Yes and No.

There is only one store like GOG, and from their inception they have championed DRM-Free.
For that alone they deserve enormous respect and support, even adoration.

If GOG fail, it is highly unlikely we will get another store that compares to them on a DRM-Free front.

It is my belief, that GOG and DRM-Free are intricately tied together and they each rely on the other.

If GOG fail, I believe DRM-Free will be seen as a poisoned chalice and things will revert to something like they were before GOG ... though probably not entirely.

That's not to say all DRM-Free games will disappear. A store like Itch.io for instance would be business as usual or perhaps benefit ... but they are essentially just Indie games.

Maybe in the short term the ZOOM Platform would benefit for a while, but they don't seem to have done much in the time they have been around already. But because they already exist, they would no doubt battle on and gain some benefit from the loss of GOG ... but it wouldn't be a straight swap. I suspect many DEVs and PUBs currently with GOG would give up on DRM-Free altogether ... so a real tough job for the ZOOM Platform to woo them.

That's not to mention the fallout of customers who have spent a lot of money at GOG ... especially those who, as we know, haven't been diligent with backing up. They could well think that maybe their money would have been better spent at Steam or Epic, etc. To elaborate further ... just imagine what would occur with the disgruntled? How many more GOG games would turn up at pirate sites? What would that do to the DRM-Free market or concept?

Then all those other stores trying to take advantage ... they will be doing all sorts of deals to lure prior GOG customers in. They wouldn't be converting their stores to DRM-Free though ... but maybe add a section for such games.

So in my view, no ongoing DRM-Free gamer can afford for GOG to fail. That means they need our encouragement and incentives.

Did you miss the last one? They remade Red Dawn again in 2012. It stars Chris Hemsworth.

https://m.imdb.com/title/tt1234719/
You took the words out of my mouth with this one.

I think GOG helped spearhead the DRM-free charge in gaming. I think the jury is still out as to whether they did it from the goodness of their heart or just because it made a lot of sense to cater to a neglected, but still significant niche market (I strongly suspect that its a combination of the two, but with a heavy emphasis on the later... I've been around enough entrepreneurial types as part of my trade to get a gist about how most of them think).

However, I'm not a purist about it. Whatever achieves the goal is fine really (some people will scream moral outrage that people selling us our games might not be like us, I'm just happy to have a plentiful supply of DRM-free games).

I disagree with you there. I think GOG has a pretty solid grip on a smaller, but very stable market and I think they could go on for quite a while (possibly even my entire lifetime) if they don't mess it up.

If they do fail, it will be about something other than their core business model (ex: their parent company having a string of bad game releases and going bankrupt or them abandoning their original user-base and trying to take Steam head on at what they are good at) and it will not be seen as a failure in the DRM-free business model as much as a failure in how GOG (or their parent company) managed things.

That being said, pickings might be slim for a couple of years after that and it would be a darn shame for those of us who have 1000+ games here (no more content updates though eventually, those dry up anyways, but more significantly, we'd have to become emulation gurus to play our collection at some point).

So no, I would not wish GOG to fail in any shape of form.

Yes, to take full advantage of DRM-free, you need the logistics to backup terabytes of data if you are an ardent buyer.

I have home servers with 40 TB of redundant capacity, though I realise most users won't have that kind of setup.

I'm working on a backup tool that can store things in S3 and Amazon Glacier has very affordable rates (4$ per TB per month as the base and 1$ per TB per month if you commit to the plan where you can only fetch your backup 1-2 times a year, though there are some gotchas.... if you delete data that is less than 3 months old, you will pay... possibly quite a lot if you delete lots of data... and if you download the entire thing at once, it will cost you too).

I think think there is an ardent core of people that simply won't budge on such issues.

For me, its either Netflix-like explicit rental with a huge selection for a very reasonable monthly fee or DRM-free... I will not support scoundrels that masquerade rental as true ownership and get us to pay an upfront fee for things that we do not own (well, on a strict legal sense, we do not own our collection on GOG either, but good luck enforcing that).

Question: Do you feel that once these bugs and unoptimisations are fixed (and that they CAN be trivially fixed), then CP2077 would be a "great game"?

Perhaps it would be better for your peace of mind to wait a couple months before playing it?

Do you really expect that gog refund games that were bought years ago?

Maybe, but I am not so sure about that.
I think it was a big gamble in the beginning ... based on feelings and comments more than anything.
Sure there was likely a sizable customer base wanting DRM-Free ... that goes without saying.
The difficult and not so sure part, has always been to get DEVs and PUBs to come onboard and embrace DRM-Free, and that is still an ongoing challenge I believe. If it wasn't, then we would see a lot more great games and the wishlists at GOG would be fewer.

It might seem stable, but unlike most stores, GOG can never rest, as they need to keep growing the pie of DRM-Free, and I suspect that has been very challenging at times. Most customers here get their games anywhere they can, and don't particularly care about DRM-Free, though some of those no doubt prefer it. So in reality you have a smaller base of what you might call loyalists and regular spenders, who will be requiring more DRM-Free games, certainly once they have gotten all the existing ones here that they are interested in ... or mostly so.

To be perfectly honest, I think the parent company has been propping them up for some time, and GOG itself is not as profitable as some think. If profits made by CDPR are really the main reason GOG can hold its head above water much of the time, then the potential for failure remains just around the corner.

The future in that regard is anyone's guess.
A cheaper rental model is most likely on the cards, especially as AAA games are getting more costly all the time, and many cannot really afford them. So we are likely to see a kind of Netflix subscription like model of better prices occur.

It's not just about game prices either, the hardware is so damn costly too.

Then there is quite a big market in Indie Games these days, and most of them are far less demanding on hardware than their AAA cousins.

Consoles have been playing catchup with technology, but they are not as far behind as they used to be, and in many cases now better than an average PC. Games are supposedly what drives technology advances ... that and war and medical and some other sciences. There may come a time, when PCs for games become redundant ... at least in a driving sense.

So it could well mean we have to retain our older PCs rather than become emulation gurus.

Portable drives can be quite cheap, and it can take a while to fill one, and if you can afford to fill one, you should easily be able to afford all the drives you need .... providing you are being sensible of course.

The real issue for many I imagine, is download speed and reliability. I always buy and then download and because some games are in excess of 50 Gb, I am grateful I have a reasonable connection ... but many don't. With all the games I have at GOG, I would be horrified if I needed to download them all from scratch, even with my fair connection, that would likely take me months. So I refuse to let myself fall behind.

I think there have been many telling things at GOG in the last year or so ... not the least of which is getting into bed with Epic. And some of the things they have been doing that trouble many of us, even anger some at times, I think GOG are doing due to expediency. They also appear to be listening to advisers now.
Many think they are doing fabulous, but so much appears to show otherwise.
That said, things seem to have improved as the release of Cyberpunk got closer, and especially after ... despite the hiccups caused by the games issues.

I hope I am wrong, but it is very difficult for me to feel confident about that.

To wait a couple of years you've meant? A month has passed and they haven't fixed anything. At such rate, it won't be more or less polished in 2021, don't mention that I may not make it to 2022.

The problem is — I've already invested too much time (and money) and I have no intention to wait a few years and start it from the beginning. In that case, I will just lose my interest completely. If I'd known that this is paid beta-test — I would cancel my collector's edition pre-order and waited for the finished version on Steam.

Bugs can be fixed in future, yeah, but right now even the main quest is unfinishable for me. I don't have significant optimisation issues, but there are a lot of other problems with the interface, mechanics, physics, difficulty balance, cut features and generic side-activities.

Yeah, the story seems interesting so far. Mike Pondsmith's world is great. Keanu Reeves' performance is top-notch. Refused's music just rocks. Some quests and dialogues are hilarious and even inspiring. But to call Cyberpunk 2077 a great game overall... Well, maybe in years to come, but right now I don't fell this way.

Nope, but they cold at least refund some of the games I've bought 30-60 days ago since they've lied about their policy and principles.

"Such a disappointment for a girl"
-- Prince Ludwig the Indestructible

Such funny comment.

[Modded: please refrain from insulting other users.]

This is quite depressive...

https://youtu.be/omyoJ7onNrg

Holy shit... I didn't actually realise the PC version on Ultra looked that bad (I played it on PS5 before refunding it)... Wow.

Why you say "depressive", you need only look from another way: with all those bugs, glitches, crashes, BSoDs, etc. you also recieve some percent of game, about 36,6% (in my critical vision).
P.S. I watched this video today and I'm so happy, that didn't place pre-order!

Vid related(skip to 20 seconds)

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