When was the last time GOG actually admitted that they made a mistake? I guess the last time I read this was when they dropped the idea of integrating Galaxy into every offline installer.
I second this.

I think the last time was during the mess that was that one Hitman game that was very heavily drmed that got em backlash not just on here but even by large enough youtubers and even made some news articles about Gog having a still big online only drmed game factor

In any case we can agree that this is extremly rare ... unfortunately.

Ya we can agree on that for sure I just was saying as I don't recall the ''Galaxy baked in offline installer debacle '' but I might have missed it if I was a member when it happened .. But ya Gog admitting they are wrong or did a mistake is rare even the Hitman matter was a sorta half admittance where they kinda tried to put most of the blame elsewhere while admitted they just seen if it launched without Galaxy and that was it pretty much

Installed and played the Preservation version of Dragon Age: Origins to see what the issues are..... and everything played fine for me. No stuttering no frame skips, had everything at max settings and everything was perfectly fine. Running on a Ryzen 9 3900x 12-core processor × 24 threads.

If you don't have the source code from the original prog, aren't proficient in that language, and not really an experienced SW designer/programmer in general, and just try to mod a part someone else's product, without having a good grasp of the overall logic, and then, most of all, playtest, playtest, playtest, the final product before release, which is now largely a lost art, anyone who buys this is letting themselves in for a whole lotta disappointment and frustration. Caveat Emptor!

And unfortunately that's as far as the GOG staff will admit as well. As you and everyone else knows well "It worked fine on our machine(s)" doesn't mean it doesn't have issues on other people's rigs. Nice to hear someone who didn't have issues though - sometimes all we hear is those who yell the loudest.

The pre-preservation versions had the advantage of being tried and tested for absolute years with community/player fixes devised and documented over that time. GOG's patch was always going to affect someone, only this time they're the ones completely responsible for their own customer base having issues... and rather than admitting "whoops, it needs more work - here's both versions while we debug this problem", they're just sticking with what they came up with. Which is to say not suitable for all GOG customers.

If they are understaffed and can't possibly devote immediate attention to their preservation versions, then they need to offer the pre-preservation version to their customers as an interim alternative. "Our patch is better" and then not addressing quickly the problems which arose is not going to cut it with an already less-than-impressed customer base.

Sounds appropriate. That and requesting refunds if need be.

I don't think they're understaffed, per se. I think it's gross mismanagement combined with absolutely dogwater software management. Zendesk is apparently one of the worst ticketing systems in existence (which is a real insult given they're paying for the privilege), and I've known from looking over past job applications that there has been an unhealthy interest in AGILE type management which when it isn't being a useless buzzword cult, is a great way to get micromanaged to death.

+1 This is the only way this "program" should be implemented.

That'd be nice for you and me, but imagine all the complaints...
"I installed the game in GOG and it didn't work. GOG says it works but they lie! GOG SUCKS!"

I just started playing FEAR: Perseus Mandate again. The game launched on the first try and ran at a solid frame rate with no dips during the hour I played. I noticed that when the first level loaded, it froze for a second, but nothing serious happened.

I tested a few other games like Port Royale 3 and Vampire: The Masquerade - Redemption, which ran without any issues. In all fairness, Vampire: The Masquerade - Redemption has always run great for me. Will test more when I have time.

Edit: GOG fixed the brightness issue with Redemption which makes the game way more playable now.

Hardware:
3070
12th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-12700KF 3.60 GHz
32GB of Ram
Windows 11

In the case of Galaxy users it wouldn't change for them. Offer the old pre-preservation version as a rollback on those games, but leave the default install as the new version. If they have problems, direct them to rollback to the old version.

But offline installer users need more attention. Leave the original version installer, but add a preservation patch below it. Hell, they can tag that download under an unique heading to make it stand out.

Love this idea. Nothing wrong having the option to apply the patch if wanted.