I am brimming with vitriol at gog and cdpr's behaviour and have been outspoken and complaining with every single negative change, especially gogs pushing of galaxy, but we find ourselves in a real catch 22 that needs to be considered carefully.

Anyone with a large game collection stands to lose out if GOG goes under. There's talk of backing up all games offline but realistically, not everyone has a strong enough Internet connection and if the masses of users start doing that then the servers are going to crawl.

With the way the management scum work now I wouldn't put it past them to just cut down server costs or stop paying them altogether without any warning; leaving our games unattainable.

The sad truth is the greedy management will survive, they will still have a wad of money in their banks at the expense of us and their staff. GOG might not and the drm scene will crawl back under it"s rock and just be a rare niche for the odd game.


China is unlikely to change anytime soon, they're just this decades Russia. It wasn't that long ago China had their revolution comparatively speaking and they are still desperately trying to cling onto the idea that it left them better off.

It takes a long time for a large portion to mature past blind patriotism (America has been independent hundreds of years but isn't there yet either and still relies on indoctrination.)


I'm sure there will be some daft comments stating how I'm an apologist or licking China's honey farts or some such nonsense but I suspect most of these are from the coat tail riding attention seekers that seem to crop up at every new scandal or popular 'cause' to show just how superior they are.

The problem isn't the Cloud, the problem is spineless companies giving in to censorship at the first sign that China is unhappy. And the fact that you have backed up your games (which is a great idea) is only protecting your past favorite games. GOG giving in to Chinese censorship means that from now on whenever they choose to host a game or not, they will be self-censoring our games to please an authoritarian regime, which is hurting your future games.

I don't have any delusions that deleting my account is going to make any difference. But if I'm going to get fucked in the ass, I don't want to be fucked by a company pretending to be a "Truly gamer friendly DRM-free online gaming platform"

I still don't understand why people don't just backup their game after the first download. It saves you time and GOG bandwidth as well as eliminating the need for any single rush or surge to download everything at one (also reducing issues vs ISP if you have a bandwidth cap). That's literally the primary advantage of offline installers vs "download & delete, re-download & delete, re-download & delete" clients. I'm simply going to link to what I wrote the other day to better explain why "I'm buying fewer games on GOG" that many people are saying, isn't just a single issue that people over the past 24hrs have been incorrectly assuming it to be:-
https://www.gog.com/forum/general/gog_its_time_for_you_to_reflect/post13

Yes, boycotting is the answer.

If we don't then we are making the decision way too easy for GOG.

If there is literally NO reaction when they let China dictate what games they can sell, then obviously they will just go with it to gain market share in China.

The result is the rest of the world having to live under the Chinese system, where everything has to be approved by the communist party. No thanks.

Yeah, I know about the issue that motivated this thread. I was just replying to a point that I though was wrong.

Not at all if you have been downloading and backing up the offline installers. That's why it was always good to download the offline installer the moment you purchase a game. Honestly I never understood the people who do not do so. Separately, people with a bad Internet connection are screwed in so many other ways in 2020 that the solution for them is just to get a better one. They promise at least 60-day notice period but it's noncommittal. This isn't about changing China but, as food for thought, why let China change us?

Broadly, there are at least two things to consider:

1. Companies can only get better when held to account. Being allowed a free pass is demoralizing. Case in point: Cyberpunk 2077 wouldn't have run into such issues post-release had the warning signs been given more attention during the development phase, and the outcome would have likely been better both for the company and the customers.

Similarly, this is a such a warning sign for GOG now. Hoping things will get better if only the customers would shut up is misreading the situation. Rather, it's because the customers have already been too complacent that the situation has become possible where GOG contradicts the principles that took it to success. Things are not going to get better when they've already been getting worse on their own. The solution is to deal with the body in the closet not to hold your nose.

2. It is possible that at some point GOG will have outlived its purpose and trying to turn back the tide would be futile. Since however it has demonstrated the existence of a viable market niche, it is fairly certain a better project would emerge in its place, possibly even with the help of a number disillusioned CD Projekt insiders quitting to create "GOG 2.0." This isn't of course my preferred scenario but GOG's demise (which is hopefully not forthcoming) would also create the space for something new to emerge from its ashes. It would not be the end of the world.

What is much more dangerous is complacency. Examples: "This isn't really DRM because the locked content is not necessary to complete the game." "Just log in online, which you already do elsewhere, what's the big deal?" "It's not required, there's just a special bonus if you use it." "The offline installer will be updated later, what's the rush?" "Why do you even want to run a game without a launcher?" And now also: "It's just a game nobody cares about anyway." "They had it coming and deserve what they got." "It doesn't affect me, I can still look the other way." "If you can't fix the whole world don't even dare trying to fix one thing." and so on.

But as long as such attitudes do not become prevalent, there is still hope. Which is why we have to remember what brought us here in the first place, and as long there is the demand, one way or another there will always be supply.

That's the thing about china; they export a lot of yellow box honey; but apparently they don't have a lot of bees...; so what even is it your licking?
;P

oh no , drainoil probably:D

Corporate bootlickers akin to you always crawl out of the woodwork with any debacle. I'm sure GOG appreciates it. In fact, they most likely originally assumed both the Cyberpunk fiasco and kowtowing to Chinese government would be defended by people like you, free of charge, riding the waves of the previous goodwill they built up to this point.

Lets go down the memory lane for a moment, shall we?

Valve tries paid modding with horrendously bad QA practices? Unpaid drones defend the bottom line, and it's obviously the entitled gamers at fault for wanting functional products. Blizzard kowtows to China? Unpaid drones defend the bottom line, and it's obviously the entitled gamers at fault trying to drum up a fake politically correct controversy. CDPR manipulates the review process by forcing a NDA on pre-release gameplay footage of Cyberpunk? Unpaid drones defend the bottom line, and it's obviously the entitled gamers at fault expecting the purchased game to function on the platforms it was advertised to run on. And now China interfering with GOG? Unpaid drones defend the bottom line, and it's obviously the entitled gamers at fault expecting a big successful company to not renege on every single one of their core values, the selfish attention seekers.

In all of these cases the message is always the same: "Think of the poor multi-million dollar company that is just trying to make ends meet, it's not REALLY their fault, and because they've done some nice things in the past it means they get to deceive and shit on their customers from here on out. Please shut up, keep consuming, and be content with the service you get."

But you see, boycotting actually WAS the answer to all of those issues: making a lot of noise actually got things changed for the better, if not ideal. Valve reneged on paid mods. Valve also had to reinstate Hatred and many other indie titles that were wrongfully removed from the store. Blizzard was forced to to do the right thing and give Blitzchung his prize money because of the PR nightmare. CDPR was forced to own up and offer refunds to their broken game. And it's the same here.

Plus, thankfully GOG (still) allows DRM-free downloads of their games, so I think all of us are pretty much in the safe in regard to retaining access to the content we purchased, now and in the future. Doesn't mean I'm going to give them any more of my shekels, lol. As for new games? GOG clearly prefers yuan to my dirty foreigner euros, so I don't think they will mind in the slightest.

No, it's not, because then I would have to boycott every Western producer or seller that sells products manufactured in China, wholly or partially, which requires more effort than the amount I care about this drama. The developers made a [unnecessary] choice to be controversial [this poster adds nothing of value to the game], whilst knowing fully that a ban could be one of the consequences. Also, this is a Taiwanese developer, so there are obvious background connections to be made, why PRC reacted so strongly. Poland (CDPR/GOG) and the EU don''t even recognize the independence of ROC, to my knowledge. Lastly, why are only Americans allowed to be nationalistic, proud of their political leaders ? When it's other countries the people there must be brainwashed. Contrary to US right-wing dogma, there are plenty of Chinese who are proud of their country and it's leaders, what they have achieved. The only thing we hear about are those who oppose it.

I don't like when corporations extend the ability of China to censor not just products inside their country, but to extend their censorship across the world. Any corporation succumbing to such pressure will not receive my money, if I can help it. So I'll be inconvenienced by that; so what? GOG made their choice, I've made mine; we all will have to live with it.

I don't like horror games and I would not play it even if it would be available. However, it has nothing to do with me being strongly opposed to a western company succumbing to China's pressure and helping CCP to extend its censorship across the world. Such behavior, if left unchecked, would greatly limit our own freedom in future.

And, by the way, I love Cyberpunk 2077. Playing it for a week and can't get enough. It won't stop me from stopping any future purchases from GOG.

Well I do I agree that politics shouldn't restrict games for releasing especially outside of said place. Germans are still paying the price in Wolf 3d. But if I had to pick between releasing a game or atomic bomb.. That's a toughhie. =D

You can even criticise Winnie, make fun of him, whatever. The game will be blocked for China, that's all.

The problem is that the dev is question is from Taiwan, and tension there are high all the time, short before hot war several times.
Let's also not forget the the dev snuck this mockery of Winnie into the game without the mainland publisher knowing - also people with families to feed - and the this unsuspecting company got completely destroyed in the process. That's simply not nice, despite "freedom of art" and all that. If I snuck Mohammed caricatures in my game and told you to publish it in Saudi Arabia, would you be happy to lose your head over "freedom of art"?

They can't. It's that simple. Because the answer would be "we can't lose China" (esp. with CP2077 which is hugely popular there), which they can't say because they don't are "officially" in China.

https://www.theguardian.com/games/2020/dec/17/taiwanese-horror-game-pulled-from-sale-again-after-backlash-in-china