I pretty much gave up on Gog after regional pricing as they are always more expensive than Steam, so don't care about the site design. However, the Our Friends Recommendations really needs to go.

Yes. Along with poor maintenance of new games and biased forum moderation.

Nope, it didn't. I spend the same money as i spent back then, and surely enough i'll spend much more should GOG manages to release more AAA games of the past decade+ along with more classic releases.

Expensive gift codes that expire within two weeks (later changed to two months after some people complained), to be more precise.

Yep, I'm not talking about a freebie code, it's the legitimate cash-left-the-wallet kind of code. Because nothing says your satisfaction matters more than giving you a big middle finger after taking your money.

"You didn't manage to find someone to trade it in two months? Too bad, but remember you're still a valued customer (at least in our words, even if our actions say the opposite)"

Not the site per se (even if they are reaching new peaks in how they can botch every single initiative), but moderators jumping in discussions, while having pun of customer posts, like they being part of the community, yes.

Have really spoiled me. That 100% unprofessional. This telling me GOG is going downhill as a company.

I'll send formal complain about it.

It's not just the redesign but EVERYTHING that GOG does is half a step forward, one step-tumble-and-break-your-neck back. Late patches, shitty library, broken forums, awful game browsing and readability, worrisome moderation... It's going downhill. Why spend money on something that shows signs of decline.

Guess that happens with everything once it gets popular and starts earning lots of money. Greed truly corrupts everything. Eh... Reminds me of Humble Bundle.

Also, haven't bought anything since Jun 26, 2017.

I don't think it changes the amount I'm willing to spend, but it does affect my ability TO spend.
Lumping movie and hard to identify dlc packs to their on sale list make it hard to match up the actual games I might want; and now with reviews pushed far far down on the scroll it's hard to get at the meat of what actually makes my decision (if the worst contraindicates are either inconsequential or trivial).
It all adds up to time with for me is quite limited.
If a sale is on and it takes all my morning routine before work to find what games are worth buying on the dollar for value scale; then guess what sale is barely skimmed over before being put off as too much of a hassle by a potential buyer.
It's simply bloated and tedious; following the trend of modern gaming of style over substance.
If they are economic decisions to maximize sales it's probably working for 70% getting impulse buys and won't be going away any time soon.
Personally speaking the direction GOG is going seems to be to capitulate to the steam digital distribution model pushed by publishers & rights holders.
Just take a look at how many games have shite multiplay because steam is the primary platform and lo and behold any multiplayer is handled only through GOG Galaxy (no direct IP connect or lan).
Is shady information control and manipulating your user base into decisions that skew that dollar per value equation a good decision?
Perhaps in the short term to help shore up GOG in the prevailing PC digital gaming ecosystem; but the problem is the niche is what created GOG; without revelation on how to gain ground and a will to push back against publishers there's a real risk of squeezing tighter to make do becoming an ever present state.
Metaphorically speaking.
or that many of the sale items are on sale weekly continuously.
It's like the place where I work. I don't think they have ever sold anything at 'full price' it's more that full price is a theoretical number used to justify the advert of half price as a gimmick when realistically the price people pay is a set 2.5x the cost to produce including installation.
It's a sale because people are fooled into thinking it's on sale by them periodically asking for a ridiculous amount (a.k.a no mans sky)

Great post. Many of us would subscribe what you say there.

No direct IP and especially no LAN connections are hard to swallow.

About the sales, they have been playing around with the format. First changing weekend sales for weekday sales, then recovering said weekend sales, since the weekday ones was just too shallow.

However, the point on having titles on sale... It is OK when you think about what it really is: market segmentation. Adapting te price of the merchandise to the budget of different customers. That is, getting more money from the people who would be OK with it. It can be done selling premium or luxury versions of the stuff (we have especial editions and non-gameplay related DLC), and also by holding sales that are the intended price for the common of the mortals, while those who do not care about spending more will buy out of sales.

Sorry about the lecture, but, among all the things that GOG is doing wrongly, this thing of having a real price for sales and an extra price out of sales is the one that could be called legitimate. Disingenuous, maybe, but still legitimate...

Added:

By the way, gone from the frontpage are GOG's original values and mission... I concur that they are trying hard to be more like Steam, only that Steam is way better at being Steam. Maybe financial people/advisors meddling in management... removing what makes a company work in exchange for short term gains... Maybe not the best way to nurture a solid customer base.

If they drop what they were (and by now possibly the only thing remaining is the lack of DRM, which possibly is why many of us are still lingering here, for now) then Steam is technically better and with a much larger catalogue.

The difference is that the last time they mostly changed only the design. This time they harmed the functionality, which is much worse.

When you see the changed bundle handling they clearly target new users now and do not care about their long term users anymore.

Thank you for that hint! I also wasn't able to log in anymore. Scrolling up and down worked for me too. :)
A lot of the new things do not work with my browser, but the broken login of course was the biggest problem.

It went pretty much like this:


gog: *redesigns site, breaks everything*

Fronzel: "The new design is atrocious! You're making private information public again! Half of my reviews are gone and gogmixes are wiped off the game pages now! This is an outrage! I'm never shopping here again!"

gog: *releases Indiana Jones® and the Infernal Machine™*

Fronzel: "Goddammit."


Yeah, as long as they release good games (or shit games I harbor nostalgic feelings for, for some inexplicable resaon) that whole boycott thing isn't going to work out too well.

No effect at all. I'm almost completely indifferent to the update. A couple of things are easier to read, the review section is nicer... but I hate anything that autoplays. They removed video autoplay when you open a game's page but you still get it if you put your cursor over a game's icon.

No matter how often I see your username, I still read it as "frozen leek burn".

It's one of those things, like when I see a business advertising "shopfitting" I always read it as "shoplifting" first.

Same for me.