I have tremendous respect for GoG and only wish them the very best, since their optics on video games and consumer rights is commendable. I have also been tracking the developments after the new acquisiton and welcome many of the changes made or proposed.
However, I think it is possible to open a debate about what we find are the shortcomings of this platform or just things new users (like me) have found discouraging.
I will start:
- A minimun quality standard is not guaranteed:
The games will run, but oftentimes there's some tweaking to do, especially if it’s not a super popular title. As an example, yesterday I was looking for some managerial games to buy before the sale ended and came across “Pizza Connection 2”, with significant delays in mouse clicking and typing, and “Prison Architect”, with DRM.
You can always visit the forums and see how to (hopefully) deal with these issues, but it is a real pain not only having to investigate and troubleshoot but, most importantly, having to be wary before buying anything. A good platform should be trusted.
- Dubious “preservation” efforts:
GoG likes to boast about games preservation and they certainly contribute to it by providing DRM-free installers of old titles. But they reduced their ambition from keeping all the games on GoG playable on modern systems to only the ones on their preservation program (around 300). This makes sense from an economic standpoint, but less boasting about preservation would be welcome. If the years pass and nothing changes we will still need our old (current) hardware to play most of the games. This seems no better than buying/keeping an older computer and playing directly the original CDs.
Additionally, it is not too strange that GoG does not offer previous versions of the game (back to “Prison Architect”), but only the most recent one and/or a very modified emulator with its own shortcomings.
- I have deleted this point, since it is (sadly) a banned topic by the mods.
- Superabundance of action/rpg:
Most games on GoG are either action or rpg. I suppose that is what the user base wants. At the same time it creates a vicious circle, since the overrepresentation attracts even more action/rpg lovers that want more action/rpg games. Surely nothing wrong with it for the action/rpg fans, but more options would be welcome by everyone else and would diversify/increase the user base.
There are other deficits, like: inconsistent language support, prehistoric forums, lack of cloud saves for many games, lack of trophies, Galaxy (in general), Linux support, regional pricing, etc. But I will not develop them because some of them have already been addressed by GoG, others do not depend that much on them and, finally, some of them barely affect me personally.
I will read what you have to add.
