That means GOG should be selling games on the original physical floppy discs and CD-ROMs, not images made out of them? Otherwise it is not preservation?

You can also find definitions of "preserve" that do not have the "original state" qualifier and simply just say "in good condition", sometimes the definition has both but with an "OR" in between, which would mean GOG is actually preserving the games by maintaining them to work on modern systems. Funny how words can have multiple definitions.

I don't think they need to go that far. Enough people have observed though that one-man Abandonware outfits also wrap games with DOSBox / ScummVM, but unlike GOG they don't go randomly deleting half the .exe's, then don't charge money for that, then it's an uphill struggle to point to the half-missing GOG versions and say "See that? That's the best preserved version of the game, that is..."

The gripe I have with this stuff is as follows : 25 years ago neither DOSBox nor ScummVM existed nor was there a need for them to under Win 9x OS's. Then 64-bit CPU's & XP_64 came out and people realised 16-bit games would soon be natively unplayable under 64-bit OS's, so emulators / source ports started to become a thing. No-one in the 90's saw that at the time though ("Why on Earth would you you need to do that, it runs fine natively today"). In 10, 20, etc, years time, we could be in a similar unforeseen situation where a new ScummVM-like piece of software may be needed for future Windows or even x86 as a whole, but unlike the ScummVM of today, perhaps it will require the original .exe's to be present. And then "preserved" GOG versions of certain games will be the only ones that will stop working, whilst "others" (40 year old discs, "Abandonware", etc) still will.

The real takeaway point is this - real-world "Game Preservation" is about keeping game files intact not for the 'knowns of today' ("but, but but, GOG is all about getting games to run on today's systems (tm)"...), but also the 'unknowns of tomorrow' (none of us know where Windows / x86 will be in 20 years time, so keep the game intact anyway just in case). Same goes for a lot of compatibility tweaks - there are mods, tweaks, etc, that get broken when trying to install them over the top of older ones and a future better tweak or perhaps a full source port vs a patch may well need to see the original games files, not just bits of some "pre-modded" ones or a pre-altered .exe that can't be unpatched 20 years down the line.

Next you'll be telling me that game jams and game preserves are essentially the same thing, and that both are a sweet, fruity-meat foodstuff that I spread on my toast.

That's a fair argument, but you'd think compatibility would get better in the upcoming decades, not worse, so we're talking of a "worst case scenario" here and even assume the original .exes will be needed

But anyway, I do agree there's no harm in keeping the original files intact just in case

And regarding compatibility tweaks and mods not being future-proof, there are tools to manage them (like mod managers)

Hopefully this somehow helps in getting some cool releases here.

Yes, IMO you have the best course of action for GOG's preservation plan -- include an unaltered original version alongside the updated version. And best it would seem a simple fix for GOG to institute.

I wouldn't think that. Haven't gamers already had problems getting games to run on Windows 11 that ran fine on Windows 10? For that matter, there is a topic on this forum, "Demonicon won't launch", where as recently as a few hours ago users were discussing a game that ran fine on a previous version of Windows 10 but not a newer Windows 10.

It's pretty clear to me that big corporations such as Microsoft do not prioritize preservation even among their own "releases" and that users have to hold out hope that things maybe someday get fixed. The customer who wants to have control/ownership over what they buy is at odds with corporations that want to sell you subscription services to keep renting and re-"buy"ing the same games in perpetuity. Why would Microsoft give any care to offline when their OS itself is constantly nagging me in one way or another to go online?

With regard to GOG in particular, I feel mixed messaging regarding commitment to preservation. I believe I had read on these forums at some point that a game used to work on Windows XP, but then an updated version no longer did due to the game now having Galaxy files that were incompatible with XP. Just another, albeit smaller-scale, instance of what a customer like me wants versus what the corporate entity wants. I've become disillusioned with GOG over the years due to this sort of push-pull dynamic, that I just shrug my shoulders anymore if they fail to announce something or mess something up.

I can only speak for myself, but since I upgraded to W11 I haven't experienced any issues with older or newer games, but of course "it didn't happen to me" it's not a good argument and I'm not saying they don't exist (that said, I haven't experienced any problems moving from previous OS either)

So I can't really argue about issues I have never encountered

About Win 11 gaming problems: https://www.ghacks.net/2024/12/19/microsoft-confirms-auto-hdr-bug-in-windows-11-and-blocks-updates-as-a-consequence/ And that's for new ones...

And regarding preservation, really, working towards keeping something functional as time passes is maintenance, preservation is keeping it in its current state. And as AB2012 pointed out, keeping the original code may well be necessary to keep the games working in the future, and it definitely can't harm. If work needs to be done now for compatibility, it'll likely need to be done again at a later point, and starting from the original source code may well be the better solution, otherwise you'll keep having patches on patches, or even remasters of remasters, and things will get lost in the "translation".
And there's also the fact that preserving access to the working game for any who want to play it, if you want to use the term in that manner, may involve porting it to a different OS/platform, and that's one more thing that's really better started from the original source and not something that already went through alterations specifically tailored for another system.

No. it hit close to home, as they say.
May as well give in and release the URL.
Too much ambiguity.

Fair, but I also feel this should have gotten a news and/or announcement on the main site if this meant anything serious or noteworthy.

Imagine if some random Valve employee decided to announce that SteamOS was rebasing to RPM on their blogger blog. Do you imagine many people would find it, accidentally or otherwise?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludacris