TWeaK

If only someone would start a lawsuit against this exact practice...

https://www.pcgamesn.com/the-crew/servers-shutdown-lawsuit

Everyone does not know that, but thanks.

I wonder if Lebanese smugglers will continue (that volume) given they've actually been on the receiving end of Israeli drone strikes?

According to Wikipedia, GOG sp. z o.o. is still a subsidiary of CD PROJEKT S.A.

They are legally separate entities, but why should that affect customers? Why are CDPR games no longer being sold on the GOG store? This almost would be like if Valve stopped selling Half Life on Steam.

I don't think it has anything to do with being "easier to manage". I think the corporate structure is purely for financial reasons. Valve never spun up a second business for Steam.

I also suspect it has something to do with the fact that GOG is a staunchly DRM free platform. It sounds like either CDPR want to sell games with DRM (which means future titles similar to Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous and Baldur's Gate 3 would no longer have a DRM-free option, as CDPR would simply have them on their main store rather than GOG), or CDPR want to include DRM in their own games.

The text above mentions Cross Progression.

GOG and CDPR have always been different branches anyway.

They have and they haven't. CDPR used GOG's infrastructure, and CDPR own GOG, so this makes sense. You don't buy Valve games from the Valve store, you buy them from Steam.

Technically, I think GOG was originally started and owned by CDPR, then became GOG Ltd, and now it's GOG sp. z o.o. However, I think it's reasonable to be frustrated that the corporate restructuring (which is almost surely for their financial benefit) is affecting customers. I bought my games from GOG, because I like GOG, and I liked CDPR for making GOG and holding the same ideals.

According to Wikipedia, GOG sp. z o.o. is still a subsidiary of CD PROJEKT S.A.

What this seems to me is that CDPR no longer wish to sell their games on GOG, perhaps because GOG is staunchly DRM free. Does this mean CDPR are going to include DRM in future games? Or are they merely trying to expand the selection of titles they can sell on their storefront(s) to include those which refuse to be DRM free? Does this mean GOG is going to fall to the wayside, as they will no longer push for DRM free versions of major titles, instead referring them to the CDPR store?

I have DRM free versions of Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous and Baldur's Gate 3. It would be sad if future games weren't available in this way.

No, GOG was the official store for CDPR (as GOG was created and is owned by CDPR), but now CDPR are splitting off, or something. So, for example, your achievements in games like Witcher and Cyberpunk 2077 have been recorded in GOG, but will now be migrated to a separate CDPR service.

So it's not a merger, but a split, however to my knowledge the ownership structure of CDPR owning GOG will remain the same. It's just that they want to separate GOG from their own publisher business. What this means for GOG as a storefront seems uncertain - will GOG continue to sell all games, or will it go back to its original purpose of only old games? Will GOG continue to be DRM free? Will future CDPR games include DRM such as Denuvo? Will GOG eventually die off?

Maybe that might be an option, like if I create a CDPR account now and tell them to transfer to that account rather than migrate and then change emails. I'll give it a go.

Probably, I think I'm going to contacte them and get them to do that, while explicitly stating I object to my email being subject to the new terms and conditions.

Yes, if one company buys a part of another the data can be legally migrated. The data will also become subject to new the T&C's and privacy policy, although there must be an opt out before this happens (which they are providing here). This is more of a split I think, as far as I'm aware GOG are still owned by CDPR, it seems like they're setting up a new division for CDPR games, and maybe GOG is just going to focus on old titles.

For myself, I don't like this. I use unique emails for everything, and this spoils that setup. I don't want my GOG email to be anywhere near CDPR, and vice versa. However it seems like my only options are migrate the email to the wrong service, or lose all my online data.

I'm not too bothered if they're two separate services, beyond whatever that might mean for the continuation of the services. Eg, is GOG going to be worse than it is currently, or is CDPR looking to separate so they can be worse and more like a typical publisher.

The archive link was to archive.today, though, which while they're generally better than archive.org at circumventing paywalls they're quite dodgy and poison DNS from Cloudfire and Quad9.

It's sickening that this has become so routine Israel doesn't even comment on it anymore.

It may be a 6 month sentence with an early release after 120 days, followed by 3 years supervision. However, perhaps if he served the full 6 months he wouldn't have the supervised release.

I don't know, I'm just guessing.