Hi,

I don't ever wanted to open a new whining thread but now I really felt being forced to do this.

I realized for some time that the quality of GOG really gets worser and worser and it seems that it gets more and more out of control.

There are missing updates for games (for example AI Fleet Command) or current updates are only applied to one platform of a multiplatform title (for example Tales of Maj'Eyal).

There is pure lazyness by wrong titled installers or version numbers and missing DLCs (for example War for the Overworld).

There are older updates on the download page of some games than the version number the main installer has.

Games are completely broken (for example SpaceChem Mac Version, don't know if the Linux version too).

There is missing consistency in general.

It is not my job to look after these things and report everything to the support team, athough I already did in some cases. Some things has been solved after reporting to support, some not and I'm still waiting. It's a neverending story.

Isn't there some quality management on GOG that looks for such things and kicks some arses of responsible people?

You can swipe from right to left to remove an item from the shopping basket on the phone. As for the other points I mostly agree that improvement is needed :)

You also forgot the Galaxy bloatware in the installers, Galaxy being shoved down our throats in general, broken notifications, broken/outdated forums, and most of all the fact that they don't seem to give a toss about all of the above. It doesn't seem too hard to me - they just need to read this and go: "Yeah we messed up, sorry guys we'll fix those right away". Instead we get (If anything) some sort of cryptic message about how they "may/may not be doing something to fix that or something else or other stuff in the future in a week maybe a month or so we don't know!"

Thanks I didn't know that.
Edited it in my start post.

And people wonder why Steam has pretty much a 100% hands off policy when it comes to games getting on the platform and everything else related to distribution. Steam has vast resources and a small overhead in comparison. GOG has minimal resources and a large overhead in comparison.

Quality is bound to suffer with all of the things GOG is trying to manage like game distribution, updating games for modern systems, DRM removal, patch testing and distribution, site development and a number of other things...

But Galaxy to some people is devil in sheep clothing that could potentially help a lot with this large overhead...

gOg has quality management?

If gog wants to build and maintain a respectable brand and trustworthy image they should care about Silverhawk170485 comments and many other complaints which are ubiquitous on these forums.

It's not about comparing gog with steam, it's about not overstretching as a company to areas they can't provide a quality service for. I don't agree with all the doomsday comments but I can see why people are complaining, these same people are the ones who strongly care about gog, many other users and new potential costumers might look at their choices and just wonder why not buy their games instead on other DRM-free platforms such as Humblebundle (which by the way supports charity and provides steam keys as well).

gog is evidently lagging behind its competitors in many aspects and that's not a huge isue for many in here, but what's the problem in pointing that out and trying to provide solutions for it? Any smart company would highly appreciate such (free of charge) feedback from their customers.

Notable recent GOG bugs:
* orders disappeared from users's account (at least two different forum threads mentioned this, and the bug was confirmed by GOG staff)
* promo stopped 8 days earlier
* already-expired new redeem codes sent to hundreds of users
* email about promo sent to users AFTER the promo ends
* 0% off discount (many GOG promo have this perfect discount)
* broken NEWS/announce URL (I think 20~30% of GOG NEWS have this problem. Those forum thread poster never check their own article.)
* installers often have typo, wrong version scheme, mismatched exe and bin (for example: setup_goliath_german_localisation_patch_(5194).exe, what the fuck is the stupid filename?)

Actually I'm of the belief that this one is nothing to do with human error. The forum news posts are copies of the site news, presumably automatic ones. The formatting that works on the site doesn't work on the forum, so the forum post needs to be edited after posting to fix it.

I may be wide of the mark with this, but it would make sense as to why it's broken so regularly.
If course that's not to say it's not something that shouldn't be fixed as well.

The problem is, many broken URL got fixed AFTER hours or half a day.
GOG's quality control is worse and worse.

Just want to add that I care for GOG because Steam DRM isn't an alternative for me and I won't back off from GOG that easily like others already did in other whining threads, but things are now really getting more and more unacceptable for me.

I'm sure they do care, but it's one thing to try to provide a quality service and it's another to actually provide a quality service with the resources needed to do so. My comment isn't meant to highlight Steam vs GOG or to compare them. My comment is simply pointing out something Valve learned long ago, micromanaging everything isn't the best way to provide a good service and automation (while not perfect by any means) is by large better and can allow a company to focus resources on areas the need more human intervention.

It's something GOG I believe is beginning to understand but it's contradicts the core values of some of their more "caring" customers because tools like Galaxy are needed to facilitate that process.

As GOG get's more popular and game releases increase... quality of service will likely only get worse if GOG does not build the tools to properly facilitate that or at the very least continue to hire more people which again adds to the large overhead GOG already has.

Who forced GOG to try to be all things to all people, to the point that it's grown beyond it's ability to maintain an acceptable degree of quality? It's own CEO, perhaps?

And when exactly is Galaxy going to stop being part of this problem and become part of the solution?

And please tell us how the game industry's decision to make "online functionality" the core of it's existence isn't being done for the purpose of making DRM a moot point?

And BTW, isn't this trend suspiciously similar to Microsoft's decision to become a "service" provider, rather than a software publisher, which is clearly being done for the purpose of circumventing laws pertaining to consumer rights?

Nobody forced it. It's a consequence of growth, which happens because something is becoming more popular. Growth can be a double edge sword.

Well that would hinge on Galaxy actually being the problem. It isn't and can be part of the solution. GOG issues were out in the open long before Galaxy entered the picture. Galaxy can largely be the tool that cuts on the middle man out, ie GOG which has to waste resources doing things like testing patches, packaging patches and games, etc things not needed with Galaxy. Things that can be easy automated so a human being from GOG doesn't have to do it, and so that devs can take care of these things themselves automatically without GOG playing the gatekeeper. Those resources could be better spend on hiring developers who could be improving the site. the customer experience and by extension Galaxy.

Granted I don't think they plan to dropping standalone installers like some people believe but even then Galaxy can be a benefit to streamlining the process for standalone installers which GOG has already started doing.

That going to happen regardless of what GOG does. Developers feel online functionality adds to the core experience and largely consumers agree with them otherwise these type of games wouldn't be so popular. If GOG doesn't adapt to that then GOG will be left behind as more newer releases include online functionality. Believe it or not it really doesn't have anything to do with DRM in most cases, though I can see how one could feel it is as restrictive as DRM.

The single player experience isn't going away though, there will always be a place for your Witcher 3's and your Skyrims. Even you story driven single player experiences.

GOG has always been as service provider... GOG isn't the software publisher for these games. They do not publish all the software they sell, they are a store front that sells software published by other companies (edit: well except the software they own the rights too which is sold under GOG ltd). You subscribe to this service and to the terms of service which layout your rights under this service.

As far as MS doing so to circumventing laws, it irrelevant to this but I'd argue MS moving to becoming a service provider is because it's more profitable... see Google, Apple, etc.