so not at all, the situation is still unresolved and will stay like that until they publish proper explanation how that was allowed to happen and what countermeasures they applied to prevent mistakes like that from happening ever again

I don't think you can expect such a degree of transparency from most entities, public or private. Maybe internally if even that, but certainly not externally.

Take IT operations for example which is probably one of the most siloed professions there is. The industry talks a great deal about gitops, but most places will probably be nowhere near that amount of internal transparency for decades if ever. Only reason most of our stuff is gitoped is because I designed most of our operations from scratch and I had a great deal of latitude about it. It certainly wouldn't have flown in any of the shops I was in before. They would have dismissed it as unimportant.

I think too much transparency seems to go against the grain of human nature and our ego. I certainly wouldn't hold GOG to standards the overwhelming majority of organizations (including our own governments) cannot adhere to.

I'd like us to better, but we really aren't.

if they don't explain what went wrong and how they are preventing that in the future how are we supposed to trust them ever again? it's just that simple, the case is not closed

because gOg have buisness partners, in the case of Hitman it is IO, with whom they have various agreements, such as how much information about the contracts they have which they are allowed to divulge. if gOg start ignoring them and just being "completely transparent", then gOg's will be seen as a buisness risk and untrusthworthy partner - so no more games in the future. gOg has a duty of care towards the customers, yes, but also towards their partners

without customers they can't make deals anyway, it may take a while before they realize that, but some day they will
question is: will the company still be recoverable at that point?

yes, as long as they have a product to sell. it is only a very small minority who think like you, most people just want the product. while there is a balancing act between keeping customers happy and keeping partners happy, there are people who will buy the products as long as they are thre. but without any products to sell, it is all moot.

edit - but as said, gOg cannot go against any agreement with a partner, which includes how much they can divulge. it would be breach of contract, so in any case most of this dicussion is purely academical.

they can say why their sieve failed to catch the sub-par release before signing the contract and how they are improving their approval mechanisms, that has nothing to do with the contract you are talking about
*unless* they knew, but got some extra money and decided it's worth a try, but that's not exactly how stores work, is it? what would the deal have to be? gog getting 100% of the price for the first X days after release? that's not impossible, but very unlikely
it's almost certain someone just skimmed through the game, it seemed to work and got approved despite having some parts of the game DRM-ed
there's no issue with admitting that and doing that honestly *and early in the process* would be a great PR move


though on the contract level I'd require the DRM-free clause and if DRM of a kind is identified in the release the contract is void instantly and automatically and it's clear they missed that precaution too

since there is no clear definition on what DRM is, but is open to interpretation, this is to vague and no partner would sign such a contract

My take on the situation has been the following: GOG is GOG because Steam is already taken.

If the owners of GOG had the option to become Steam, with the market share and profits this entails, they'd drop their drm-free policy like a hot potato.

Given Steam's momentum and resources, the only feasible way they could gain a foothold in the game store industry was by targeting a niche and focusing on catering to it (ie, old games, drm-free) and that's what they did.

I think once they had secured their niche, they entertained notions of expanding beyond it into Steam's territory (101 playbook for crossing the chasm in the tech industry), but given the quality of what Steam is offering (once you buy into the fake ownership sham) and the aversion their existing audience had toward what Steam is offering, that backfired.

I think the Hitman fiasco was just that: Them trying to push the boundary into Steam's territory and seeing how far they could go.

My intuition is that if they felt inclined to give you a transparent explanation concerning what happened, that's what they'd tell you.

Some people might be shocked at the idea that their knight in shining armor is not holy. Personally, I don't mind that GOG's drm-free stance is a product of circumstances as opposed to genuine principles, as long as I get what I want out of it (drm-free games).

steam has negative quality, nothing to offer and no *logical* reason to exist
obviously that applies to all the clones too
you are either a (DRM-free) store or a scam

if gog intentionally let DRM in they can't be trusted unless they have a strong resolution to not do that again
if that was a genuine mistake but they won't disclose countermeasures they can't be trusted as they can fail the same way again

whichever is the case there's a non-empty list of DRM-infested games in the gog catalogue (that cannot be called a store because of that) so at this point gog is a scam

it's very simple: if you are afraid to sign this it means you did something shady and doesn't belong here

if a game directory alone can be copied onto airgapped system and ran like that (as long as all reasonable dependencies like DX and VC runtimes are available) with all the gameplay features available it's fine

if it requires you to install steam/epic/galaxy to run it's garbage
if it requires steam/epic/galaxy to unlock single alternative texture that has no impact on the gameplay whatsoever it's still garbage

if it uses Internet connection to compare scores with friends/global leaderboard it's fine
if it uses Internet connection to verify, if you are allowed to display the slightly recolored particle effect it's garbage

the line is really clear as long as you aren't trying to intentionally make it blurry

That's just like, your opinion man. you did not give a clear definition of DRM, but rather some examples. somone else may think DRM is different from what you just did here.

This is not about being "shady", but about proper and sound buisness practice. you should never sign a contract where any of the clauses are not well defind, but rather open to personal interpretation. this is just common buinses practice.

if you tend to sign contracts where you are not sure what the clauses are, then I have some contracts for you. they are all in your benefit, I promise....

While I agree with you, unfortunately, that will not become apparent to the mainstream until something happens to disrupt Steam and that could take some time.

In the interim, I'm sure Steam looks like they are offering wonderful "products" (if you buy into the sham).

To me, something like Netflix also has a reason to exist. I'm not anti-rental.

I'm just against underhanded bs.

You don't have to trust GOG's good intentions. Just that they are dependant enough of their anti-drm customer base that they can only antagonise them so far.

That's the thing with corporations, you can't trust them to do things out of the goodness of their heart, but barring the occasional error in judgment, you can usually trust them to look after their bottom line.

People like you and I buying games here is still a significant part of their bottom line.

Otherwise yes, unfortunately, you can not longer unconditionally buy any game in their catalog and trust it to be 100% drm-free, but I think they've improved their game in terms of clarity so that you usually don't need to go beyond the game page to get an accurate picture about the drm-free state of most of their games.

I only intend to spend my money in stores that allow me to click "add to cart" blindly on the list, not requiring to even open the game description to verify if it's safe to buy
and oh boy, around 70% of my wishlist is currently on sale, seems their mistakes are helping me fight compulsive spending

thanks, gog, I guess?

Well, good luck with that.