Let those who bought it so far keep it(if any want to do so, that is), and take it down from sale until the makers/ip holders make the other game bits playable offline.

And yes, this would keep new people from buying it, but: the same exact version is on steam......if people want to buy it(and have no qualms with the online requirement) they could always do so there.

They will gone on this curve. Have you seen how GOG Galaxy is all over the place in your library, while offline installer is a small option you need to dig for?

That's when people should've started bashing GOG on it's head.
Don't even start with this one.
DRMed games should not be sold on DRM-Free store. Otherwise there is no point in DRM-Free store, meaning that publishers would stop removing DRM from games.
Why should they, if they can sell on GOG with DRM just fine.

Please, think twice before saying such things. )

Technical perspective question: what does GOG need to do to un-DRM Hitman GOTY content? Would it be similar to what was done for Deus Ex Mankind Divided's originally-DRM'd content? Are there game-content files they need IOI to give them or is this more of a "authenticate with a server" thing?

If GOG were to "do the right thing", is the only reasonable option to remove the game, or is there likely a way to un-DRM the "Escalation missions, Elusive Targets, (and) user-created Contracts"?

hitman is the perfect example of how dangerous game service is to single-player games and to safeguarding video game heritage in the future. This system is a great danger to this heritage.

But where I disagree with you. It is because it is removed from the store. Even if there is just the single player drm free campaign. He must stay on goggle.

I prefer that a small part of the game be saved than nothing at all. But it has to be clearly stated on what it is really drm free (which was not the case when it was launched on gog).

Just to note that offline installers have all been galaxified, the installer has been changed to be streams like galaxy (there is another thread on this), and also certain elements of galaxy are embedded in offline installers as well. Some games have been “updated” like this and content removed, and don’t work now. Also the galaxy.dll requirement will likely break at some point. You can find out more:
https://www.gog.com/forum/general/provide_a_full_and_complete_changelogged_download_system
Sadly the offline installers are now nothing more than another attack opportunity to get galaxy installed on your machine.

I would say there is three possibilities :

- Unlock all the unlockable by default

Probably the easiest and the "most likely" I would say. You wouldn't be able to do the Escalation mission, Elusive targets & co but at least you would have the sandbox experience with all the unlockable weapons, costumer and starting points. Personally I would have hoped that they have done that by default.

Now remain the question of the importance peoples give to Escalation and Ellusive, personally when I played the game on console years ago, I didn't really cared about them honestly, for me the interesting part is to terminate the mission target using different strategies, different methods, not to kill some random NPC, using a toothbrush, while dressed as a maid. But that's just me other might disagree.

- Make the Escalation mission, Elusive targets playable offline and unlock all the content.

For escalation it should be possible, for Elusive targets it might be harder depending how IOI did it on their side. The issue as I mentioned earlier is that Hitman 1 is a dead game, it's unlikely IOI will spend any time on it when all the content of the game can be played in Hitman 2 or 3.

- Make all content playable offline

Same than the previous one but also including a way to save meta-progression offline, IMHO the most unlikely to happen, at least for Hitman 1

It's 100% possible to make EVERYTHING offline. Including making offline build-in generator for timed events, publish pack of user-generated content from Io servers, and allow users to record and share new user-generated content. IOI are original developers of the game, and can easily do that.
All of this is doable. And we should not settle for anything lesser than that. It's a 5 years old game, that's already sold everywhere, and was given away at EGS for free.

GOG doesn't need to do anything. The only GOG's job is to curate games that are coming to the Store and prevent DRM sneaking in.

I have a great example how such features can be 100% offline:
Recently release roguelike Noita has online challenges mode and some leaderboards, technical data collection. But developer is respecting it's users, so they allow to disable those in the game. And when you disable those, you get offline daily challenges generator, identical to online one. It's not really that hard to make such services offline. :)

4) Any of the above, as it is GOG's decision what they do as they run the business, not us. As long as they are honest about it (ie. not claiming a (single-player) game is DRM-free if it has (single-player) DRM).

As a customer, my only real right, that may affect anything, is to buy, or not to buy, their game(s).

A reminder that anyone can become part of GOG, affecting their business decisions directly, by buying their parent company's shares. :) That is how the business world works, otherwise your only choices are moaning, or suing the company, in case you feel they have done something illegal.

Everything is possible technically, the real question is is it realistic.

The "problem" with Hitman is, as mentioned before, the new games are not just sequel but also update of the previous ones, as in Hitman 2 can have all the content of Hitman 1, Hitman 3 can have all the content of Hitman 2 & 3.

So there is no real reason or motivation for IOI to do any work anymore on Hitman 1, for them Hitman 3 is the current "version" of all the Hitman games.

That's why it would probably have been a much better idea for Gog to wait for Hitman 3 exclusivity period to end and release directly Hitman 3 with the legacy packs.

That's actually an interesting proposal, good point...

So if GOG simply offered a 100% save game in the extras that would allow anyone to play with all unlockables, entrances etc., would that suffice to people? That's all you need, one save game file? Do you even need a "high seas" version for that, can't you use that save game file with the legit game as well?

What will be missing from the game with such a save game, ie. what player content is still inaccessible offline?

I think Matewis presented a great point: how about just adding a 100% save game file to the game's extras, which would unlock all those unlockables (weapons, entrances, costumes etc.), so that people can play with them, offline?

I was under the impression that the game downloads those "unlockables" as you unlock them with progression... but apparently not. They are already there in the local game assets, just oddly restricted to checking for them online?

EDIT: Now I am unsure if that "online game progression" is saved online to their servers, or into a local save file, just checking something from the servers... How do the servers identify which game has progressed how far, ie. which save file belongs to which copy of the game? I thought there is no online account to login into...

You say this.....

...and then say this.

Thing is, (sadly) "ahoy and avast" groups/sites often do a much better job of game preservation....acting as an archival service of sorts (albeit not a legal one in a number of areas) & making the games DRM free and/or playable on whatever system they can be played on.

GOG, on the other hand, removes EXE files for some old games(meaning one cannot play them in Dosbox or on original OSs/hardware if one wanted to do so), plus a number of other things that aren't in the spirit of true game preservation.

Why do you repeat this nonsense again? You've been already told that it's not a thing.

In order to have any real say in company's decisions you should have a major share in the company's business.
There is a real reason and motivation for IOI. It's called MONEY. If they want to sell their game to GOG's crowd they must make game 100% offline.

Or at the very least a substantial one.

And yeah, anyone who believes you can change a game company by buying a few shares is akin to those who believe that writing their officials a bit will change various things.

I didn't claim that buying one share, or 0.00001% of the shares, would give you the majority to alone dictate how GOG or CDP(R) runs their business. If it was that easy, I would buy one share of Apple, and tell it to shut down all operations immediately. No real reason, just for shits and giggles.

The fact still remains that buying shares is the only way to directly affect their business decisions, unless they do something illegal in which case you can of course sue them.

Moaning mainly just makes everyone's ears hurt. It is like those people who were protesting against Brett Kavanaugh. They sure protested hard and long and loudly, but for what? Nothing, Brett got picked anyway.

Who talked anything about "a few shares"? Not me at least.