hi, first of all, just to let you know, I own almost all the games here from GOG and I'm a hardliner gamer, that is to say, I always would like to play games as they were originally released (no cracks, and in general no modifications to game files and gameplay).
if want, take a look at my posts from the past about this topic: first and second.
now, after the King's Bounty's case, I start to doubt about the care GOG lavishes on releasing games...
it is not acceptable that are the customers to find out bugs and wicked modifications caused by GOG's negligence and laziness.

Hmmm ... in general I've found the GOG releases for my games to be pretty stable (or as stable as the retail versions I should say). However in order to remove DRM, they have to put in cracks and sometimes those cracks can cause problems. In this instance, it would appear that GOG's crack itself is responsible. However, that is simply an annoying bug - not a game breaking one that has caused GOG to issue refunds and pull a game in the past (MotoRacer was improperly cracked at first I believe). The T did say they were working on it for King's Bounty. So hopefully they'll come out with a fix.

If GOG wouldn't alter some of the game files, you wouldn't be able to the games at all. And anyway, gog does not make any visible changes to their games, just under-the-hood modifications to let you play the game on modern systems. I absolutely don't understand where can you have a problem with that

It depends. So far I haven't run in a game that I cannot get to work properly (that means downloading it, installing it, creating custom installer for it, integrating mods and stuff).

Tbh, I don't care what GOG does to the games, I just wanna get the data files... I'll deal with compatibility, getting the game to run better on my system, and similar stuff, myself.

I'd say the games are very reliable, if that was the question.

As for some of the cracks found in their releases it is to be expected.
Some companies give them the license to sell their games DRM free and that is all, how they do it is up to them.
They are not provided with the source code or master disc so it's sometimes impossible to get a DRM free game.

The King's Bounty bug is really specific to reproduce and doesn't hinder gameplay much so I wouldn't put much emphasis on it

When I read the title, the first game that came to mind was Commandos, which is supposed to have been patched for modern PCs, but bar the 16-bit installer has exactly the same problems as my disc version (sound cut-off, running too fast etc.)

GOG's DOSBox stuff is usually spot on, even if the DOSBox configurations themselves are often in need of some tweaking to get them running properly (Wing Commander and Might and Magic 1 come to mind here). Older Windows stuff - pre 2000s - is sometimes a bit of a pain.

If you are indeed referring to the actual modification of games - well, I've not found any yet where the game has been modified in any way bar configuration.

Hi,
That you will get for using cracks to make your games drm free :). My gamersgate version of kings bounty has no such glitch. A certain Cracked version has. The size of both version are similar.

I have a few games, where i had to work hours on before being able to play them. There are

Interstate 76 - Not starting. Using the help of fellow GoGians solved the problems. It was related to grafic modes in the install package.

Advent Rising - Not working after several hours of playtime , shortly before the end. So i was not able to play the game through. Problem is not solved too date. Known problem of the xbox version. Related to memoryissues.

Descent 1+2. 3 Weird key mapping. Took me several hours to get in run proberly. I assume it was my fault.

I don't think that the care for their games will decline. There is not much care to start with.
I don't think they play every game through till the end. They will not test their games on many available systems. They make them drm free with easiest available methods, look if the games starts proberly and shovel them to their download servers. Thats it. I do not think they try to reengineer the programmcode, to get the copyprotection out of their games. It would be too much work for only 5,99 or 9,99 $ a game.

But in defense of gog.com i have to say, that i did not encounter many bugs or problems in my purchases that were not related to original programmer errors. We should be thankfull that those games are available at all.

After reading my own post i think to myself: Oh my popularity will sink after this threat. Ah i had never any popularity to begin with and do not candidate for an office. So who cares.

May the Emperor protect GoG.com.

Have a nice day.

They do "re-engineer" some of the program code. They are actually advertising a job for someone who can do reverse engineering right now...

I have read the posts you linked to. You say you prefer playing games with DRM ove playing games that have been altered from their original state. If that is the case, then I wonder why you're buying your games at the one single service that has a strict anti-DRM policy. Your very specific wants and GOG's business philosophy just don't seem to match.

Games in their original state are often unplayable on modern systems, and often buggy. Any alterations to the original state of the game are usually done to improve the player's experience: removing DRM, making the game playable at all, fixing bugs, or improving weak gameplay elements. As someone who worked on / created / contributed to several fan patch efforts (Morrowind, Master of Magic, Alpha Centauri, etc.), I find it hard to understand that someone would not want these improvements. To me, that's a bit like an archeologist who wants to enclose a fossil skeleton in a cupboard because exhibiting it would require some fake bones to make it work.

GOG's changes to the games they release appear to be very low-key, they only address the DRM and compatibility issues. I can't see anything wrong with that. Of course, if they scre something up in the process, I'd expect them to at least try to fix it.

I'm glad to hear it. I'm not a purist as far as getting games just like the original in every trivial details (including the arrangement of the code) goes and I figured that short of writing complete emulators for older versions of Windows, they'd hit some roadblocks if they didn't put their hands in there and fix the code.

For the most part, I don't think the logic would be modified much.

Main modifications I could see are random number generators (if they were badly made) and maybe timing (again, if it was badly made) and I don't really have a problem with that being fixed if it was implemented badly.

And yeah, the removal of previous old bugs is a big plus for me. I'm thinking that playing some old titles without the bugs is not a nostalgia crasher, it's more like fixing bad memories :).

A short summary of GoG reliability.
http://www.gog.com/en/forum/general/gog_games_missing_content_incomplete_etc/page1

That only proves that they may start to modify code themselves in the future.

Some of the existing staff also have experience in reverse engineering and modifying compiled code to remove DRM.

Are they also proficient in ASCII art and demos?

... some of them...