Despite all the faults and troubles; all the breaking of so many of your promises made when you launched, the crappy forums that seem to be outdated; despite all of that, I still very much love you for at least mostly sticking to the culture of being more in line with gamers wishes and desires than corporations.

I was reminded of that tonight in a big way.

I've been playing Fallout 4 since it came out, and since the patch that brought us Survival mode I have been playing thousands and thousands of hours trying to finish the game and all DLC's playing perma-death. I have likely started more than a hundred games, maybe even several hundred I dunno. I've got a conservative estimate of 6,000 hours in, and a realistic one of 7,000 hours, and have not reached that goal. But the ride has been fun.

But, I'm currently at level 70 in a game that the save file says I have 11 days, and 17 hours into. That's, what, over 250 hours. And I knew about the update coming today, but I didn't want to update until I died in this game and had to start over. So I read the Steam forums and found a method that many claimed would work. Simply go in and make a manifest file in the Steam directories related to Fallout 4 a "read only" file. So, I did that.

Not so. The game didn't update (good), but it won't let me play until I update it (bad). I really didn't want to experience the "added content" in the middle of the game I was playing but I also didn't want to give up on this game I've gotten so far into. But Steam would NOT let me play without updating. Even though making that manifest file read only did stop the update (an error message shows on the Manage Downloads screen), I couldn't play without updating because the green PLAY button has been replaced with a blue "Resume Update" button.

So, no way to continue this game without updating.

This is where GOG comes in. And your culture of NOT forcing updates on players. I had previously downloaded Fallout 4 just for this possibility a week or two ago. Installed it. Installed the DLC. Fired it up, and didn't even have to move my save games, or adjust my settings, as all of that seemed to have transferred from the Steam setup. Boom. Continuing my game without the update. I'm sure I'll update when I die in this game, but until then, I'm not FORCED to play the updated version, thanks to your culture here, albeit seeming to come apart at the seems at times, but certainly still present in some form.

THANK YOU. Thank you very much, sincerely, from my heart. This is how gaming is supposed to be. PLAYERS CHOICE. No forced client. No forced updates. Despite recent failings and moving away some from the original culture, you are still far and away the best option out there for demanding gaming consumers. THANK YOU SO MUCH.

With all due very much respect for your time and your age, what are you doing, man! You shouldn't spend (some would say "waste") so much time in the same game and, above all, not completing it! No, in this case one can't say that "the journey is what matters", you can't play the same main and side quests over and over again, you have to finish it and move on to another game. Other games deserve your attention too! There is no reward in real life, whether you accomplish a perma-death completion of any game.

On the other hand, I admire your insistence, though! Just yesterday I read a review of Gothic 3, by someone who is known to review most (or all) of his games negatively, and he was saying that he wrote his (negative) review after playing for 30 minutes! In Gothic 3! I'm glad he isn't working in the game-reviewing business!!!

Why does it matter, as long as one gets pleasure from what they are doing and is not harming anyone (I'm looking at you, Ted Bundy)?

Many people always jerk off with the same hand or have sex only with their wife, with no regrets. Sometimes they do both at the same time!

I was a bit amazed yesterday to notice that I've spent probably something like 10.500 hours of my life to Team Fortress 2 alone. That's over one year of my life, nonstop. And before that, I used countless hours for Quake TeamFortress and Team Fortress Classic, possibly in the same ballpark.

Yet, I don't regret using all that time on one game. It made me the man that I am today (I nowadays identify as a heavy-sexual).

"Oy. you are doing your hobby wrong. How dare you get enjoyment from this. You should do things they way I like to do them!"

You love this game, that's for sure and I'm happy for you that it worked.

My first experience with forced updates was Counter Strike. I don't remember what exactly was changed, but I think it was the depiction of violence (blood), which was viewed with displeasure in Germany at the time (child protection). Understandable, but as an adult I was really annoyed by it.

Anyway, keep having fun with the game!

OK OK, you are right! What I mostly was meaning, was the comparison between this behavior (this way of playing games, or A game), with what I’ve read from others saying “I have thousands of games and I can’t play them all in this lifetime”! Well, how are you going to play them all, if you spend so much time playing just each!! However, I couldn’t write that to OFG, since I don’t know how many games he’s got. His profile isn’t accessible.

That's easy: become immortal. Why do I have to think of everything around here? He has one game: Fallout 4.

(Nah, I know he at least has Gothic also.)

Steam, GOG, XBL, PSN, etc. really should have separate entries for Fallout 4 GOTY: Old-Gen and Fallout 4 GOTY: Next-Gen. It's not like F4 GOTY has been getting updates for years - no, they just put out a new Next-Gen Update YEARS after the last update.

And yeah, I'm glad GOG don't force updates; I'm with you on that. GOG makes this easy in so many ways. Very easy to disable this stuff in Galaxy....and since Galaxy is often optional, you can just often avoid it easily too.

The other thing I like about GOG here is sometimes they still keep old files in Galaxy - so sometimes, key versions can be downgraded too also - like say System Shock 1: Enhanced (since newest patch got stuttering issues, so download to the version right before it) and Two Worlds II (since version 2.0 broke WorldMerge Mod - you can always downgrade to older 1.x versions if need to for running WorldMerge).

Steam's such a pain when dealing w/ trying to avoid updates that you have to do the Read-Only Method and/or even if you do switch it to "Only Update When Launching The Game" in their settings.

Thank God for GOG.

i missed the memo that said you have to play all games and not just the games you like to play.

That's the "dilemma" that I face, but I try not to see it as a dilemma.

If I wanted to finish as many games as possible, I guess I should concentrate on small (indie) titles that can be finished in a few hours. Back in the day, I recall I finished e.g. LIMBO within one day, and Portal took me maybe two days or so, but that also tells I found those two games so interesting that I would keep playing them until I was finished. It is very uncommon for me to finish a game within a week, but partly that may be because I tend to play RPGs and other longer games.

Many games are not like that but are time-sinks, like RPGs or Ubisoft AssCreed etc. games which (from what I've heard) have thousands of useless small quests and jobs to waste hours on mundane things.

Or alternatively, drop any game if I spend more than 5 hours on it, even if it means not finishing the game.

Online games are a whole another thing, like I mentioned having spent over 10kh on an online shooter (Team Fortress 2).

EDIT: Still, you kinda have the point there because I also do feel sorry for not having played (yet) so many games I'd like to play. Can't catch them all. Like I said at some point, I kinda wish Team Fortress 2 would just die off because that would certainly increase my free gaming time a lot. Luckily other online shooters like Counterstrike 2, Overwatch 2, Fortnite etc. have failed to enthrall me the same way.

While we are at it, there are so many movies and TV series I'd still want to watch before I die off. I think I should hire some guys from some poor country do watch and play them for me, just to save my precious time.

Hey OFG, be extra careful! If the "transfer" works so easily from Steam to GOG that means that both installations share their settings and savegames. But that also means that Steam can still mess up things for you at any time by interfering somehow (forcing the update, modifying the settings, migrating save game files, ...).

I have spend:
600 hours for Guild War 2,
600 hours for Guild War 1 with Add-ons,
330 hours for Baldur´s gate 2 with throne of Bhaal,
about 500 Hours Diablo 2 single and multiplayer
749 hours for Elder scrolls IV one single playthrough
850 hours for Fallout 2 since release date
380 hours for Witcher 3 with DLC
1700 hours for Crusader kings 2
400 hours for Fallout 4 until save game corruption happened
2000 - 3000 hours Heroes of might and magic III Single and multiplayer
500-600 hours for Heroes of might and Magic IV single and multiplayer
319 hours for Metal gear Solid V Phantom pain single and multiplayer
about 500 hours for Diablo 3 single and multiplayer
300 hours for X-com: Ufo Defence
500 hours for Fallout 3
200 hours mod beta testing for fallout 3
300-400 hours for Civilization IV
500-600 hours for Civilization V

My key poin it is, if you are really into game, you love to play it more and more, until you become bored to the game. You can not compare 1990-2010 gaming todays gaming. Crusader kings 2 is exception.

I give respect to OldFatGuy, that he loves to play Fallout 4 so much.

For me savegame corruptions ruins my gaming experience and I stop playing the game once it happens. I still haven´t finished Fallout New Vegas because of savegame corruption. Mods may have something to do with savegame corruption but i don´t have time to investigate, which mod causes it. Fallout New Vegas without mods is a bugged game.

Indeed. Forced updates are a plague most players are unaware they even contracted in this day of launchers and digitial only. Especially when they are often done to remove/censor content, which happens pretty much on the regular these days and you're just forced to swallow it. Not to mention things like breaking mod compatibility. Be it publisher, developer or anyone else, it's removal of the user's agency that is the ultimate end goal.

So yes, GOG having an easy way to prevent that is definitely a huge plus. The Galaxy rollback feature is also great, but I'd love to see it expanded to more than the last 2 previous versions.

But most importantly, nobody can touch the downloaded installers. Same goes for old-school disc releases. It is immutable and final. The product you paid for will never change and that is a crucial option to have these days. If the content is only ever available for download from a server, it can be changed on a whim for any reason and from that moment on, you're screwed anyway if you hadn't downloaded the game before.

Just a couple recent examples:
Fallout 4 "next gen" update breaks modded saves

Tomb Raider Remasters recent patch removed a couple "risque" pictures

Stellar Blade day one patch already censoring suff most likely due to Sony. The only way to play the version before the censorship changes is - you guessed it - a physical copy and turning off updates on your Playstation.

As long as people are OK with having zero agency, things are very unlikely to change. I will keep saying it: If GOG did not exist, I wouldn't be buying games since like 2015. So yes, I also thank GOG for being here.

Wow. I almost feel like I'm back in time here at the GOG forums. The comments in this thread are so spot on, kind, and respectful.

Imagine that.

Plus 1 for every post here. Thank you guys for reinforcing the message I was trying to get across. Gog isn't perfect, but at the moment, at least in my opinion, it's about as close as a gaming consumer can get. Much more respect here for gamers themselves than in any other digital retailer I've been associated with.

Thanks again GOG, and thanks to every poster in this thread.

Have a great weekend!!!

Damn. And I got bored with repeating a five minute beginning before a battle that kills me in a mission in Bridge Commander after two attempts :D

This is some real gamer shit right here. I'd never play a game like this, I loathe repetition and losing progress, but I have to respect the dedication.