I haven’t spent a dime on GOG since this happened. Fuck them. Not only is their professed anti-censorship stance fucking laughable in light of the Devotion débâcle, their game preservation efforts are even more laughable when they literally excluded a game from possible preservation because of a hoard of thin-skinned CCP hostages.

Even without that episode I would have stopped using GOG eventually, because they also went against their one selling point - no DRM - more than once. They sold Witcher 3 hard copies with online verification (you had to link it to your account with a serial number, you couldn’t just install it and play it from the disc offline). They included a little card in the box with an apology for this requirement, citing their need to protect their sales. Which is fair enough, but don’t pretend that this isn’t DRM. The fact that it was one of their own games shows how much hypocrisy they have when they complain about other developers doing the same thing. Being able to share the downloaded files freely makes me wonder why they bothered with any DRM, but bother they did.

Then they sold Hitman (2016) which has literally the most egregious and hateful DRM in the history of gaming. If you don’t submit to it, your game is essentially a very expensive demo. Most content and even basic game features like saving and progress tracking is disabled unless you’re connected to the DRM server. GOG users complained and the game was delisted, but the fact remains that they fucking tried. If GOG doesn’t even believe in being anti-DRM anymore, then I see no reason to use their [apparently] CCP-curated games library.

GOG may have started out as a plucky band of disruptors and idealists, but that dream died about 10 years ago. They’re EA cosplaying as Che Guevara. I wouldn’t even mind if they behaved like every other storefront, but it’s the pretence and the morality-washing that makes them especially despicable. I mean EA and Ubisoft aren’t feigning to be motivated by some grand political or societal good; they’re malignant capitalists who would sell their own children, and would tell you as much. GOG dons the robes of a grassroots pinko activist while dancing to the exact same corporate tune.