So, this particular elephant in this particular room bugs me a lot, because I'm under the impression I'm treated like a complete fool.

GOG is selling these games they are trumpeting they will maintain to have them be playable. OK, but how is that different from the Before Times when they were also selling these games, and also maintaining them? Presumably for the reason that selling a non-functional product isn't a very attractive proposition from the (potential) customer's point of view. If that Win7 work needs some more work to make a title function under Win12 you either put the work in and keep selling the game, keep potentially profiting from it, or you don't do anything, keep the game up on the store and draw ire from your customers, because you're knowingly selling damaged goods, OR you delist it, and that's not very... uh, preservationist of you. So, am I to assume that games not inducted into GOG's prestigious Chosen list will, at some point, become non-functional? That's also a terrible idea to implant into your customers, but that's what they suggest on the flipside of all their new marketing. It's just stupid to do it this way, no other way for me to say it.

I mean, I get this is marketing, but I think they handled this (non-)switcheroo poorly. It just bothers me. Even if you soften the angle into "additional effort/special care" that still makes the alternative kind of uncomfortable to spell out ("yeah, they're baaaaasically playable, sure, whatever"), but at least that's - I think - preferable to what we have now.

Or, they started saying the quiet part out loud and since they're doing it via marketing they're actually putting it through a megaphone. Time will tell.

For some years now GOG has been making me uncomfortable with buying games on their store. A lot of what they do or say, or what we hear is happening or not happening internally has that "this is extremely uncertain and unstable as a business that they have no idea how to run to turn a profit" subtext.. I hope I'm reading too much into this. And I'm assuming with Alpha Protocol, Croc and maybe some others they got a cash injection to try and get some profit going, but I'm still watching them closely, and not believing that's possible. There's little to no money in preservation, that's flat-out not what preservation is or is about. And I'm just not sure Croc was spending that money wisely, as much as I love Croc. Where this seems to be going - to me - is to a point where CDPR, a public company, will run out of arguments for keeping GOG afloat. The shareholders will demand blood. All the game preservation hot air won't matter at that point.

Sorry to be a downer.