Llyr86: So if you order something at a restaurant, and you get the ingredients and a piece of paper telling you how to make it. That would satisfy you would it? Or electrician? Plumber? You wouldn't make that excuse for anything other than PC gaming, I think personally.
JayFoxRox: Except this is not how it works.
If you want to stick with that analogy: They also prepare your food and serve it to you. However, they did not slaughter the meat themselves and they did not farm their own potatoes. They just bought those parts and prepared the meal for you.
But cooking is hard, especially if you don't have all ingredients for grandmas old recipe.
So suddenly, you as a cook, have to come up with substitutes: some will like the taste, others won't.
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I feel like you are criticizing the wrong portion of GOG.com in general.
Personally, in the past weeks I've also noticed some shortcomings in their model:
- Lack of support (aside from the money back policy): The SWE1R support article has almost no information. Stuff like changed game behaviour and glitches on certain framerates, the Ando Prime sky bug etc. are not even acknowledged.
- Lack of oversight on the forums, with moderation or support (almost?) never stepping in, even when illegal material is being shared; even after reporting the post in question.
- Long delay for patches without communication (see 2 previous points). This bothers me personally, because I also do similar work for fun in my freetime. I could have addressed a handful of reported issues (in a couple of hours), or at least informed users why they run into issues and wether it will be fixed soon. So I'm surprised that a paid team of engineers seems to be unable to do so in almost 2 weeks.
- At least one botched release in the past. I don't have the specifics, but the Re-Volt fiasco looks really bad to me; selling the involved persons software is an extremly poor and dangerous decision (aside from other legal matters with Re-Volt). This was a couple of years ago though, so maybe it's better now.
Luckily, all of these are addressable issues.
I feel this current lack of communication and integrity, is much worse than what you imply (selling "broken" software to make money short-term, with no intention of fixes).
That said, lack of communication can be perceived as what you described here.
And even then, all of that doesn't bother me as badly as your impoliteness and disrespect (which seems unfounded or poorly explained).
Paying money for a product doesn't entitle you to being a prick - especially if you can simply get your money back.
Simply contact the support directly if there's an issue.
So far I've not called anyone anything. Not called anyone a crook or a swinder, just explained a trend that is infurating to me and my friends, but I'll agree with you that calling GoG, activision or ea is hyperbolic and they are not even close to that level of shady.
So considering that roughly 80% of information in a conversation is given through body language, assume I'm writing this in a pleasant, conversational tone with a neutral, bordering on engaged facial expression, and not one laden with irony, sarcasm and defensive body language, like crossed arms.
1. I like and greatly respect CPR because their buisness sense is one of "Respect the gamer"
2. As previously explained, I could have downloaded a cracked version and played that, but because they where selling it and I felt they deserved my buisness, I bought it from them in good faith that they had given it the proper checkup.
3. Upon realizing that they hadn't, my issue was quite normal and there was no straight forward way of fixing it (At least initially untill I did some digging and fixed it quite easily by downloading dgvoodoo, at the suggestion of someone.) I decided to voice my complaint because if a problem is so common yet unadressed (As I saw it), voices joined together are stronger.
4. And I'll try to work with your interpretation of my analogy even though I struggle to see how it pertains to the issue.
It would be greatly inefficient to construct a farm just to grow food for a restaurant. Mind you there are these kinds of places and the food in general is great, but their capacity is very low and they tend to have a short season so their business isn't surviving off the restaurant alone.
And by grandmas food I'll assume you mean comfort foods, foods that brings that touch of nostalgia, good things you had as a kid, like maybe meatballs or cookies only dad or mom knew how to make.
No one will ever make something as good as your comfort foods, I know this from considerable testing and attempted reconstruction.
But yes if you lack ingredients then you have to improvise and in general, if the customer knows what he is getting and knows what it'll taste like, it's hard to substitute that missing ingredient.
So I'd take it off the menu and offer a free dessert rather than try and cheat him and face the rage and anger when he realizes someone tried to swindle him with a subpar product.