Too bad that I won't have time to play it for a weeks or so, but I tried it out just a little bit and it looks really promising.

It wasn't about the banner but about the auto-playing video that covered all the screen and had to be closed before being able to access the front page. Luckily GOG has taken that down now ... after being made aware by their users that it was a very bad idea to do something like that.

It is about the banner. Its about the banner being above another massive banner which means even at 1920x1080 you have the whole screen just showing two massive banners.

I have to scroll down 4 times just to get to the top part of the normal store when they do this.

If they shrunk the banners down then it wouldn't be so much of an issue.

The fact its been several weeks now and GOG seem to have done nothing about the disaster of the store page, and have made it worse once again is of great concern.

Hah! Now it is an extra page, where you have to see a small "continue to gog" section to even access the normal store!

Yes, the banner is bad. But you have to admit, they actually managed to make it even worse with the screen-filling, auto-playing video that you had to click away before even accessing the front page (with the oversized banner).

Trust in GOG to make a bad web-design idea even worse instead of better. They are trying really hard to push that game. It really gives off a desperate vibe. Makes me wonder in what kind of financial trouble GOG/CDPR is at the moment.

I liked that advertisement dealio they had - gave a hint of gameplay - but like others, not thrilled with where it was placed.

Another note about this PR stunt: it's just a self-serving push of GWENT on everyone who buys Thronebreaker. It's NOT a bonus since GWENT is free. So you can assume that anyone who wants it already has it. And anyone who doesn't have GWENT doesn't want it. So this forced inclusion of Gwent in another game is just another desperate plea "Please, please, please try Gwent and install Galaxy!"

I repeat my question: are you financially so sorely in trouble, GOG, that you have to resort to such methods?

^This. While the redesign was (very) dissapointing for a lot of folks in here and i can totally relate to that, i can't relate to all the negative reception of the Thronebreaker banner(s)/ad(s). In all fairness, they will just go away sometime soon anyway. Having said that, I can only imagine how much bigger will the Cyberpunk 2077 banner will be. :P

Aside from just hiding it under the carpet(!), maybe you could just ask from the support team to remove it from your library. Don't see a reason why this isn't possible.

It doesn't have to be that at all. It's vertical integration, so nearly all of the revenue stays in-house within the CDP family. So it makes sense to A) push that, and B) push a product in the franchise that put CDP on the map.

But the point is, if you push too much, at some point you starting to push customers away instead of attracting new ones. And GOG's advertising is way beyond that point. It developed from slightly annoying to obnoxious to terribly bad. Giant banner, front-page video redirect, and bundling it with Gwent. Why would GOG try to discourage people from buying Thronebreaker like that?

^This!

I will make a wild guess (as I am not a buisness person so I don't know anything about marketing or advertising) and say: If anything, it will only push away people who are "overly sensitive" about advertisement. (This isn't meant as any kind of offense. Just my take on possible reasons not to worry too much about "masses of customers storming out the door".)
If I'm not interested in a product, I seldomly notice advertisement for it. Regardless how much or how less advertisement there may be.
EDIT: Even if I'm interested, I don't notice much of it. In that case, when I do notice advertisement for it, it is more of a reminder that there was something I wanted to check out/keep my eye on.

Yeah gog I'm about as much fan of a big playing video on my screen instead of the main page as I am a fan of news being at the very bottom of it. That is, I am not a fan.

Well, the thing is: I was interested in the product. I was actually waiting for the Thronebreaker release. But seeing how desperate they are to push it on everyone, I reconsidered. If the game is SO bad that it needs this kind of heavy-handed advertising, then it is probably not worth the money. So I'll wait for an 80% discount or so. This means in my case GOG's rampant PR did backfire. But then again you are right and I am kind of sensitive about advertisement. For me, good advertisement should inform but not intrude. If a company seems desperate about pushing their product, they usually have a good reason to actually be desperate.

The game might not be out long enough to be able to tell this, but can anyone playing the game say how deep the deck building goes? And are the battles mostly set pieces or are there also straightforward deck battles?
Also, how much of the game is reliant on having played Witcher 3 or spoils plot elements from it?