How does GOG plan on staying relevant to any degree, if they don't even care about that last thing anymore?
In "the other place" at least I get Linux support.
For a few years now the last and only reason to come here was the DRM-free curation.

One hopes they will patch out the online requirement for escalations and such when the game's servers eventually go down, but I also wouldn't be surprised if they don't. The core story experience is available offline, and that might be all they care about "preserving." Similar to how it's all GOG seems to care about being DRM free. Also very few companies care about preservation anyway, it's usually left to the community.

Not defending this at all really, just saying how things are.

So then, you think we should kiss posterior or shut up so the ones in charge might hopefully throw us a treat in our dog bowls?

Is that supposed to be a joke? Cuz it isn't funny, m8.

There are ZERO differences between steam & GoG. I don't know who thought this was a great idea. IO has been doing this since Hitman absolution. For some reason the only way they can give you a true DRM free experience is to totally omit the contracts mode. In this new Hitman game, they intertwined the online so much MORE DEEPER IN THE GAME, that they had to include it with the GOG version because 90% of the game is online. I don't know why IO is so obsessed with this style of development. They are the most stubborn devs I've ever seen. People on steam have cried for IO to drop this draconian process, since this game was released in 2016; and they then released the 2nd game with EVEN MORE online connectivity & now the third game is a epic exclusive. IO interactive is one of the worse gaming companies out there. Now we know that developers are even more evil thank the publishers. IO interactive is trash.

Seems to me this is the result of profit-seeking and as satisfying as the "I told you so's" may be on my part and others, I genuinely feel that GOG would've still went this direction even if people had wised up to push harder against previous instances of DRM-like schemes, online requirements, etc. And, for the record, that includes multiplayer DRM which is NOT necessary, and has NO place on a DRM-free store. Games that have it should either be fixed, the modes excised, or the games themselves removed from the storefront. Just like with the locked elements of this title.

I say to hell with the corporate mentality. To hell with "games as a live service". To hell with DRM, online requirements, rental models as monopsony, defective design of any kind. And to hell with any excuses made for any of it. "That's just the way gaming is now"...no, for me, it is not. I left PC gaming for nearly a decade and a half due to being so disgusted with the "norm" of Scheme DRM. If the options are take DRM or leave it, I will leave it and encourage as many people as I can to join me in leaving it. "Live services" might as well be considered DOA to my wallet!

I couldn't care less what is going on behind the scenes to supposedly, maybe, fix this. Any remaining trust to have in GOG is essentially gone because this never should have occurred in the first place. We can contrast the Deus Ex Mankind Divided DLC which also never should've been, but seemed like it was an oversight from apparently (and may I add, stupidly) not testing the offline PRIMARY installers, only Galaxy. This game now is different. There's no way imo this was anything but intentional from all parties involved. Convince me otherwise?

The issue is far beyond this release. How can we trust any new game will be actually DRM-free the way that we understand it (read: not "'DRM-free, as defined in corporate weaselspeak")? For that matter, how can we even trust updates to our existing purchased games now that devs/pubs are able to intuit GOG doesn't really seem to care if the product is DRM-free or not? We hear from user reports in other topics that it is not necessarily possible to get previous versions of offline installers from Support.

I demand a response from GOG clarifying whether or not our existing games are going to be SAFE from DRMed "improvements" in future updates. In the meantime while we wait for responses, I urge you all to keep your offline installers and vet any new updates thoroughly, for reasoning suggested in the previous paragraph. And how funny as I logged in to post this I got taken to the front page displaying "Hack and Slash week". Evidently, from DRM-man's release, "hack and slash" refers to cutting content out of games!

Thank you for clarifying.

A follow-up question: Can the steam version be played offline (e.g. without the steam client)? I'm referring obviously only to the very limited story mode, not the online stuff.

It's all over Twitter, Facebook and the website

i know there drm free from my purchasing Zoom games. It just does not seem to be there main selling point.
Wait I see it now. I don't use there Facebook and never seen it on the website. Happy its clear there DRM free. Thanks mate.

I edit my last post: Wait I see it now. I don't use there Facebook and never seen it on the website. Happy its clear there DRM free. Thanks mate.

Edit again: I bought a couple game's from Zoom, not sure how I missed it. haha

Nee bother mate <3

For what it's worth I still have Hitman 3 installed and it requires the Epic client running to launch. Assuming it's the same for Hitman 1, on Steam, then the GOG version is in that sense "DRM free" for the core story mode while the other versions are not.

Again though the issue here is that core story mode is such a small portion of the experience, compared to a game like Absolution.

Why is post rated low?

I have "fans" here who use bots to low rate everything I post(they also do it to a small number of others).
Same advice I give everyone else? Just ignore it and enjoy/focus on the content of people's posts. :)

Plain and simple: This is unacceptable, GOG.com. You´re betraying the sole reason for your excistence. This is a sad day for this platform.