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Experiment and have fun in the ultimate playground as Agent 47 to become the master assassin. HITMAN - Game of The Year Edition is now available on GOG.COM with an astounding 70% discount that will last until 29th September 2021, 1 PM UTC.

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Dear Community,

Thank you for your patience and for giving us the time to investigate the release of HITMAN GOTY on GOG. As promised, we’re getting back to you with updates.

We're still in dialogue with IO Interactive about this release. Today we have removed HITMAN GOTY from GOG’s catalog – we shouldn’t have released it in its current form, as you’ve pointed out.

We’d like to apologise for the confusion and anger generated by this situation. We’ve let you down and we’d like to thank you for bringing this topic to us – while it was honest to the bone, it shows how passionate you are towards GOG.

We appreciate your feedback and will continue our efforts to improve our communication with you.
Post edited October 08, 2021 by chandra
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With today I declare gog dead.
If you are a gog user I think you should backup your games (I'll do it by tomorrow at least for games that I still need to download /play, usually games that I don't really care about, other games already got a backup).
From today they will only sell to stupid people that don't care about drm and usually the same people prefer steam so I don't really see how can gog survive.
It was good for the most part until the release of hitman drm shit edition.
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timppu: 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'm afraid I don't know. I wouldn't be surprise either way, if someone else's save worked in a legit copy, or if it only worked in a cracked version. Though I would be slightly less surprised in the latter.

It's still far from ideal, because unlocking better weapons I think would be part of the fun of the game. E.g. thinking back to Blood Money.

Personally though I don't want to support a company who pulled this for a series with a very well established single player pedigree. In this case I'd rather go to the high seas (or I would if my current system wasn't so lackluster). It's at least possible to properly play the main portion of the game like that it seems, unlike iirc, HoMM6 where certain ingame gameplay mechanics are tied to being online. Which is something I'm still upset about, because judging by the demo, HoMM6 was actually a very decent game.
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timppu: 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.
No, there are plenty ways to affect business decisions. Like publicity. Business don't like noise around it. Especially, when they are making money by selling consumer goods.

But I see, that you don't like community's uproar, and want it to stop.
Post edited September 24, 2021 by trynoval
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timppu: 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?
That's what I mention in my post https://www.gog.com/forum/general/release_hitman_game_of_the_year_edition_11093/post666 it might me one of the solution to at least alleviate the issue a little. It wouldn't be perfect but at least better than nothing.


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timppu: 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...
It's the "meta-progression" that is online this progression is the one that unlock stuff. The "standard" story progression is saved offline.
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Matewis: It's still far from ideal, because unlocking better weapons I think would be part of the fun of the game. E.g. thinking back to Blood Money.
Yeah maybe so, I am not sure as i haven't played either Blood Money or this newer Hitman.

If I try to think of an example I am familiar with, e.g. in Team Fortress 2 you unlock new weapons etc. while you play the game.

Is the part of unlocking those weapons (through playing the game for hours and hours) really what made it fun for me, or is it just as good if I play with a 100% account which has all the weapons and other useful items already unlocked?

For me it would be the latter. I don't care how I got some weapon or item (either reaching some achievement or pure luck or some other player online gifting it to me (that has happened too, several times!))... and I didn't really care how I obtained those useful items, as long as I got them. Having them improves the whole gameplay, and that is what I care about, having them while I play the game, not how I got them.

Someone else might feel differently, and it is much more important to them that they obtain those items themselves.
Post edited September 24, 2021 by timppu
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GOG.com: Experiment and have fun in the ultimate playground as Agent 47 to become the master assassin. HITMAN - Game of The Year Edition is now available on GOG.COM with an astounding 70% discount that will last until 29th September 2021, 1 PM UTC.

Get ready for even more challenges! All games from the Hitman series available on GOG.COM receive 75% discounts lasting also until 29th September 2021, 1 PM UTC:
Simply put: if GOG cannot remove the mandatory online-portion of the game, there is no place for it here.

GOG should withdraw the game and refund buyers.
Post edited September 24, 2021 by dyscode
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Gersen: That's what I mention in my post https://www.gog.com/forum/general/release_hitman_game_of_the_year_edition_11093/post666 it might me one of the solution to at least alleviate the issue a little. It wouldn't be perfect but at least better than nothing.
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It's the "meta-progression" that is online this progression is the one that unlock stuff. The "standard" story progression is saved offline.
Ok thanks. Maybe that would be the first, at least partial, solution that GOG should strive for. At least it wouldn't apparently require the publisher rewrite the whole game engine or anything (which will probably never happen at least for this first game, as you suggested).
Post edited September 24, 2021 by timppu
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trynoval: 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.
That's kind of the issue, and not just for this game, most devs don't really care about selling their game on Gog, if they can do it with no/minimal work why not, but very few, if any, are actually going to spend any significant amount of work on a five years old games that was already sold elsewhere and even given for free.
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double post
Post edited September 24, 2021 by dyscode
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timppu: 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.
Ok, this made me chuckle quite a bit.

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timppu: 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.
If the last several years have taught me anything on this subject, it's that "moaning"(in the right places/on the right sites, of course) can "pay off many dividends".

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timppu: Who talked anything about "a few shares"? Not me at least.
Well again, it's not like the average gogger is likely to be able to buy enough shares to matter in the eyes of a company. As such(unless you were talking to the super rich secretly hiding among us), saying one should buy shares to change things(as in on their own) isn't (imo) very helpful advice.

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timppu: Ok thanks. Maybe that would be the first, at least partial, solution that GOG should strive for.
Strive for? They should've strode for it before the game even hit the stores.

====

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trynoval: No, there are plenty ways to affect business decisions. Like publicity. Business don't like noise around it. Especially, when they are making money by selling consumer goods.
Well said and agreed 100%

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trynoval: But I see, that you don't like community's uproar, and want it to stop.
This, however, not so much. Maybe think about not attributing malice to people's posts without proof?

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Gersen: That's what I mention in my post https://www.gog.com/forum/general/release_hitman_game_of_the_year_edition_11093/post666 it might me one of the solution to at least alleviate the issue a little. It wouldn't be perfect but at least better than nothing.
*GR sees post number*

Yeah, that's a good sign.....o.0 ;D

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dyscode: Simply put: if GOG cannot remove the mandatory online-portion of the game, there is no place for it here.

GOG should withdraw the game and refund buyers.
Imo, GOG should withdraw it and let anyone who wants to keep it to do so....otherwise, I agree 100%
Post edited September 24, 2021 by GamezRanker
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Matewis: It's still far from ideal, because unlocking better weapons I think would be part of the fun of the game. E.g. thinking back to Blood Money.
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timppu: Yeah maybe so, I am not sure as i haven't played either Blood Money or this newer Hitman.

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Oh? Well then, I will highly vouch for it! Even Absolution imho is very good, even if some of its initial portions are a bit too action-y, and the segmented level design isn't always that appealing.

I also played and massively enjoyed Team Fortress 2 off and on over the years. The weapon unlocks there are a bit different of course, in that no weapon is clearly better than any other weapon of the same type. E.g. it's more accurate but it's slower, or it shoots faster, but it's got a lower magazine size. I've always thought this was a very cool design choice for the game's multiplayer setting, because it kept it from being pay-to-win, but still left players with a drive to unlock the weapons out of sheer curiosity. Unfortunately there's very few people playing in on local servers :(

Thinking of Hitman, the weapon unlocks in Blood Money instead follows a noticeable upwards trend, and ties into the overall progression of the game. I'd expect the same here.
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tfishell: 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"?
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Gersen: 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
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trynoval: 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. :)
Thanks for the responses.

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Gersen: - 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.
Approx. how much of the game would still "exist" without "the Escalation mission, Elusive targets & co"? 75-80% or more?

I'm actually not necessarily against keeping the current version that has "Escalation missions, Elusive Targets or user-created Contracts" as long as there's a version that has, like, 80+% of the single-player content DRM-free. Options.
Post edited September 24, 2021 by tfishell
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trynoval: 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.
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Gersen: That's kind of the issue, and not just for this game, most devs don't really care about selling their game on Gog, if they can do it with no/minimal work why not, but very few, if any, are actually going to spend any significant amount of work on a five years old games that was already sold elsewhere and even given for free.
Don't fall for self-insignificance syndrome. ;)
Lots of devs do care about selling their game on GOG. Devs usually know that DRM is stupid. It's publishers being negative about DRM-Free, because they often have bad knowledge of real world, living in ivory towers, and they like oppression.

GOG sell a lot of game copies, and it's an effective mechanism of motivation to remove DRM from games. You can look how Sony cared enough to publish Horizon Zero Dawn on GOG on launch. It's not a shabby thing to happen. And in case with Denuvo removal. Many games that gets Denuvo removal being published on GOG first, with Denuvo being removed from Steam version happens later. It's a hard evidence of industry's recognition of GOG.
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tfishell: Approx. how much of the game would still "exist" without "the Escalation mission, Elusive targets & co"? 75-80% or more?
Personally I would say it's subjective. It's like asking how much of a game still exists without achievements, for me who don't care about achievements I would answer 100% but for somebody else who cares about 100% completing everything then lacking achievement might remove a good part of his/her enjoyment of the game.

Personally when I played Hitman 1 I didn't really cared about the Escalation mission, but that's because I usually don't like all this "meta" thingy. I prefer to play game story and side quest and for me the Escalation felt more like some randomly generated extra content added on top of the real game. The main interest of the game is to try to kill the main targets using creative methods and often with self imposed challenges (e.g. kill and leave the scene without being detected at all) so killing some random NPC X times in a row to get a higher score didn't really interested me, I only did it because it was a way to unlock stuff.
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tfishell: Approx. how much of the game would still "exist" without "the Escalation mission, Elusive targets & co"? 75-80% or more?
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Gersen: Personally I would say it's subjective. It's like asking how much of a game still exists without achievements, for me who don't care about achievements I would answer 100% but for somebody else who cares about 100% completing everything then lacking achievement might remove a good part of his/her enjoyment of the game.

Personally when I played Hitman 1 I didn't really cared about the Escalation mission, but that's because I usually don't like all this "meta" thingy. I prefer to play game story and side quest and for me the Escalation felt more like some randomly generated extra content added on top of the real game. The main interest of the game is to try to kill the main targets using creative methods and often with self imposed challenges (e.g. kill and leave the scene without being detected at all) so killing some random NPC X times in a row to get a higher score didn't really interested me, I only did it because it was a way to unlock stuff.
Exactly. It is subjective. But since GOG is a store for everyone, DRM-Free game must include everything, so noone would feel that he was left behind. =)
Post edited September 24, 2021 by trynoval