You're allowed to discuss and search for alternatives to GOG on the forum as well. From a corporate standpoint, I would say such a policy is idealistic/honest to a fault.

My heart salutes them for it while my brain wonders what they're thinking.

Hang on tight! Don't give up! You can do it!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gt_Se7BtSQg

Well we got the blue dot back :)

And the purple one so it ain't that bad.

When did you hear about this?

Over here over the past month or so.

It's good PR at least.

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Read post 97 here :)

The zoom guys/gals even have a discord where they're taking suggestions and such for games and the site/etc, iirc.

Lots of requests have been posted there, for example:

Commander Keen games
Heretic
Hexen and Hexen 2
No One Lives Forever
Serious Sam games
Powerslave

All of those share in common that GOG still has not managed to get them yet, (well Serious Sam 2 and beyond anyway)

Well Zoom might be able to get them....steam got some of them iirc, so maybe zoom can as well.

At least I hope so.

The question is: does this PR have a net positive or net negative effect on long-term profit? I wouldn't be that enthusiastic about customers using the community page of the store to band together and encourage shopping from the competition instead.

There are always more people who observe than participate in discussions, so there are tons of potential customers that can be swayed by the negativity regarding the store.

It might be a mix of both, leaning maybe slightly one way or another and shifting over time)

True, still if they tried stamping such out they'd likely lose even more business.

That is somewhat fine, imo, if a store has warranted that negativity & the shift in buying from said store might get them to change their ways a bit.

Also even if they didn't allow such talk, people would do it in private or on other sites.....the streisand effect, etc.