As far as lack of GOG-specific achievements are concerned, that's the result of devs choosing to tie them in with Steam in the first place, ie, had they made achievements "internal" to the game (like Dragon Age Origins), they'd be present and naturally supported on every platform (inc even physical retail disc or client-less offline installers). By making them "external" (ie, locked into store-front specific API's), they become more 'social' to that platform, but it also multiplies the effort in supporting multiple store-fronts. This has always been the paradox of supporting achievements on more than one store-front - because gamers want to compare them 'socially' online, they don't want the "easy way" of doing it (coding them in-game), they want the "hard way" of locking them uniquely to each store front then having to go back and recode them for each additional store-front client they sell on.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1pDO6WTHLHyrrtidQ1MAxW6u8j3BxUaGcFaJsVyWj2QY/edit#gid=0

^ Merely looking at that list, removing 800 games from GOG as you seem to suggest would shrink GOG's catalogue by 25-30% overnight. Many games have technical limitations, eg, Slipstream, The Count Lucanor, etc, can't have them as GOG SDK doesn't support Java. For Artifex Mundi, it would mean rebuilding some games in a new engine.

Lack of achievement parity may be 'equally unfair' but it also involves a lot more duplicative work than patching a bug once for all platforms simultaneously. Likewise I'll be blunt and state the reason Steam invented Steam-only, Steam-locked stuff like Steam Achievements, Steam Workshop, etc, is not out of charity. It's to habitualize devs into using it by default then getting them to feel that it's 'too much effort' to support additional non-Steam stores. And in that respect it's sadly been "mission accomplished".

Because you are literally the only person (regular customer who frequents the forum, at least) who cares that much about achievements as to see it as a massive detriment.

I dont want to (futilely try to) define it precisely. However the context of the OP makes it IMO reasonably clear what is meant: Not producing patches for GOG leaving the game in a state in which (presumably) 'almost all' players believe it to be worse than the state the game is on some other platform.

There are significant differences between 'not having achievements' and 'not patching'. Like 'not patching' disadvantages (presumably) 'almost all' players. Whereas 'not having achievements' is something a lot of players (like you) dont care about.

From my POV a fair solution would be to allow selling all games as long as the issues are clearly (and upfront) documented. (But I dont see this happening.)

Not having achievements is (usually) not an updating thing. Neither is not having language versions. The thing here in this thread described is that the company tricked GOG users to buy the game and then didnt deliver patches. If somebody wants achievements - dont buy until you get them. If somebody wants a language version - dont buy until you get it. Only comparable situation I see here is changing the achievement situation later in a negative way - like removing achievement support from GOG - that would be similar backstabbing of GOG buyers as not patching the game. Its still different though because (presumably) the number of users who dont care about achievements is much higher than the one of users who dont care about patches.

I have frequently spoken out about what I call "update culture". It is something I see constantly on PC in various domains...games, website design, et cetera. I cannot quite understand why people are so insistent about things being updated in general, though it is indeed irksome to update a game on one store and not the other.

Ultimately to me, it is most important to have the game entirely DRM-free than to have the game with the latest patch (and don't get me started on the game "having" to be up-to-date with the latest social media features, they're nice I suppose but it's really just about the game content for me).

Maybe my view has been colored by the poor treatment of offline installers, with constant tweaks and out-of-date versions. I am quite happy with my "unupdated" game in most cases, and in some cases, even see it as a more preferable version! (For example, some devs have tweaked game events/difficulty in ways I didn't care for).

This situation with TinyBuild is a new one. It is abundantly clear that many developers treat GOG users like second class citizens and there is a literal thread about same. But I am not aware of someone from a dev outright making a comment like the one described in the original TinyBuild topic.

To me, the problem isn't the lack of updates. The problem is the outright attitude and gall behind the lack of updates. But, I am content with the couple games I bought from TinyBuild prior to this mess. It would be nice if they could redeem themselves and make things right by GOG customers.

For things which work I agree with the dislike of the "update culture" - like a working web page. Also for things which are made worse by updates - like new version of Windows ~= replace functional mostly-stable OS with a buggy new one with 'random' changes.
But for games this is IME mostly not the case. Almost all contemporary games are released in a buggy incomplete unbalanced state and patches reduce these problems. How noticable this is depends on type of game and type of gamer though. For the games which I play and the way I play them this is critical - I dont even consider buying games until they got a lot of patches and are 'settled' to some degree.

Perhaps because patches that fix bugs are more important to many users here than achievements.

hmmm, teh 1s up to date, naht so much

i think general lee anythang unpatched fooooooooor like, 6 months+ should be open to refunds (site-wide, i mean)

Huh? o.O

Nope, I'm also miffed at devs who don't bother to replicate Steam achievements on their new releases, and sometimes it's enough for me to pass a game up. Though I give pre - Galaxy games a pass.

Sometimes I think that videogames are the one product that should come with warranties even more than electronic gadgets. It would get rid of 90% of all irresponsibility where a game is released in an unfinished, scattered buggy mess, yet without making things too difficult for the store front.

"Miffed" is something entirely different from the chronic diaper rash that Red-Dragon-Baby has.

Another boycott from OFG? I haven't seen one of these for a while, they used to happen regularly

My fave was when he boycotted GOG for not providing a downloadable paper manual for every game they sold.

OFG?

Edit: Oh, the OP.

bwahahahaaw

Well aren't you a clever boy -- NOT. lol