Here in the forum and the whole community would be delighted, but it would be a commercial suicide, because most normal users don't even know about the problem.

Personally I'm not even that interested in AAA, but it's pointless to deny that those are the games that attract customers, and GOG needs to increase earnings by spending as little as possible.

Obviously just speaking for myself here... But I'm on this store for the DRM-free games. Not interested in the client, no interest on achievements or other gimmicks. Just cool games with DRM-free installers.

If publishers and devs keep making good games and selling them here, I'll be happy to buy them.

If publishers like Sega, Bethesda, Ubisoft, etc etc, stubbornly decide to not make their games DRM-free available... then I'll stubbornly refuse to buy them. I'm not even gonna bother pirating them (because they'll inevitably be pirated). I'll just give my middle finger to the AAA megacorps and spend my time and money playing the legally purchased games from indie publishers who sell DRM-free.

Sure enough, many people will desert this store and migrate definitely to steam in order to buy AAA games. More power to them - I think everyone is entitled to spend their money where they want. I've even already read some statements on the net, by people who apparently see no problem on the new NFT gaming scheme and are eager to use it. So, yeah... the videogame industry isn't going anywhere nice.

Who knows? Maybe a mass desertion from the GOG store would force them to close shop. Or make them rethink their strategy and go back to previous, healthier directions.

Bottom line: even if no more AAA games land on the store (which is almost certain, since they're getting more and more crammed with online and DRM bullshit) - as long as GOG guarantees the sale of offline installers, I'll keep buying games here.

I'd stay for it as it'd be a fixing problem scenario and agreed its alarming how people push for AA and AAA games .. I don't mind them but the alarming push is strangeto me atleast the older ones I get wanting that has issius working on newer hardware but not rather new ones or ones that still work fine without requiring fiddling with yet

I sent an email to Bokeh Game Studio a few days ago, and they told me they will look into releasing "Slitterhead" on GOG when it releases. Let's hope they decide to go for it.

We need more high profile Japanese releases, as that's pretty much all I care about these days.

Usually older "AAA" releases aren't the issue since by the time they get here they've received all their major patches. Online features are usually gutted though, but I think generally most people here don't care.

that said, I do think "2nd class"ness for many games here is a big problem for GOG, especially as more people learn about this, and I wouldn't mind them taking "time off" to focus on that.

But that assumes GOG could find work for the people who normally do the work to bring games here (like business-development department). it's not like they can just be fired and re-hired whenever GOG needs them. Maybe they could be "transferred" to contacting devs and pubs about missing patches and related.

in general I want less curation, with the caveat of avoiding more "2nd class" issues (for core/important things like game patches) wherever possible

Thanks for replying. It is comforting to know that and I agree your opinions.
Yep, I do not envy GOG's current difficult position at all.
I like to think if they slow down and apply some brakes to the crazy low prices mania, they would have more time, money & resources to keep their already impresive catalog up & running with the latest/greatest versions before facing the ultimate challenge: the giant beasts (publishers & DRM stores).

A real collectors' wet dream :)
...but not so much to attract customers.
Fair enough. Is a personal assumption that GOG employees have "multi" responsibilities.
Just read between lines of this quote from today
"our Forum Staff team is very small, and Forum moderation is only one of many of our daily tasks. Especially with big events going on (such as Winter Sale right now), we’re occupied with other responsibilities"

The best thing would be every area having their own set of responsibilities, but as many small companies, unfortunately, that is wishful thinking.

Ya agreed in my mind

Still how do you feel about people wanting fairly old enough AA and AAA games showing up? By that I mean ones that either has some troubles on newer hardware and/or newer Operating systems showing up here? Asking as I admit I would be pushing for those if I do any games that are AA or AAA games even A games because a push for getting ones having such troubles at least make sense for a storefront like GOG's because of its older core set up of getting games that had trouble on modern tech and such running right out of the box in most cases and when not a simple minor system tweak to run proper that anyone can do (for example a Harry potter lego game has a weird bug that if the audio is not set to a specific quality it refuses to launch but anyone can fix that with a tweak in the audio settings ) Thus I am okay in that scenario

But new ones yet to have any problems on newer hardware I don't get why a push for those in general unless they are like say 10 or so years old but thats just me

Selling old & obsolete games exclusively is not a viable business model. GOG re-branded itself off of being named "Good Old Games" for exactly that reason.

If they are now being forced back into that bad business model because not enough publishers want to sign deals with them for new-ish games, then the business model will still remain equally as unviable as it was many years ago when GOG moved away from it by its own choice.

But GOG existance was never about being a viable gaming e-store to compete agaisn't big players like Steam, and now Epic, I think.
Im fairly new here, but by checking it's story, old threads and posts, it was always about this niche in the market: Making Good Old Games playable in recent PCs, DRM-Free, focusing in transparency with it's clients, and later, to add Linux support for games.

Older members may agree or not with me, but that's my impression and also why I came here in the first place. (DRM-Free principle.)

--edit:

Re-reading your post, I think I understand what you meant about a store surviving nowdays selling only 'old' games.
Well.. I wish they are able to bring at least 1995-2010 classics fully drm free, at least.

Didn't you and me have this argument in another thread that despite the attempted re-brand many still know them for what they started out for? Asking as I ain't sure if it was you or someone else but the point is really even attempting rebranding by a company and a attempted image change when a company is rooted enough in something it can be near impossible to change views on things or a major uphill battle .. while other times it is doomed to fail as a attempt for example this was a legit attempt by a hygeine based company to break into the food market and failed badly https://medium.com/@tzelingu/can-colgate-bring-its-success-in-the-toothpaste-sector-over-to-frozen-foods-78ed0d60b5b4 I am linking that to more so show how attempting to break away from a established brand view can prove a failure and do to how long GOG was branded as one thing its still be many viewed as what it started out as .. even now

Perhaps but I'm not sure about that. I wouldn't be surprised, if word spreads about the "2nd class citizen" spreadsheet and thread (plus obviously missing features here compared to Steam releases), that people are shopping here less to avoid the hassle and uncertainty, other than getting "good old games" here.

I think they started trying to compete with Steam a few years back. I kind of get it, I was feeling some "momentum" in that area too. But that momentum has ceased (in part, probably a big part, because of EGS), and now they've realized they can't do that.

I think starting around 2012-2013, publishers started putting GOG versions of games onto Steam (plus Steam opened the "floodgates" around that time), and many people just started buying their old games on Steam whenever possible. That's a big reason why I kind of agree with Ancient-Red-Dragon about old games exclusively not being a viable business model - nowadays GOG doesn't necessarily have exclusive titles like they used to, a big reason for people to use this service.

Plus a lot of the remaining "good old games" (ones high on the community wishlist and not already on Steam) remain in legal limbo or the publishers just don't care, and there's only so much GOG can do about that.

There are many older Steam games that could come to GOG (2005-2012 or whatever the cutoff date is), but said publishers just don't seem to care; they hate DRM-free, they want to force people to use their client (EA, Ubisoft), (I think the main issue =>) they don't want to bother with the little amount of money GOG makes, etc.

I've heard something like this (from a fellow forum member, theorizing why EA removed Syndicate and Ultima Underworld for a time until the backlash encouraged them to put the titles back): apparently, some corporate execs will remove poorly selling titles just because the small amount of money looks bad on a spreadsheet. I wouldn't be surprised if similar choices are made that boggle our minds.

Condemned, Duke Nukem Forever, Dead Island, Mass Effects, Crysis 2, Total War, Civ 5, C&C, Borderlands, Prototype, etc. etc.

edit: I see titles from the Eidos Anthology collection on Steam that could still come pretty easily I think: Battlestations Midway, Conflict Denied Ops, Project Snowblind, Order of War, Kane & Lynch 1 & 2 (I think most have mixed reviews but might still be worth bringing)

Agreed. And that's also the saddest part when we think about it.

When Tomb Raider Anniversary, Legend and 2013 arrived It made me happy, not because I never played them, but because of the simbolism of more beloved 'neo-classics' that may be in that legal limbo coming.

Well, with Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance released, along with the Star Trek Armada 1 & 2 and Scrapland Remaster games, this sale wasn't a total loss. Still a majority of loss but not completely. lol

Edit: Of course there's still another 2 weeks of the sale left so maybe we will get some surprises. Hopefully.

I wouldn't really expect much. According to GOG's Winter Sale Schedule it seems that for the next two weeks we'll only get free games and likely some indies.
Of course, GOG being the store that we love/hate, we can always expect some bizarre pleasant or unpleasant surprises until the end of the year.

"Were you whining then"???? Right?