Why not bypass all the middlemen and just wire money direct to GOG employees?

I am specifically talking about GOG's future here and nothing else. If you got the impression that I might have addressed any of your posts in this thread you can safely ignore what I wrote.

because come on! this isn't charity indeed and I definitely want something in return! :D

https://www.gog.com/en/patrons#terms-of-use

You don't get anything guaranteed in return. That is the point.

well, nothing is certain in this life... only death :)

let us spend ours enjoying what we like and supporting what we find worthy

Go for it. You are GOG's target market w.r.t this offering :)

How about actual preservation and provide original files for games?

Oh...thats right, because the gog staff assume their customers are morons, to have the word hold meaning.

Also, to the trolls: Corporate clowns redefining words in any language is insulting. No matter which corporate leader does it. It is purely to leverage a benefit. If anyone wants to defend this behavior, be known you are gaining nothing, while losing more rights to what you own in the future tense.

It's obvious GOG is not using preservation as that means, but more just keeping the games alive.

Not even death is certain, unless we only look at the body... which is a typical perception for many humans. Because death means birth and a ultimate death is only possible without any birth. In the bigger scale, there will always be some sort of birth... just in a small scale (between and on certain humans) there might not be any birth.

But nope... i would not look out for something granted because in love and life a humble entity is simply trying to give "their best" with their determinism. The thing outside the sphere of active influence is simply fatalism. Although, a lot of entities "could to better than that"; yet they are not doing it because of pretty selfish motivations. The main reason is because they do not think "there is any birth or rebirth" after their demise... so they do not need to produce any "good karma" in their actual life. Kinda sad but yeah... just the "current drive" humanity is going, including a big part of the industry... always with exceptions.

That's what preservation means in this context. You make a digital representation of a physical object, like the optical media the software was encoded into for retail. That would mean preserving the DRM too, though. It had been brought up in the past, that it would be nice of 'em to include unmodified original dumps so their library would be compatible with the hardware the software was meant to run on. However, it wasn't a problem then because GOG didn't claim to be about "preservation."

Honestly, many of such words, is a struggle to read for me because in a bigger scale it is the way a big mass is acting and "believing", which means only to support something else if it does support themself even more. At least we could try to be more balanced with the interests, which is getting rare i feel, reason why so many stuff is just not working (out) anymore because of lack of support (for each others). The industry is not excluded, they as well got a lot of one-sided interests but in the same terms i see comparable behavior from gamers as well... reason why the support for example can be pretty one sided and mainly always looking for the "best personal benefit" while ignoring "long term causalities" of their rather short term actions.

Anyway, i do agree GOG should try to "preserve" the original-games, which means at least they should demand the "original games" to become bundled with the Remaster or Remake. This is in such a case a "balanced step" as the industry would prefer not even to provide the classics anymore, so they can make more fresh money with Remasters or Remakes. A one sided interest is "not to provide the Original" at all... anymore, or trying to demand that ONLY the Original will be sold, or that the Original will be sold almost for free along with the pricy Remake/Remaster (which may get almost no sales anymore... so the company may not enjoy it).

While the entire situation is understandable, GOG can not enforce the gamers wishes on most terms because they are not the IP owners, as a pretty bland truth. They could try to "put out a demand" toward a IP owner, but as long as GOG is lacking might = leverage... this is almost a lost cause. The IP owner is simply running to Steam and thats it... as soon as GOG might become "to demanding". The gamers will eat it from the table, even a dirty one... as long as it is Steam.

So, it is important to understand all sides well enough... and in the end, we all are doing preservation and GOG is doing a important part of it, but they can not handle it themself... this is a fact and the truth.

Ah, that's better. Thank you!

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OT:
And aside from a terms of use, do we actually know anything concrete about the patronage system, or is it just a bunch of promises?

Not really, it's clear GOG is going for keeping the game working and alive preservation. Which is why they say keep games alive forever, which is impossible.

I agree that it would be great to have the original unmodified game dumps. I'm fully in support of that.

That is correct, the issue didn't arise much until GOG labeled it. GOG has always been doing this without providing the unmodified original versions because, in reality, most people don't care. If they did, Steam wouldn't be the largest gaming platform. I've seen older classic games receive poor reviews on Steam simply because they are just retail releases without any updates for modern systems.

A perfect example would be Splinter Cell 2 being released on Steam recently. Got mixed reviews because Ubisoft barely did anything to make it work on new hardware

Most games released digitally nowadays don't even seem to be original versions.

In general i do consider you (foad) a rather "difficult" user because of many rather hostile entries in the past, especially toward me. Nonetheless... this time i see some good motivation, which means, i do agree on the term "to become more positive" inside the forum in general. I feel there is in many terms a "bad drive" with unnecessary critical content. If we do respect each others more... including the industry, then the sun will shine with more brightness for all of us. So, i think the general approach "or drive" is currently to critical and seeing another kind of hostilities such as trying to block users, is just the very peak of a pretty rainy environment. So, i hope the in general good community is able to become more positive and "supportive" in the not so far future; as this is the thing we actually need... no matter how much of tears and rain has been caused on many spots and terms.

No, the majority does not care "preservation", instead simply having it as easygoing and served on a silver platter as possible... reason for the extreme success of Steam. So, in general... the GOGer mentality is a niche.