Well, you can count me in as an A voter. DRM all the way. No updates to previous versions just because a publisher bought a company out and want to inject their own crud in it (yes, talking about epic, which I believe gog should not even sell products that are from epic or use epic or eos at all), or making users have to have an internet connection to install or play the game, using easy anti cheat or any anti-cheat app, etc etc etc), or any of the other cruddy things pub's are making users do now to play a single player game.

And sorry for the late vote, but I am disabled and just now got online.

That is not viable because there is no way the mods would allow that. They already lock threads on any other issue if there is more than one thread already on the board which is about the same subject.

Say, for example, four GOG users made four separate boycott threads in addition to this one, about different boycott issues.

In that situation, there is a 99%+ chance that the mods would lock those 4 threads, on the grounds that there is already a boycott thread (i.e. this one).

As for the result of the vote: I find it to be questionable since it's a super thin margin, and because people who were not on the list beforehand had their votes rejected, and because most of the people who were on the list didn't vote.

Thanks for taking me off the list. I will still participate in my personal boycott, as the terms of that remain the same for me (buying what I consider must-have, and really in large part as a practical matter to have a working offline installer before devs/pubs "improve" the game with various online requirements that GOG approves).

If I may, I will say I still think all of this business dividing up the topic could've easily been avoided, as the political comments have finally simmered down in here; in other words I think it was unnecessary to go this way but whatever. Let's hope GOG can be influenced to improve the issues with DRM.

Though, given the staff comments in the "Commitment to DRM-free" topic, I think that has become a lost cause.

You might want to delete item #8 in the OP, as it doesn't really relate to either.

I don't think you know that. As far as I know, no-one else has tried to make another boycott thread for a different issue and had it locked by the forum mods. The title of this thread will be changed to clarify its specific focus, so then if another thread is made to boycott over another issue, it will not be a duplicate. If the GOG staff choose to close it, then that would be a case of them suppressing user discontent on the forum, in which case that would be on them and you should probably take it up with GOG.

I agree its a very thin margin and I wish more people on the list had voted. But, I can't force people to vote. Given the very low rate of voting, I don't see much point in extending it any further, and if I did that Dave3D's vote (he joined the list before the vote was called) would immediately make it +2 for A.

I have already explained my reasoning for restricting voting to those who were already signed up on the list. (mostly to prevent people from getting a bunch of their mates who don't care about the protest to come along and skew the vote, which is a valid concern given the low voting numbers)

I respect your opinion on that, but I think, regardless of the recent political issues, clarifying the purpose of the thread is a good thing and will help avoid confusion going forwards. The political stuff is simply what alerted me to the fact that the confusion was there and some sort of clarification was necessary.

#8 in the OP:

8) Assign adequate resources to maintenance of the offline installers. There is a list of games available here, where the offline installer version is behind the Galaxy version (some of these entries go back to 2020).

I don't really agree. Lack of maintenance of the offline installers relates to the 'optionality' of Galaxy (or lack of it). If Galaxy is being heavily prioritized/incentivized, at the expense of the offline installers, then it is not really fair to call it 'optional' (since non-Galaxy users are not being treated equally). That is erosive to the principle of DRM-free on GOG, since offline installers are core to the DRM-free concept. So, that item is not about specific DRMed products on GOG, but it does relate to the higher level issue of GOG slipping with their DRM-free standards.

#7 is similar as well, in that it relates to the heavy pushing of Galaxy:

7) Stop providing free games/incentives only to Galaxy users.

OK.

I vote for B

Remove from the list please.

Just my 2 cents, you need to check and stick to a certain behavior and ideology. I remember few month ago, you were arguing that you are in no role to control why people are boycotting and you are just maintaining a list but once others opinions didn't work for you, suddenly you became an owner for the thread, decided to open for voting, decided when the vote start and ends and what is winning criteria

13 of 113. And now suddenly those who voted for issues outside of A are now crammed into supporting A. I hope GOG denies this request as to how blatantly fraudulent this is, that a certain amount of people are now apparently boycotting for reasons they weren't originally for.
Better start validating before you transfer them.

I wouldn't worry too much just keep GOG's issues pinned to the front page of the general forums. If the community splits it splits and there's nothing you can or should do about it.
It will simply resolve itself as a whole new boycott discussion posting; as people fear that their voice has been diluted.
At the end of the day the boycotts here until GOG fixes it's shit.

You're welcome to put in your 2c, but I think you've got the wrong idea.

I called the vote because there seemed to be significant disagreement/confusion among those that had signed on the list (which is clear as well from the narrowly-split vote), which needed to be resolved. The winning criteria was one side having more votes than the other, by a specified date, which is how most votes tend to be held.

What would have been a fairer way to resolve the conflict then, than having an open vote of those on the list? What should have been the wining criteria?

You seem to be painting it as me imposing my will on the group, which seems a bit silly. We held a vote of those who have signed onto the list, allowed 2 weeks for voting (which seems like plenty of time for an online forum) and option A received a majority of votes.

We will be sticking to a certain behavior and ideology from this point. Again, I apologize for any confusion that was caused and in hindsight I should have made the purpose of the thread clearer from the start.

Just wanted to say thanks for organising this boycott thread, I think you're doing a good job :-)

I think it's time to delete this thread ...

I find it interesting how GOG, supposedly wanting to make things clearer because DRM means different things to different people, has added a warning notice on Battletech but nothing on CyberPunk 2077 (correct me if I'm wrong but I see no warning box there - though admittedly it may just be hard to spot between all the other flashy boxes).

There were some rather prolific complaints about their unfair method of Galaxy promotion in the latter in GOG's announcement thread, as well as responses from GOG staff, so I think it's safe to say they're aware of the complaints. I think it stands to reason they should want to prioritize that one as a show of good faith, as both the game and Galaxy are representative of CDP, which GOG is a part of.

They've had ample time to deal with that by now. Not impressed.



EDIT: Removed links to game pages since they were too glitchy.