openly does, it would be big slap in the face for the customers. With newspaper headlines about failure of DRM-free cause for biggest DRM-free pillar.

One thing is some GOG employee writes this BS about acceptance of online-locked content. Absolutely different thing, is when GOG actually does it. There is nothing moderate about Hitman(2016) DRMed GOG release, and if you think otherwise - you're out of touch with reality.

There are lots and lots of people who support and buy games here because it helps pushing DRM-free cause. A collective power of voting with your wallet. What GOG is doing now is outright treachery.

Lol, ok FateIsOneEdgelord.

Then saying "DRM FREE" on the store page is false advertising.

Please remove the game from the store until this is fixed.

GOG's big deal is that games supposed to come DRM-FREE here. Period. Galaxy and online services should NEVER be required for content I can play by myself, all alone w/ no other players.

The problem is: well, that ain't always the case; and GOG always sold on the part of games being DRM-FREE.

If a game comes to GOG - it seems like there now needs to a be a description of exactly what parts of the game are what on the game page: what's Single Player offline; Single Player online-only; Multiplayer via LAN; Multiplayer via GOG Galaxy; etc etc.

For example, for Hitman 2016 it sounds like it should read like this on the store page:
Single Player offline - Story Mode and Bonus Missions.
Single player online-only - Escalation missions, Elusive Targets or user-created Contracts.

Stuff needs to be clear, if they're going to do stuff like this and let stuff like this onto the store, so the buyer's informed.

Of course, this is supposed to be DRM-FREE Store - so, it should never come to that in the 1st place.

I would expect as more games lean into online services and especially proprietary ones (like Steam has, GOG, UPLAY, etc) w/ like Achievements, Cloud Saves, Stat-Keeping/Leaderboards - these things could become required, not optional....as in you'll need to be online entirely for the game to actually function, whether single-player or not.

These things listed in my previous paragraph should ALWAYS be optional; and these games should still work offline with local saves to your PC and save offline.

Many people are comparing Q1/Q2 from 2020 to 2021. The issue here though is the situation that happened in 2020, the global lockdown took place during this time in Q1/Q2 2020 so online purchases increased substantially at the beginning as people were grabbing things to keep themselves busy, nearly every online store posted higher than normal profits during this time. On top of that early 2020 saw a wave of attention on The Witcher series from the Netflix series which caused a huge sales boost for The Witcher 3 (The game also released on Switch in that period which boosted CDPR).

By Q1 2021 lockdowns in many places had ended and people were trying to return to normal so naturally that sales boost would go down

Not saying people are wrong that it wasn't as good, just saying it may not be because of any boycotts or bad business decisions alone.

Yeah, I think silence will be our answer fo the next couple days (followed by a half-assed answer/explanation), but what can you do. :P
A wave of refunds might actually happen, with there not being a mention of all the missing content (before someone mentions it, there's more missing than the store page lets on) on the store page and all.

then it's even less meaningful, especially if they calculate with the base price instead of the reduced prize.
i could imagine that refunds are also not considered.

You've yet to know the worst, man. Offline singleplayer in Hitman(2016) is a mocking joke, an open insult. Because game's progression is locked behind online-only. You can't even have items and inventory unless you connect to online DRM.
And user-generated content? It's locked behind online-only as well.
For the fact mistreatment doesn't end when you opt-in into online services. Because if you have unstable internet connection you'd be thrown out of the game all the time. This is the worst anti-consumer DRM that quickly eats on your nerve.

Want another fun fact about GOG's release of the game? GOG release has no difference from Steam release. Literally. Game has been on bigger discount on Steam already, and given away for free on Epic.
People have waited 5 years for GOG release for nothing.