At this point in which Microsoft will keep making Windows online dependant from 11 onwards and will probably end Windows 11 life with ADs on the system and not fully offline able like Windows 10, GOG should focus on Linux builds more.

I'm not even kidding when I say that Valve already understood this, took this approach and will probably focus on their own Distro more (SteamOS).
"If your Windows 12 doesn't work offline or without ads, use our Linux Distro SteamOS fully opensource, Proton installed, Discord and Twitch integration for streamers and of course fully optimized to games and performance over everything else!"

So you don't think it a bit weird if a company sells stuff that don't work without specifically addressing the fact that, it does not work unless....

of course we old old gamers are used to tuck back the forearms of our well know blouses and get straight into it but..... this does not mean we should condone bad practice....

I say, at least address the fact what's happening, what are the reasons (Fuck you windows) were not the hansy pansy crowd around here aye even when a starting IT fanatic first reaction to other people is to hide or to search for his only weapon this does not mean we should praise such actions, even if its understandable, we're not on the personal level here....

Blud wrote an essay to blame Gog when it's a Windows/Microsoft issue lmao. Guess it's fine when Steam does it :^)

Have you contacted GoG technical support (the button up there right next to community)?

I kind of feel you need to jump through those hoops and give them a reasonable opportunity to help you before complaining that a game isn't working and GoG haven't held up their end of the bargain.

Also, I can confirm that GoG's Gothic works "out of the box" on my Windows 11 laptop (running 23H2, 22613.3958).

So, I don't think you can generalise and say that the game has stopped working on modern OSs. What you can say is that due to a combination of your hardware, driver and software configuration, it isn't working on the combination of your system running an OS that will be out of mainstream support from October 2025.

Either way, contact support.

If someone buys a game today and really can't get it to run, be it out of the box or by fiddling with it, that's what support and refunds are for, support should provide a tech solution or the storefront should issue a refund.

Beyond that I don't think about it in terms of weird, i think about it in terms of preferable.

Given the impossibility of storefronts taking on the burden of an endless loop of testing thousands of games against every update liable to break something for someone somewhere i don't want them thinking that it's best to simply delist notoriously uncooperative titles, it's preferable to keep them alive and available "as is" than to corner them into a "cost effectiveness" type of rational.

There's nothing personal about any of this, it's simply how i see it. At a personal level i said what i had to say in the very first line of my reply to the op.

support is one part of the deal, refunds do work great though. Especially for those times you bought a game, you really did not enjoy at the start, came across some gamebreaking bug, or found the game to be unplayable on your system, maybe because you don't understand the requirements, missed out on those or some other arcane reasoning none which should include 'you bought a product that does not work, not of a per product technical fault but because the product as a whole won't function any more on what kind of device ever in the state you purchased it

Everyone is talking about well, you can't expect GOG to keep up... then WHY DO THEY STILL SELL THE GAMES?

Okay, if you're saying that if anyone buys them TODAY, they can expect support to help them... how is that if I bought the game today I could expect support would help me get it to run... yet can't be expected to get them to run on the exact same system if I purchased it 15 years ago?.

In other words, if someone buys it today with the exact same setup as me, why do some think support can get it to run for them... but not for me??? I don't understand how you can keep selling them... if they no longer work. And if you can get them to work for new purchasers... why can't you get them to work on the exact same systems who purchased years ago??

If GOG isn't going to maintain their working status, then they shouldn't continue selling them. THAT IS ON GOG, not Microsoft.

You can try to get gog support to help you with tech support be it for a game bought today or 15 years ago.

If they can help you, awesome, problem solved.

If they can't it's up to you to decide if you want to go for a refund request for a game you bough 16 years ago and spend countless hours playing.

Ultimately you can always petition gog to have the game delisted on the grounds that you can't make it work.

Just keep in mind that for the people in this therad that cared enough to check it out the game is in woking status.

btw, when it comes to PC's there's no such thing as "exact same setup" even if hardware wise you have twin machines.

Yep. Even twin machines will have different software installed over their lives. There's people in this very thread who got Gothic 2 to run on Win 11 with no mods or fixes, so it can't be said that Gothic 2 just doesn't work.

When it comes to old games, GOG is never going to be able to get all of them running right out of the gate on all combinations of hardware and OS versions. It's just not possible.

That's why they allow refunds.

And if the game works when you bought it, but suddenly doesn't anymore, I wouldn't just assume that GOG messed it up. There are far more parts to a computer than just the OS. There are various drivers, and various hardware, and countless various software which people install that can interfere.

And FWIW, I just downloaded and installed Gothic 2 on my Win 11 machine, and it fired right up with no mods or fixes, and even supports 3840 x 2160 resolution, so it even looks pretty decent after all this time. I might actually have to play this now.

Sooo. I just went back to my other laptop. I had been using that one last year (2023) playing Gothic 2 because I had some issues with the newer laptop that I use now that those issues have been fixed. Unlike my newer laptop, I never uninstalled it from last Aug/Sep/Oct when I was playing on that one. In fact, my saved games were still there. I had migrated to the newer computer when those issues got resolved and had copied those saves to my newer laptop and finished the game there.

Back on the older laptop, that I never uninstalled it from, when it worked perfectly... now n won't run on that one either. I had played that one for hours and hours last year when I got the newer laptop working, which is why I transferred the saves instead of starting over. So on that same one, having never touched the installation AT ALL, with the same save games still on there... WILL. NOT. RUN.

The opening splash screen comes up, then the menu... and then that's all she wrote. Stuck. Can't move the cursor to do anything. Couldn't even quit the game, and for whatever reason, the lockup was so... I dunno the right word so I'll just say "hard" that I couldn't even alt-tab out OR ctl-alt-del out and restart. Had to physically move to the laptop and press and hold the power button till it shut down.

So it's not just one of my laptops. It's not just me as I saw several other posting at Steam about ACCESS VIOLATIONS and some who posted the same thing I was saying... the game used to work on their system and now doesn't.

And again, if GOG is still selling the games, then that means they should still be able to get them to work on modern systems. If they can't... then they should stop selling them. Either GOG can get it to work on modern systems, or it can't. And if it can for new purchasers, then it can for old purchasers.

This is just bullshit. Get the games you sell to run on modern systems... or stop selling them.

As I said previously, contact support and try to get them to help you. If you can't be bothered to do that, then at least work through the steps on PCGamingwiki to try those. Unless you've tried all those things, your complaints about GoG aren't exactly reasonable.


Also, if you're talking about Gothic 1 and 2, I'm assuming you meant "when I pressed up and down on my keyboard the selection on the main menu didn't change". As you'll remember, these games don't use a mouse cursor.

Erm, I saw your guide for Gothic 1... and it involves quite a lot of third-party installations.

Are you using similar amounts of modding for Gothic 2?

of course there is the 'reasonable' expectation variable

Some older Windows games are easier to get working on Linux than they are on Windows. Gothic 2 does take some work to get working on Linux, but no updates should break it.