Goodbye... gog.com?

[lost_soul]

For those who don't know, this is (was") a site that sells classic PC games at good prices, free from the malware infestations that plague many modern games. Apparently they've shut down. I purchased many games from these guys, (like Rise of the Triad, Blood 2, Duke3d, Descent 1/2, and others). I was smart enough to save my games locally, and they've promised to let people re-download their purchases. I'm not upset about that, I just want to see these guys succeed and stick around/get bigger. They were the last place where I would bother to support the mainstream game industry at all, unless you count the used market.

 

So, hopefully this is a joke or something.

[Mortem Desino]

Wow. I'm glad I purchased Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura when I did.

 

Sad stuff. Their prices were more than fair, and downloading directly to your hard drive was so convenient. Maybe business just wasn't supportive enough. They were event totally legit licensed publishers for them old-timey games from Apogee.

 

I wonder if 1-800-GAME-123 still works in the United States. Commander Keen sez that's their phone number after quitting to DOS.

[lost_soul]

Yeah I was gonna buy Blood 1 + all expansions for $5.99, just after I find the time to beat the Blood CD-ROM that I picked up for twice the price used last year.

[Fidcal]

So here's another loss in pc game sales. Ironically it's probably not piracy that's killing off pc game sales but unpopular anti-piracy methods. Actual sales lost are say 1 in 100 of pirated copies but anti-piracy is trying to combat the 100. In doing so they are discouraging say 10% of sales. Net result is they are 9% worse off (and climbing) while deluding themselves they should be 90% better off.

 

Looks like I'll be playing T4 on my XBox. Likely the next generation of game console won't work without a permanent internet connection monitoring what I'm doing and charging for it and selling that info on so the only games left will be indies.

[jaxa]

I wonder if 1-800-GAME-123 still works in the United States. Commander Keen sez that's their phone number after quitting to DOS.

 

The universe is still toast.

[rich_is_bored]

The gaming industry has grown into a behemoth. It's hard not to notice the corporations with teams that number in the hundreds spending Hollywood sized budgets. How many units did they sell? How many millions did they make? Should any of that matter to the old school PC gamer?

 

Let those who are after money follow it to the console. You won't miss them. It's the little guy who takes risks that you want making your games. That's how you end up with the gems everyone has thus far mentioned.

 

The Internet has changed the game. Now instead of trading floppy disks we trade links. Word of mouth isn't limited to local and freely available tools, software, and documentation is just a click away should you want to make a game yourself.

 

Speaking of great games has anyone purchased MineCraft? That should cheer you up.

[Midnight]

Minecraft is a good example of how old school original ideas are still around, in the indie scene. Due to server problems minecraft is currently free (until the server gets sorted), so get it now if you want to try it out.

 

I hope that gog isn't actually shutting down, it's possible that they've simply decided that DRM free isn't feasible for all games and are going to offer a mixture of both DRM free and DRM games (ie for new titles as some publishers may be reluctant to offer their new games without DRM).

[jaxa]

Minecraft had their PayPal account arbitrarily frozen a week or two ago. It contained 600k euros of payment/donations at the time. Looks like it got resolved though, thankfully.

[lost_soul]

"Looks like I'll be playing T4 on my XBox. Likely the next generation of game console won't work without a permanent internet connection monitoring what I'm doing and charging for it and selling that info on so the only games left will be indies."

 

More likely they will require you to go online when you buy a new console game to "tie" it to your hardware. This would prevent lending, used games, and rentals.

 

I had actually sent a few e-mails to some game publishers, asking them to sell some 4+ year old games on gog. Never got a reply. I'm perfectly happy to pay for a product that doesn't contain malicious software, and I've got boxes of PC games here.

[Tanuki]

I get the feeling that when they (gog) comes back they will be using a cloud based streaming system like OnLive or something. I'll be damned if I give them another drop of my money if that happens.

 

in the future I think that most of the big name companies will either ramble on over to producing game box exclusives or switch to a purely online (mmo-ish) publishing format. inde designers like Wolfire will just replace them, and we will all be the better for it with a few "big name"releases furthering engine development but most of the actual gameplay releases being perpetuated by enthusiasts like you guys.

 

uhh ... that's kind of a complicated way of saying it (and pretty far off topic, I had to check what topic this was because I got carried away and forgot) but I think things will shift to the UDK style format. where we will have a few people putting out game engines, but most of the PC game releases will be from non-professional teams.

[Stormbringer951]

My money is on GOG coming back as a part of another larger digital distribution system, like Steam or Direct2Drive. Apparently, they won't be DRM free any longer, if indications from their twitter feed is true:

 

Sometimes it's really hard being DRM-free... hard to keep things the way they are and keep management and publishers happy.

[plasticman]

Loved their regestration form that offered so many gender options.

I think I decided to be "Jedi".

[Tanuki]

I'm sure that GoG will be back too but I can't help but feel that after all this drama it's just not going to be the same. I can deal with DRM, hell it's not like I didn't grow up in the day and age of disk in the drive to play ... even experienced the tail end of riddle tests from the manual ... just so long as I'm not renting the games and watching a youtube video of myself playing said games.

[Stormbringer951]

It was all a sodding joke! Phew... I was worried there....

It was all thinly veiled allusions toward their beta phase coming to an end, rather than the site disappearing forever. But it was one that saw users unable to access their games for five days, without knowing if they’d get them back.

 

Unfortunately GoG chose to deliver the message by dressing as monks and expressing “our humble apologies”, stating that “we have sinned”. Rather than any sense of contrition, they’ve instead chosen to continue their joke.

 

The site needed to close down for the update, but choosing not to explain this to their audience with any clarity. Boasting “a lot of hints”, they imply that it was the audience’s fault for not having gotten the joke. A joke, they say, was because they feel the industry is too “stiff”. They have not been bought by a larger distribution platform, and will continue to be an independent publisher.

 

Source

[jaxa]

Yup all a hoax. I suppose it was a successful hoax in that it made customers consider what they had "lost" in terms of a convenient DRM-free seller for old games, although some people are blithely not forgiving the service as if a few days shutdown and a little media whoring was ever a huge inconvenience. One poster claimed that the more vocal customers were getting annoying on the GOG forums saying that the 2-year anniversary event had to be killer or whatever. I'm guessing the new bit is that they'll sell more contemporary games? I didn't bother looking at their array of marketing videos they put up to explain this incident.

 

http://games.slashdot.org/story/10/09/22/1916232/GOGcom-Not-Really-Gone?from=rss

[SneaksieDave]

The effect it had on this un-aware, non-customer:

 

1. I became aware of their service.

2. I learned not to trust their service.

 

So is it a wash?

[Tels]

The effect it had on this un-aware, non-customer:

 

1. I became aware of their service.

2. I learned not to trust their service.

 

So is it a wash?

 

I am not entirely sure what to make of it, tho. Not trusting them is one thing, but aren't their games DRM free, so why should you trust them after the purchase? (You cannot trust into a company not going bankrupt, so you need a local backup, anyway...)

[SneaksieDave]

Yeah I've wondered that too. Don't really know how their system works. Why did people "need[ed] to download [their] games" after the site vanished? No authentication either? For that matter, if their games are DRM free, why doesn't one person buying it = 100,000 stealing the inevitably uploaded copy? I guess their stunt isn't completely a wash, as I still don't know about their system. Since this whole thing started, I looked at their catalog and it looks like they have nothing I'd want which I don't already have/haven't finished already anyway.

[Tanuki]

if GoG had closed down WITH NOTICE and I didn't get my games off their servers it would be my bad, but had this been a real shutdown without notice (so I couldn't grab my shit) I'd be sitting on a plane to Poland right now with a pitchfork in one hand and an unlit torch in the other.

 

the ting is that lots of people never download the games they buy from gog.

 

who really buys 5/10/15 year old games for the entertainment value? there have been a few game's i've bought from GoG where they were "new" to me in that I missed them when they came out for various reasons (mostly my PC dark ages when I didn't own a computer between 1998-2003), but by in large the games I buy from GoG are games that I had and loved but lost. as such, I simply buy them for nostalgia.

 

truthfully: I'm probably never going to fully re-play fallout 1&2 + tatics, acranum, and freespace 2, but I still bought them.

 

I should be backing them up, but if I was diligent I wouldn't have lost the game disks in the first place. so, yeah, I'm stupid in that I leave 1/2 of my games on GoG's server for when I get around to not being lazy and back them up. if this stunt is any indication, most other GoG users are just like me so that's why everyone has a major inflamation of the nerd rage gland right now.

 

I'd mourn GoG if it did close down, but only if I had prior notice so I could grab my games off their servers before the end.