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Jorev: I am sympathetic but not quite ready to boycott, which is giving up on GoG.
I don't agree that boycotting equals 'giving up on GOG'. I still have hope that they can change course and start listening to their users again. The intention of the boycott is to send a message and apply some pressure in the hope they will change course. If I thought there was no chance things could improve, then I would probably just leave and move on.

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wolfsite: There is no evidence nor proof that GOG has any intent on removing offline installers.
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lazydog: There exists significant proof that GOG no longer maintain offline installers to the same degree as the Galaxy equivalents.
Right. I am not saying there is hard proof that GOG plan to do away with the offline installers. But, there is evidence they are not prioritizing their maintenance and that GOG is investing a huge amount of resources in developing and pushing Galaxy. There is such a thing as drawing conclusions from the available evidence, even if it may be circumstantial.

If wolfsite or Gudadantza draw different conclusions, fair enough. But, even if they don't do away with the installers, the heavy pushing of Galaxy and lack of maintenance of the installers are themselves not good trends.
Post edited January 23, 2021 by Time4Tea
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Time4Tea: Well, exactly that. The offline installers represent an overhead that GOG would rather do without. If a larger percentage were using Galaxy, they would have a stronger case to get rid of the installers. There seems to be a fairly clear financial motive to get rid of them.
IIRC the files come from the same source...so there's not so much overhead.

Besides that, I think they'd be more likely to keep it around as it's one of their unique selling points. Of course even if GOG was thinking of ditching them: the more people want it and etc, the more likely GOG is to keep it....so criticism like this thread likely helps to make it more likely that the offline installers stick around.

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Time4Tea: I would flip your question around and ask: If most are going to Galaxy willing anyway, why the need to push it so heavily?
For one thing, the data harvesting....I am guessing the more people using galaxy, the more money from such that they likely make.

Also imo it's mainly not us they're pushing it to...but most likely more so NEW customers who haven't signed up to GOG yet.
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Hexchild: Why?
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GamezRanker: Because stores try/want to make profit, and one way is by promoting their own goods and services.....many stores including non game stores do this.
I still don't see your point. If it's about making profit off goods and services, then it's the store that needs promotion, in other words the company itself and the website (which is where you would get the games they make profit from and/or get the client in which you can do the same).

I don't see why a client that is both free and optional and already heavily advertised to a ridiculous degree on the website would need its own, additional promotion.
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Gersen: Overtime are nothing new and something pretty common in a lot of industry and especially in software development, and by themselves they are not good or bad or unethical. And a lot of European countries there are some very strict laws to make sure that employees are correctly remunerated and limit the risk on their health.

What you describe is what happens when they are abused and take place over a long period of time, if your company asks its employees to work 100 hours per week for months without compensating it then it's "unethical" (and in several EU country illegal) but if a company asks its employees to work overtime for a limited time with well defined compensation then it is not. At least for now, there doesn't seem to be any proof that CDPR did the former.
Sorry, apparently I missed this post.

For some people it can take a lot less than 100 hours a week to cause noticeable health issues (even an extra half hour on average per day can be enough if done for long enough). In general, what it does take is for overtime to become the norm rather than an apologetic exception.

Laws often allow for monetary compensation, which tends to be the more convenient option for companies, and may even be well appreciated by the worker, but often does virtually nothing to mitigate the resulting health issues. Even when compensation is not monetary, it's usually measured in work hours. Health-wise, extra free time does not match extra work time one to one.

I for one consider the status quo on this issue to be an ethical gray area at best, and will for sure not willingly show support to a company that is headed in that direction in order to produce a product whose purpose is ultimately to entertain people.
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GamezRanker: Because most people use galaxy and they want to appeal to them and get more people to use galaxy?

Also they gave the game away to non-galaxy users many more times than to just galaxy users....as such, to me, one time for just galaxy users is fine.
They gave the game away for free to everyone a few times. I'm not aware of them ever giving it away to only people who don't use Galaxy. Galaxy users would feel a bit less special if they gave the game to everyone but that way they wouldn't alienate the people who don't or can't use Galaxy.

Besides, Galaxy is supposed to be the cool free thing that gets people to pay for games. If they give away free games to get people to use Galaxy it makes me wonder what they're getting out of it. Paving the way to ditch offline installers, Linux users or DRM-free? Perhaps just lots of user data to sell.
I'm not going to boycott, but I am going to try and come to GOG less ... however I am still struggling with that, and inevitably turn up here every day ... usually more than once ... what can I say, I'm addicted to the place.

Truth be known though, I have considered boycotting ... but just for a few games that aren't here that should be ... like WWII GI. I know GOG probably aren't to blame for that state of affair, so that is the flaw or weakness in the strength of my motivation to do the boycott. But if I ever find out they are to blame, then there will be strong words, rest assured ... and no doubt some purchases from Humble or Zoom or Itch.io to show my disgust ... for games available at GOG.

Hell, I even did a trial run just in case, and bought the Botanicula Collector's Edition from Humble, which is available here in two parts but never been that cheap, especially collectively. I also bought 4 other DRM-Free games there not available here ... all bar one of the five also provided a Steam Key along with the direct download ... not that I am a Steam fanboy.

I'm not sure, of course, but I think that may have worried GOG, and they are now thinking of mending their ways.

Life is tough when it comes to gaming .... so many decisions to make.

P.S. Anyway, maintain the RAGE.
Post edited January 23, 2021 by Timboli
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You can add me to the list, for all the reasons back in my post on page 4, and for being part of the company that produced cyberpunked2020. Haven’t spent a penny here since they finally admitted that only galaxy uses and pirates would get preload. Nothing good left in the company any more.
I am overwhelmed by the amount of replies to my post, thank you all for the information! I am sympathetic to the cause but I don't think I am going to go full boycott yet.

This point resonated with me the most, so I am mentioning it again:

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joppo: #5 I'd say has more to do with a "stop trying to push you damn client like the best thing ever at the cost of everything else" attitude. Gog has been pushing too hard on this. For example, on CP2077's release the game was available for preload only through Galaxy, despite that when The Witcher 3 was released preload was available for offline installer users too. Them giving free games through Galaxy is just another facet of this unpleasant behavior they're doing in order to make us decide to use the stupid client.

If Gog wants to make Galaxy's adoption grow they should just make it better than the alternatives in speed, features and user experience, not try to bribe those on the fence and inconvenience those unsympathetic to Galaxy.
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Hexchild: I still don't see your point. If it's about making profit off goods and services, then it's the store that needs promotion, in other words the company itself and the website (which is where you would get the games they make profit from and/or get the client in which you can do the same).

I don't see why a client that is both free and optional and already heavily advertised to a ridiculous degree on the website would need its own, additional promotion.
They collect more data(hours played, games played, etc) via the client than what they collect via people who just use the site.....data they then likely sell or trade to other companies and sites for something in return. That is likely a big part of why they push people to the client.

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HappyPunkPotato: They gave the game away for free to everyone a few times. I'm not aware of them ever giving it away to only people who don't use Galaxy. Galaxy users would feel a bit less special if they gave the game to everyone but that way they wouldn't alienate the people who don't or can't use Galaxy.
As I said: the game was given away enough times to everyone who wanted it. With that in mind, I don't feel that them giving it to ONLY galaxy users is that big of a deal(same with stores giving free cosmetic DLC for games if you preorder[d] from them). Of course others are free to disagree. :)

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HappyPunkPotato: Besides, Galaxy is supposed to be the cool free thing that gets people to pay for games. If they give away free games to get people to use Galaxy it makes me wonder what they're getting out of it. Paving the way to ditch offline installers, Linux users or DRM-free? Perhaps just lots of user data to sell.
Most likely the latter.....they are harvesting no doubt a ton of data to sell or trade.
(like I just mentioned to the other user above)

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Post 741 by Timboli: I'm not going to boycott, but I am going to try and come to GOG less ... however I am still struggling with that, and inevitably turn up here every day ... usually more than once ... what can I say, I'm addicted to the place.
Just wanted to say: I feel ya with this sentiment

I come to GOG semi-frequently...mainly because i've grown used to the forums and store over the years & I love the community(the good and the bad).
Post edited January 24, 2021 by GamezRanker
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Time4Tea: Well, exactly that. The offline installers represent an overhead that GOG would rather do without. If a larger percentage were using Galaxy, they would have a stronger case to get rid of the installers. There seems to be a fairly clear financial motive to get rid of them.
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GamezRanker: IIRC the files come from the same source...so there's not so much overhead.
If that is the case, then there is no good excuse for the offline installers to be behind the Galaxy versions.

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GamezRanker: Besides that, I think they'd be more likely to keep it around as it's one of their unique selling points. Of course even if GOG was thinking of ditching them: the more people want it and etc, the more likely GOG is to keep it....so criticism like this thread likely helps to make it more likely that the offline installers stick around.
If so, good! That's the whole point :-)

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Time4Tea: I would flip your question around and ask: If most are going to Galaxy willing anyway, why the need to push it so heavily?
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GamezRanker: For one thing, the data harvesting....I am guessing the more people using galaxy, the more money from such that they likely make.
Which is the main reason I have no interest in installing an integrated client application on my computer.
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Hexchild: I still don't see your point. If it's about making profit off goods and services, then it's the store that needs promotion, in other words the company itself and the website (which is where you would get the games they make profit from and/or get the client in which you can do the same).

I don't see why a client that is both free and optional and already heavily advertised to a ridiculous degree on the website would need its own, additional promotion.
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GamezRanker: They collect more data(hours played, games played, etc) via the client than what they collect via people who just use the site.....data they then likely sell or trade to other companies and sites for something in return. That is likely a big part of why they push people to the client.
This is basically what I was trying to get at - it would have to be something anti-consumer like that (or worse). I can for sure think of many other possible, similarly anti-consumer reasons, for example to be able to assert end-of-life of a game (by uninstalling it permanently) or to show personalized ads based on data mining without your express input or permission. I can see the appeal for a company to do such things, and I definitely disagree that they "have to" do any of that.

EDIT: Comment on consent removed. They do seem to have a lot of information on this in their "privacy policy" now. Also edited above text because some of my word choices were somewhat unfortunate.
Post edited January 24, 2021 by Hexchild
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GamezRanker: As I said: the game was given away enough times to everyone who wanted it. With that in mind, I don't feel that them giving it to ONLY galaxy users is that big of a deal(same with stores giving free cosmetic DLC for games if you preorder[d] from them). Of course others are free to disagree. :)
In that case it wasn't much of an incentive to install Galaxy anyway so they may as well have given it to everyone again instead of further irritating the anti-launcher crowd.
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GamezRanker: Most likely the latter.....they are harvesting no doubt a ton of data to sell or trade.
Pretty anti-consumer in my book and one more reason to boycott GOG :-)
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Gudadantza: If Devotion is someday available in GOG I am to boycot it.
That's fine. It's exactly what I do when I don't want a game: I just don't buy it.

I'm hoping you will have your chance to boycott it. Of course that means the game would be released here first, so those who want it could get it, those who like you don't want it could not get it, Gog gets some money from purchases, everybody wins.

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GamezRanker: Most likely the latter.....they are harvesting no doubt a ton of data to sell or trade.
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HappyPunkPotato: Pretty anti-consumer in my book and one more reason to boycott GOG :-)
Aye
Post edited January 24, 2021 by joppo
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The way I boycott GOG is by buying more games on GOG.
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Gudadantza: If Devotion is someday available in GOG I am to boycot it.
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joppo: That's fine. It's exactly what I do when I don't want a game: I just don't buy it.

I'm hoping you will have your chance to boycott it. Of course that means the game would be released here first, so those who want it could get it, those who like you don't want it could not get it, Gog gets some money from purchases, everybody wins.

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HappyPunkPotato: Pretty anti-consumer in my book and one more reason to boycott GOG :-)
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joppo: Aye
Fine or not fine the problem here is that some people would prefer to boycott the store itself instead, if that walkng simulator is NOT availabe here, based in conspiracy theories and overreactions. And that only to mention the Devotion case.

Another demential fact is that It is being pushed the demand to retire some games under subjective visions. Why should not be valid the same for those games? If you dislike the state of those games then boycott them, do not purchase them.
But some of you prefer to boycot the interests of rest of users here.

Do you want a conspiracy? Who is the beneficiary of this agenda if some high seller games are retired from gog? Crystal clear for me.
Sorry. All of this is too unfair and cynic for me.
Post edited January 24, 2021 by Gudadantza