No, it's not. Do I have quote your original thread where you got the information from the store page, or where you called it drm? This is the same old drama queen thread because the information you think is most important, apparently, is not in big bold flashing rolling text on the store page.

Yes well, quoting from my initial post ...

Can you guys please add information like this up where the "Add to cart" button is, that way we can save ourself some time reading about this stuff in the reviews and scrolling far down to notice it,

If you have such a problem with posts like these then by all means heed your own advice and just don´t read them or post in them, only drama going on here is from you.

AMEN! The physical exhaustion and mental strain I get from having to scroll all the way down to the bottom of a page is ludicrous! Where does GOG get the nerve putting us through such hell!?

I mean, one way or another, there is always gonna be some information that cannot be showed "right there" where the user want to click, there's only so much you can cram inside a single sceen...

This one in particular is just near the system requirements, right were it belongs and where one imagine everyone, before buying, scrolls to anyway, so it should not go unnoticed

Well the problem is also it is sometimes not mentioned at all, like the examples I gave earlier, Victor vran f.e.

Reading through scores of reviews to get this information or going to the forums to read about it there in some obscure post is not something I enjoy doing.
As I mentioned in another post, sometimes this information is missing completely.

Now worries, its just we have had ths conversation many times. DRM is quite specific, there are other issues of course. Just to add I played vv all the way through without any internet or problems. Multiplayer is by its very nature controlled, its why mmos will never come here whilst they keep the DRM free.

Multiplayer by nature isn't very controlled at all. It depends on how they chose to implement it. Most old games give the players perfect control -- players host their own matches, game doesn't give a donkey's butt whether it's on lan or on the internet or elsewhere (the protocol is all the same), no third parties involved.. many new games try to control you, or the devs are just incredibly lazy. But it's usually both: the games still implement a server that runs on player's boxes -- and there is no technical reason why they couldn't open it up for direct access without third party matchmaking services. MMOs and other games there the action stays strictly on the devs/publishers' servers are a special case, though even these could be community-hosted.

Sure, I think the information should be available, but it should not need to have a Javascript popup window that flashes at people saying "WARNING WARNING WARNING, OUR VERSION OF THE GAME SUCKS COMPARED TO THE STEAM VERSION, BEWARE BEFORE YOU BUY IT. ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO BUY OUR SHITTY VERSION? [y/N]" followed by "Are you really really sure? [y/N]" then: "Please type in the following sentence: 'I hereby acknowledge I read all of the limitations of the GOG version of the game and still want to buy it.'" into the following text box and complete multiple recaptchas, then manually type in the 128 character validation code we will send you in email to confirm your receipt of knowledge of the inferiority of our version of the game. Once you've done this, we'll send the rest of the forms you have to fill out via courier service to you to finalize your acknowledgment.

:)

Humour aside though, yes I think they should present all information necessary to make an informed decision prior to purchasing a game so you don't get surprises after you buy it and find out it doesn't do what you thought it does. I don't think they should put it in huge red letters jumping out at people though and detract from the design of the pages. A summary in the appropriate area with just the necessary details is fair enough IMHO and it's people's responsibility to check for the system requirements and other fine print before purchase, much like reading the fine print on a game box before purchasing a physical copy.

It's the "always read the fine print" common sense clause. :) Of course they have to have the fine print to be able to read it though. :)

I think it is entirely reasonable to expect them to state "Online connection required for multiplayer" or even include more clarity than that about what multiplayer mode(s) are supported and what their requirements are. Perhaps I misunderstood what you were asking. I thought you were asking for some large prominent notice right at the top of the page or under the video or something essentially declaring "WARNING: You must use the evil Galaxy client to play multi-player!! OMG!!" or something that there's no way in hell they'd ever do. If you're just asking for a few lines of clarification in the already existing requirements/specifications section of data that is ambiguous or missing then that is reasonable.

I mentioned the browser addon idea as I use addons for Steam that do actually provide more in-your-face hard to miss bold coloured blocks with warnings about DRM and other stuff on Steam games making it hard to miss. I find such addons pretty useful and I'm sure many people who use such addons like me do too, but I would never think in a million years that as useful as it is to certain end users that Steam would ever remotely consider adding that functionality to their store directly as it would be clutter for most users and detract from a more minimalist information display. I'll almost always agree with someone that such info is very useful because I tend to prefer that type of information up front also, but at the same time I understand why such level of detail is not made by default to people as it clutters a simple UI with information only 0.1% of us want. :) It was this bit that had me assuming you wanted a prominent popup notification with an alarm bell going off with biohazard signs and whatnot. Yeah, I'm exaggerating the point but companies in general are not going to put alarming information warnings up on products that might scare away customers. They'll provide the information (or should) somewhere that is available and leave it up to customers to go over the fine print if they are that concerned about such things. I think this is reasonable because over time there can be dozens and dozens of "concerns" people have about various issues that if everyone considered each one of their issues of prime importance that a big warning in big letters at the top of the page should be present so they don't miss it, there would be like 5 inches of warnings on the top of each game page and you'd have to hit page down to see the game. It would be alarmist in nature and make the website look terrible for the average joe who doesn't care or want to see such clutter.

I definitely think any game that requires Galaxy for multiplayer should clearly state so in the System requirements etc. section though, or if the game requires an online account elsewhere such as Runic games account for Torchlight 2, or Nordic account for Titan Quest for example, then it should also say "Online multiplayer requires use of 3rd party account services" (unless direct-IP is also supported).

Hope that clarifies my thoughts. :)

Most certainly does 8)

I'm guessing there's a semi-"sinister" marketing side to this, like not reading the fine print on an "impulse purchase" of some kind. Like, why wouldn't GOG include links to the game forums directly on the gamecard (like they do with Indev anyways now)? It could be because it'd be a lot of work, or it could be because the powers that be don't want to lose sales on people reading about lots of issues on the game forum.

EDIT: Or maybe I'm out of line here, I dunno exactly.

I don't think there's anything sinister. If they did something in an act of anti-consumer behaviour such as "hahaha, look how many people bought this game that we didn't tell them all of the details on purpose!" manner, the ill will in doing so would cost them at least some future sales from those people, and it would give them a bit of a bad reputation at the same time. That's really not the way to run a business and I don't think that GOG concocts schemes and scams to trick people into buying a game so they can laugh all the way to the bank after.

Firstly, never attribute to malice that which can be explained by lack of forethought. But it isn't necessarily lack of forethought either. They could think about all kinds of things to do, but they're only going to actually do what they think is reasonable to do. If some crucial information is actually missing, the greatest likelihood is that of "lack of forethought" or "human error" as we see all the time from GOG, where someone forgets to put a changelog on Galaxy, or forgets to do some other tedious manual human process. It could simply be that they didn't catch something and it slipped through the cracks until someone informs them and they fix the problem.

If they have actually documented a given thing that someone wants to be aware of and it is already on the page and someone doesn't find it and read it, then I wouldn't characterize it as malicious however simply because it isn't in large capital letters across the top of the screen or whatnot.

If there was anything truly sinister going on, why would they not do it to every single game in the catalogue, and just strip all kinds of information so that people find out after-the-purchase? It makes no sense. In fact, if someone purchases a game and it isn't what they expected it to be they can ask for a a refund under GOG's return policy which causes a chargeback to GOG and causes them to lose money as the result of the problem.

Nothing sinister going on here. If specific data is missing from a game card, contact support and kick them in the pants and they'll likely fix the problem, because not doing so will actually cost them lost revenue over time from people returning games that didn't state the claims properly.

The number of sales they'll lose by being honest and trustworthy is probably a small fraction of what they lose by being "sinister" and being seen that way. It's not the way to run a business.

+1