Hitman Is Being Review-Bombed on GOG for Having Online DRM

[Tsing]

Image: IO Interactive



Hitman – Game of the Year Edition launched on GOG this week but has already been review-bombed to a single star after early adopters realized that the game features online DRM. This is obviously a major no-no for a retailer that prides itself on serving PC games without any sort of DRM. While review-bombing is arguably childish, GOG’s Hitman listing explicitly states that the game is “DRM FREE” and features no activation or online connection required to play. This seems to be false advertising, as Escalation missions, Elusive Targets, and user-created Contracts reportedly require an online connection.



“This game has online DRM,” reads the most upvoted review. “You can play though the game with the basic options, but many features, such as unlocking weapons, items, outfits, starting locations and more are locked behind an online...

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[Uvilla]

No bueno.

 

[MadMummy76]

It is not review bombing if it's a legitimate complaint about the game itself. How many times do I need to say that before it takes hold?

 

[Denpepe]

It is not review bombing if it's a legitimate complaint about the game itself. How many times do I need to say that before it takes hold?

You can make a fair review telling people there is DRM and docking points for it which would be fine, just going on a rant over the DRM and not saying anything about the game itself is not a review and as such for my part can be deleted.

 

[MadMummy76]

You can make a fair review telling people there is DRM and docking points for it which would be fine, just going on a rant over the DRM and not saying anything about the game itself is not a review and as such for my part can be deleted.

Well on steam there is no middle road, you either give a thumbs up or a thumbs down, there is nothing else. If you give a thumbs up and just say oh BTW there is invasive DRM, that would never get noticed, and the responsible parties wouldn't care.

On GOG you can't write reviews you just give a rating between 1-5 stars, so if you just give a 4 star rating nobody will ever know why you did that. Is it because the game is a 4 out of 5? Or is the game a 5 star, but it has some massive issue? You can't send a message that way. The only way for the message to get noticed and have an effect is to 1 star the game en masse.

This is the only power left in the hands of consumers to voice their disapproval. Until they come and take this away too. Just as youtube took away the option to downvote comments. Oh, the icon is still there, but it does nothing now. It is only a matter of time before they remove the downvote count from videos as well.

 

[Denpepe]

On GOG you can't write reviews you just give a rating between 1-5 stars, so if you just give a 4 star rating nobody will ever know why you did that. Is it because the game is a 4 out of 5? Or is the game a 5 star, but it has some massive issue? You can't send a message that way. The only way for the message to get noticed and have an effect is to 1 star the game en masse.

Sure you can, there are 40+ pages of them for this game

 

[Brian_B]

I'm ok with people reviewing a game that they have actually played and paid for in any manner they see fit - including review bombing if they want to.

It's the folks that have never played the game that drop a review anyway that dilutes the value.

 

[MadMummy76]

Sure you can, there are 40+ pages of them for this game

Then they are hiding it well, because I sure as hell can't find how to review games in the gog client.

 

[Ditchinit]

Then they are hiding it well, because I sure as hell can't find how to review games in the gog client.

I dunno. I rarely ever use the GoG Galaxy. Try logging into your account using a web browser.

 

[Denpepe]

Then they are hiding it well, because I sure as hell can't find how to review games in the gog client.

I just clicked on the Source GOG on the bottom of the article to see the reviews at the bottom of the game page it links to