it seems we need to keep reminding them about this unresolved issue

Is it still unresolved though?

The game in its then unacceptable state got delisted, GoG admitted having royally fucked up by releasing it in its then unacceptable state, apologised and reiterated on their intent to not release anything whose singleplayer portion is, in any way, shape or form hampered by or dependent on DRM measures, did I miss something?

Unless it can be considered fully resolved ONLY at the moment HITMAN (2016) gets a re-release in line with the aforementioned requirements in regards to the singleplayer portion, on GoG?

Yes, there are NDAs. Nobody in this forum will ever have access to the full information of what happened or is happening in the background.

Besides the names of the people responsible I don't see what else of interest could be gained from these documents?

I couldn't care less about the details of how it could come to the initial release in its then unacceptable state being greenlit, the end result and people at GoG seeing and hopefully remembering the error in their ways is what counts. Obviously some people (whose identity is of no interest to me either) at GoG didn't think this through to the end, don't need any documents for that.

I don't know. Some people here want to know the full story. For some people the apology from above is not enough. They want more. I think this will be the prime reason why this game won't be re-released here. The risks are too high to generate another shitstorm.

It would be nice to hear whether this deal is still actively being worked on / negotiated...

... or...

... whether it's essentially dead.

IMO it's kinda crazy that a sanctioned workaround hasn't come about already. Why? Because -- I believe I'm remembering correctly -- the game has been given away for free on multiple occasions. If it's been released into-the-wild for free, it certainly could release DRM-free with some kind of work-around to the online components. Or one would think. But what do I know? ;)

I had a pretty long thoughtful post written up but the forum seems to have eaten it. :P

GOG, I hope you know people do really want a truly DRM-free release of this. I imagine the problem is too many internal components require online connection and can't be easily "severed", and IO won't bother and it's not something that can be outsourced to, like, General Arcade.

https://www.gog.com/wishlist/games#search=hitman&order=votes_total

I kind of think this too, but imo there's some decent money (for GOG, not much for IO probably) to be made from a truly DRM-free release that is foolish to miss out on. I think it has more to do with technical difficulties in making the game DRM-free but I also don't know a ton about how the game works.

Yeah, I apparently also just lost a comment...in a different thread.

I'm one of these people.
However: unlike some others here, I understand, that GOG can't do anything about this.

And IO? Makes enough money with their DRM-ed versions.
No reason for them to invest unnecessary money, only to get a DRM-free version on GOG.
The possible revenue (most people would refuse to buy at full price) simply doesn't justify the investment.
Not after six years.

Am I too pessimistic? Maybe.
Hey, I would love to be proven wrong. I just don't see it happen.

GOG should probably lock this thread in order to prevent endless pointless Necros of it every few months.

Definitely. Its days of relevance are over.

I don't think there are technical difficulties. They had now more than one year to create a version of the game which works entirely offline. They haven't done it.

I don't think they are going to invest time and money to release a version of this game where you can expect people here on GOG being extremely nitpicking about it. One small error or one little bug which is interpreted as a DRM mechanism and you have another shitstorm.

That train has left the station. People here should get over it and move on.

They've had a year to do what? I'd imagine there was no budget to do anything, so nothing was done. The game was modified to release here, the fan base rejected it (rightfully so, imo) and that's the end of it. They were releasing here to make a buck, not spend a large amount of cash fixing a game that works (to them, it does) to make 20 sales.

They (GOG or Io-Interactive) could have found a solution to release this game here on GOG after all the problems. The "easiest" route might be a savegame for everyone where 100% is unlocked and you don't need the servers anymore. This wouldn't cost anything. (There are also cracked versions with such a savegame.) There are no signs to release this game here in a different version. And there seems to be no will (from GOG or Io-Interactive) to change this. I think otherwise you would have probably read something about it. In that regard there is absolutely nothing.

I see two groups of people here.

The people who still want the game to be on GOG. I think it won't be released here anymore.

The people who want GOG or Io-Interactive to break NDAs and tell the full story of what happened. It is totally pointless to demand something like this. The user who constantly bumps this thread seems to ignore this.

Both groups need to move on.