I hope they are gone from GOG. Disingenuous money-grubbing DLC factory where every little item is monetized is about as anti-consumer as it gets, even without DRM.

The expansions-based business model of Paradox is actually very sane (at least for Stellaris, the only one I know). It is not comparable in any way with the cash grabs that are often coming with a long list of expansions.

Still for Stellaris, let us keep in mind that:
- the base game is often very heavily discounted (up to -75%), and is well worth playing without buying any expansion
- they rarely release more than two expansions in the same year (a big one and a small one)
- all expansions barring the most recent ones are discounted to -50% several times in a year
- the expansion releases come with a big free update including new content for all owner of the base game
- big free updates for the base game are released even without an expansion (they have a team dedicated to fixing and improving the game in free patches)
- when playing multiplayer, all players have access to the expansion content of the host without the need to own these expansions themselves
- they do not double-dip with extra monetization schemes (no microtransactions, no rental, no subscription, etc.)
- all of that is proposed through DRM-free builds, sadly excluding the multiplayer (that is tied to a Paradox account)

I do not know if the situation with their other games is similar, but at least for this example their expansions-based model is not a shady one. They actually managed to do game-as-pseudo-service in a customer-friendly way.

I did spend a bit more than 100 € on this game and expansions over the course of 4 years, and I do not feel like I have been cheated considering the value I got for this money. For this price, I own the base game, 17 expansions (including 2 that are given for free), and the wonderful soundtrack with its more than 6 hours of music.

The number of expansions for this game might look like some shady cash-grab if you never played the actual game, but when you look at it more closely it is a very well done long-term maintenance of a constantly evolving game (let us remember that they have been maintaining and improving it for almost 7 years).

The DLC for Crusader Kings 2 were mostly good, but there were some DLC that were very poor value for money (Sunset Invasion, Charlemagne)

Cities Skylines similar, some good DLC, some that are poor value for money.

However they tried to introduce a DLC subscription with CK2 and so stopped discounting the DLC as much or as frequently.

CK3 is a mess however, it's like they realised they couldn't deliver on a noteworthy sequel to CK2 so decided to go full cash-cow. I've given up on it and regret buying it.

To the OP, Paradox doesn't like anyone. Paradox doesn't care about being liked either - they believe that they can sustain their business model through DLC marketing.

I don't like Paradox, but they do have some good games including some good DLC, but you have to do your research and not fall for their marketing ploys.

The only game i truly am interested from Paradox is "Age of Wonders, Planetfall", however... despite its age, the bundle price is pretty high at the current time. Surely not for free but at the next sale i may consider buying it, even with only a minor cut.

Indeed, "Age of Wonders 4" is nowhere to be seen on GoG, although it is a fresh release, so it is not truly surprising. Sometimes GoG may still add it on launch but Steam/EGS is generally way faster making a announcement because simply higher support from the publisher.

Sure, it is a interesting game, although there will surely be tons of addons and it may not even be worse in term GoG will get it 1 year after but with most addons added. The game may become very pricy if you buy the launch game and then all the Addons too.... but if someone got the money, i wish them a good gametime.

There is one issue i am able to detect:

Requires 3rd-Party Account: Paradox Account (For Multi-player) (Supports Linking to Steam Account)

Generally, although there is a GoG launcher... devs do not truly enjoy supporting online-multiplayer on GoG. A issue GoG have to tackle... and making it more popular. Surely, there is NO need demanding a external account for multiplayer and in my mind it is some sort of DRM... a hidden one and somewhat tricky to detect. Ultimately same issue was on Age of Wonders: Planetfall, i guess they simply was removing it or only allowing for GoG players, no cross play.

GoG is simply demanding a lot and the gamers on other platforms may not even care. It all depends on the acceptance from gamers for "better solutions" if GoG will be able to participate... or simply not.

Outer Worlds remaster had only Steam and Epic in the ads, but came here day one. GOG often just doesn't rate mentioning, sadly.

I think the publishers simply see Epic and Steam as some sort of premium... but many customers actually see GoG as a premium. So we have some distorted view of a different reality dependable on the people involved. Surely.... you do not need to make advertisement on something that is already good by itself.

However, still good to know if a game is actually released on GoG, but i think, sometimes you can only wait and hope.

Only a few devs/publishers use GOG tag, even when they do release their games there.

Totally agree ... unless it is a scenario like Hitman GOTY, but then I don't blame GOG for that, as I think GOG were coerced to provide it as is, and were likely happy they were proved right, when the big backlash occurred, proving their argument against. Of course we will never know who did or said what between the two parties, and by all accounts plenty of copies of Hitman GOTY were sold at GOG, so not a complete failure for both concerned parties, despite a likely good number being refunded. In fact, if I had been willing to pay the asking price, I would have likely kept it myself, despite displeasure over the DRM aspects, and I am sure many buyers here at GOG did that ... maybe hoping for some future improvement to the situation ... and of course many here did not care about the DRM aspects.

GOG can certainly use what happened as an argument deterring such again from coercive providers.

Don't want to derail the thread for too long, but I'm guessing something like this happened (it's late and I always have trouble communicating but whatever :P):

Hitman GOTY was released Sept 2021.
Quite some time before that, GOG suits/boardroom/ actual decision-makers told biz-dev and other relevant staff to release whatever they could that would sell well. (I'm not looking up old financials right now but I wouldn't be surprised if 2021 - and probably previous years too - was an especially rough year for GOG financially, especially being Cyberpunk and GOG perhaps being collateral damage via the CDPR connection, and Galaxy 2 not taking off and eating up funds. Of course maybe it was already being worked on in 2020.) Some, maybe many, "lower-tier" staff knew what would happen but couldn't do anything about it of course (which is why I'm not a fan of getting angry at forum mods when they just relay the decisions of people above them and GOG's policies). The suits learned about the (imo appropriate) backlash, and decided not to take another chance at least for some time.

As an aside, here's old info about HITMAN 2:
https://www.gog.com/forum/general/games_that_are_unofficially_confirmed_for_release_on_gog_in_the_future_part_3/post3
Alexim's post from July 10, 2022:
"Hidden GOG data (Galaxy API):
...
HITMAN 2 Gold Edition"
I don't remember what consensus was reached in that thread regarding this (like if it was likely there even before the Hitman GOTY release), if one even was.

(emphasis mine)

I have a suggestion on how they could have saved money :)

There is zero similaritys to Paradox. Paradox was releasing a game with equal conditions already, more or less fine.

Sure, supporting DRM would be a big cookie for the publishers but this is not GoG; there is enough of other competitors providing this style already, we have no need for it anymore.

However, it could be DRM free on another platform, as long as there is more money attached to those platforms it will not even matter. Supergiant as a example seems to "know their buisness", heading the way the cashflow is located. Who knows if we ever see another release from them, they somewhat screwed up. It usually happens when your success went to high... then you start to get "high".

There is no need for any issues releasing a proper DRM free game. For example Horizon Zero Dawn was released here in a very good condition without any crap and hassles attached... Showing some love and it will work; although Guerilla Games is a very talented Dev: There is not a single game able to use a modern 16 core CPU in a better way than Horizon Zero Dawn... reason why AMD was even boosting it for their release of the new 7950 X3D. The technically best game is released here already... without any drama at all. My dream came true... thanks to GoG and one of the best studios ever.

I don't want to see GOG throw out all the work they've already done on Galaxy (especially since I presume that would prevent people from playing multiplayer for a decent number of titles), so you and I almost certainly disagree there :P but as always, not worth arguing over.