I think "slippery slope" arguments only work if you assume that we're robots who won't listen to you. The very presence of this survey suggests that we clearly do. :)

As you noted, this game is *designed* to be multiplayer. So I don't think it's a design flaw that single player is not as robust a game.

As I understand it, you will be able to connect via IP and also over LAN with no activation or third party service required, but there will be no online matchmaking without signing up for the developer's service and activating your copy of the game.
Yes.

It's not a zero-sum game. It's worth noting that the time required to sign, prepare, and release new games is usually less than old games (no testing, no need to find masters, no need to clear up licensing issues, no need to find or create goodies, etc.). So don't think of this as "sucking time away from classic games" but rather, "giving GOG.com revenue to find new old games."

Hm. It may have been unclear: there is no further purchase for multiplayer after you buy the game. You just need to activate the code that you are given in order to play online.

We're always free to say "no" to offers we don't like. We have in the past.

Simply? Yes, we can.

We've had a few offers on the plate that simply didn't mesh with our values well enough, and we decided that mattered more than a quick cash grab. And if this survey comes back with a strong "no", we'll politely decline Planetary Annihilation. The devs agreed up front to this particular experiment with asking you guys about their game, and while we would be disappointed not to bring this title to GOG.com, we do care what you guys think.

It looks like PA is going to be a great game, but just because it's a good game doesn't mean it has to be on GOG. ;)
The game is still under development, so I'm not convinced *anyone* can answer that. The persistent galaxy bits seem to be what will not work, though. Whatever that entails.
Not to my knowledge.

I think that the slippery slope argument only works if you believe that we're robots who don't exercise our own discretion on what we do and do not sign. And that we somehow forget that Steam is an actual DRM service. :P

Spolier alert: the majority are not voting "no". :P

You know, I don't believe we've had a single week since our launch in 2008 where we haven't released at least one classic game. Excepting the few weeks at the beginning of each year where we give you guys a break.

(of course, if I'm wrong I'm sure someone will correct me. :P)

I think that statement is pessimistic--and mind you, I'm living in Poland. :)

We are looking for ways to grow. That's incontrovertible. And we're looking for ways to grow that won't alienate the users who have gotten us here. But we're in no way "desperate'. GOG.com has been profitable, as I recall, since its very first month of operations. We add gobs of new users, new titles, and new partners each month. All of that said, limiting ourselves to just the classic games niche is a good way to forcibly limit our ability to grow. The cores that have made GOG.com great: DRM-free games, selling everything worldwide, and putting our customers first when we make business decisions; those are all things that we can do with new games and be even more profitable and more successful.

And as we grow, we continue to be able to influence other companies out there to say: hey, there's a better way to sell games than the same old. You can build relationships with gamers, instead of 'monetize audiences.' You can focus on the gamers who pay your salaries, instead of spreadsheets that dictate how you must maximize ROI. You can bring your passion for gaming, find an audience, and make something awesome.

So asking you guys how you would like to see us grow? It seems sensible enough to me. Does it mean we *must* follow what the survey results are? Well, no. We have our own view of where things should go, and we're gamers here at GOG as well (my latest addiction is Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup on my Android tablet :P). You don't come to lead a business of the size and scope of GOG.com without clear vision on what it is that you want to achieve and how you want to achieve it. We did not ask you guys because we have no idea what to do, we asked because we wanted to know how you felt about it. We asked because we respect your opinions and, if we're going to do something that doesn't look like it is supported by our core community, we need to 1) go into this knowingly and 2) have damn good reasons.

Happily, what we are at for GOG.com's future and what you guys are suggesting you'd like to see in the survey results match up quite nicely. I'm working on the report we're going to share tomorrow, so I'll be spending all my free time today on getting that finished up in time to post it by the Friday deadline. :)

It may, yeah. I'm hopping into the discussion a little late, here. :P

I'm curious: why do you think that?

See, I don't think we've watered things down. By any measure, we have more classics released each week than we did during our first two years' run; we have signed and released some of the most-wanted games in the last 6 months; we have brought classic games back for Mac gamers as well as PC, and we're continuing to further the cause of DRM-free gaming. By any measure I can think of to use--except, perhaps, that things were nebulously better "back then"--we've continued to bring you guys more of what brought you here in the first place.

As an added bonus, we also give you guys more other stuff as well. You may fear that we have only so many people to dedicate to bringing both old and new games to GOG, but we've nearly doubled in size since I started here, so the fact that we have more games on offer, more quality content, and a busier release schedule shouldn't surprise you. It's a sign that things are going well for us, and we want to strike while the iron's hot.

It goes live in a touch under two hours; the report is all written and scheduled in the backend tool.

There was a very strong reaction to Omerta in general, and the DLC in particular. I personally think that the reaction was much stronger than the game deserved; I've played it myself and find the tactical part of the game to be quite fun. It's not exactly prohibition-era XCOM:EU, but it's quite serviceable.

That said, there's no question that the reaction to the DLC, in part, precipitated the survey. I think that you're taking the pessimists' view of the reasoning behind it, though. We sign a lot of games, old and new, and particularly in the indie scene, there are countless ways people try to think of how they can make their game make money. Some we know we're cool with. Some we know are a bad fit for us. And some? Well, some of them raise some questions. We think we know what we want to do with them, but we also want to gauge your opinion as well.

We've become one of the most successful digital distributors through a few qualities, but chiefly we have focused on thinking what we think the digital distribution market lacks--as gamers--and then went out to try and fill the need that was unaddressed. We are passionate about gaming, and we believe that we need to treat the gamers who pay our salaries right. That has been a constant thread in all of the work that we've done, and we hope that we've built up a little bit of trust in the community that we aren't going to go haring off and try to find ways to squeeze every last penny out of you.

I agree that if, say, news came that the CEO and MD of the company had both changed and then we ran that survey, yeah, that would look bad. But Guillaume is the same guy who lead the team when we signed EA, Activision, Ubisoft, and new games like Grimrock and FTL. Oleg is the same head of business development we've had for, like, four years. They aren't going to lead us all off in some crazy new direction, throw DRM on every game, and then laugh as you find that you can't play the stuff that you bought.

We're excited by the new opportunities that we see in the gaming world. We hope you'll enjoy them as much as we believe that we will, but don't think we're ever going to give up on our roots. We know what has gotten us here, and we're not dumb enough to throw that away. ;)