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GOG.com - Polish company puts saran wrap over the toilet bowl, yells "PUNK'D"

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D

Dennis

Banned
Any idea what the publishers would be unhappy about?

Its not like they are going to sell the old games themeselves. Why not make a few bucks?

Or are they afraid gamers will see what PC games were like before everything got dumbed down?
 
F

fizzelopeguss

Banned
CD Projekt's co-founder Marcin Iwinski

http://news.bigdownload.com/2010/01/28/interview-cd-projekts-co-founder-talks-gog-com-the-witcher-2/

Although we are still in Beta and preparing for our "official" launch in early 2010, we have indeed been up and running for a good year now. We can't share any detailed information about sales or users, but I can say that all of us at GOG.com and CD Projekt are very happy with the reception by gamers and the performance of the service.
Click to expand...

Very unlikely that it's the money aspect.
 
P

Prime crotch

Banned
charlequin said:
The idiot publishers they were licensing their games from seem to think that. :(
Click to expand...
It's much better to let the ips rot in some underground vault.

I'm guessing the "industry" was their biggest enemy; I think I even recall a case of a developer trolling the forums
 
S

Stumpokapow

listen to the mad man
Sysgen said:
No surprise. Saw this coming along time ago. They would offer games for prices that other services had for as much as 90% less and never would be able to match competitors pricing.
Click to expand...

zuh?
 
E

Edgeward

Member
FFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCKK, I never got around to buying Freespace 2 and Duke. ;_;

My 2nd favorite DD service gone. This day is totally ruined. Fuck.
 
S

SabinFigaro

Member
Truespeed said:
I don't want to see anyone, and I mean anyone, saying that selling old abandonware games for $5.99 was a bad business model.
Click to expand...
I just don't get this. I'm giving you money for many games that are, what, 10-15+ years old?!? How else in God's name can you make any appreciable money from these titles? Way to go pissing off a dedicated fanbase that will now resort to torrents and abandonware sites, effectively giving you zero income.
 
O

Of All Trades

Member
charlequin said:
The writing has been on the wall about this for over a year but I'm still very sad to see it go. GOG was doing a wonderful, morally upstanding thing in preserving an era of gaming history that (thanks to DRM, the disposable-culture zeitgeist, and foolishly short-sighted decisions) is becoming less and less accessible to today's gamers with every passing day -- and by selling cheap, DRM-free products they were one of the few PC game vendors I was willing to patronize. Godspeed (and I hope you come through and give me a chance to download my stuff for archival purposes.)
Click to expand...
M&M 4/5 still required passwords (which GoG poorly explained and was a separated downloadable text file), and others had their protections stripped by GoG. Aside from Ubisoft's current nightmare, today's DRM is far less invasive/restrictive than most of the games of the era that GoG targeted. The window of basic cd-checks being the only form of DRM was narrow.

I had games that stuck copy-protection in at the end of the game. The Battletech game on the Amiga and Indy: The Last Crusade come to mind as games with "oops you threw out some random documentation? Sucks to be you!". It's easy to rage against Kids These Days but this is how it's been for a long time.

Also: good job, fuckass publishers. Thanks to your idiotic attachment to invasive DRM for games that would be valueless without services like GOG, you have gone from a situation where you receive steady long-tail sales for all these old games with no work whatsoever on your part to a situation where everyone who wants them just goes and downloads the now-inevitable BigGOGPack torrent some jackass will put together and you receive no money whatsoever. Thanks a fucking lot!
Click to expand...
GoG torrents have been around for a while. It's certainly been a problem from day 1 of the service. And you're assuming there was actually no work involved for the publishers, but I'd bet at least some idiots would pester their tech support trying to get a GoG-sold game working (instead of consulting GoG).
 
S

shintoki

sparkle this bitch
charlequin said:
The idiot publishers they were licensing their games from seem to think that. :(
Click to expand...
You mean the ones who apply the same philosophy that a game pirated is a sale lost! These games are old, they are small in size, already DRM free for the most part, and they are easy to pirate. There really is nothing to stop someone from download these.

But no, let's take away the one legitimate source to purchase these titles. Give you publishers money. Good bye cheap, affordable alternative. Back to overpriced, shitty condition ebay copies.

fizzelopeguss said:
Very unlikely that it's the money aspect.
Click to expand...
It was probably publishers putting pressure on them to add some sort of DRM. They said no, support was pulled. If it was money, then it would have been a slow burn.
 
B

benny_a

extra source of jiggaflops
Conspiracy nutcase incoming:

What if Sony's recent efforts with selling games they sold you earlier again made publisher's change their mind?

I mean the God of War Collection was a big success. You know The Sly Collection is coming, you know Team Ico collection is coming. Mortal Kombat HD is rumoured.

I mean only good games were part of the service anyway, and looks like Sony is currently only doing this for good games as well.

GOG was of course about PC games, but they also had to invest time into getting it to run on the newer versions of the Windows OS. And then after that the prices were very low.
With the different collections the investment is probably much higher, but the price they charge was also higher.

I don't have numbers from either one, but this could be a plausible scenario in my mind.
 
A

arstal

Whine Whine FADC Troll
Minsc said:
Damnit! Release AoWII:SM first!!!

:(
Click to expand...

Already out on Impulse.

http://impulsedriven.com/aowsm


Stumpokapow said:
1

2) Bummer. A lot of great old games, including Master of Orion 2, are only available on GOG and having them go back "out of print" sucks.
Click to expand...

Impulse got MOO2 also

http://impulsedriven.com/masteroforionii


Yeah, you're right , a lot of games are out of print now though- like some of those old adventure games.


At least now we're learning what happens when the DD services go boom. No warning either. Hope you had your stuff downloaded- I didn't (but I didn't have that much on there)
 
K

Kipe

Member
arstal said:
Already out on Impulse.

At least now we're learning what happens when the DD services go boom. No warning either.
Click to expand...

Impulse only has the first game. Add me to the list of people planning to get AoW:SM on GOG.
 
O

Of All Trades

Member
DennisK4 said:
Any idea what the publishers would be unhappy about?
Click to expand...
GoG stripped out any existing DRM if they could, added what was needed to get it to run on current PCs, and repackaged it into a single executable file for easy download.

I loved it but basically any game they put up was instantly totally pirateable. And I'm betting that some of the pricing choices (not sure whose choice it was) probably resulted in a 1:100 purchased to pirated ratio.
 
S

Servbot #42

Unconfirmed Member
Why couldn't have been Impulse the one shutting down! Impulse sucks! GOG is a great store! Fuck so many games i wanted to buy are only on gog.com
 
F

fizzelopeguss

Banned
bandresen said:
Conspiracy nutcase incoming:

What if Sony's recent efforts with selling games they sold you earlier again made publisher's change their mind?

I mean the God of War Collection was a big success. You know The Sly Collection is coming, you know Team Ico collection is coming. Mortal Kombat HD is rumoured.

I mean only good games were part of the service anyway, and looks like Sony is currently only doing this for good games as well.

GOG was of course about PC games, but they also had to invest time into getting it to run on the newer versions of the Windows OS. And then after that the prices were very low.
With the different collections the investment is probably much higher, but the price they charge was also higher.

I don't have numbers from either one, but this could be a plausible scenario in my mind.
Click to expand...

i doubt the source code for half of these games even exists for a HD remake.
 
J

Joseph Merrick

Member
Gexecuter said:
Why couldn't have been Impulse the one shutting down! Impulse sucks! GOG is a great store! Fuck so many games i wanted to buy are only on gog.com
Click to expand...
but you'd never afford them! it's probably for the best you can strike them from your list now
 
M

morningbus

Serious Sam is a wicked gahbidge series for chowdaheads.
God damn. Fuck everything about this.

There were still a few games I wanted to buy, too.
 
TheUsual

TheUsual

Gold Member
Joseph Merrick said:
to fix their shitty drm? :lol
Click to expand...
A great opportunity to pick this up and sell these classic games. Customers would probably have to deal with Steamworks, but that's a small price to pay for access to these old games.
 
cicero

cicero

Member
What a complete kick in the gut. I went out of my way to support them with titles I already owned on other digital distribution services or that were being offered cheaper than GoG during sales. They could have at least given people a hint about problems they might have been facing. I would have gone out of my way to pay full price for all the other titles I wanted to buy but was waiting on for a sale... I would probably add a good 10-15 games to the 20 something I already own.

And all that great info on their forums and those user projects and mods...

If we can't trust these guys to stick around and not end up giving us the shaft, how much more for all of the other digital distribution services??
 
M

Mr_Zombie

Member
Wow, this is weird. Just yesterday I got an email about new sales and new titles, and now they suddenly shut down o_O.

A shame, because even though I only bought one title there, it was a great place to find old games that are really hard, or even impossible to find nowadays :(
 
Z

Zzoram

Member
These games are very, very niche. I wonder if the cost of making them work on Vista/Windows7 was more than they could earn back in sales after royalties.
 
T

TheDarkKnight774

Member
Noooo

I had several games I was going to buy, but have been procrastinating (waiting for the next christmas mega sale). Master of Orion, I76, and more.
 
W

water_wendi

Water is not wet!
Of All Trades said:
GoG stripped out any existing DRM if they could, added what was needed to get it to run on current PCs, and repackaged it into a single executable file for easy download.

I loved it but basically any game they put up was instantly totally pirateable. And I'm betting that some of the pricing choices (not sure whose choice it was) probably resulted in a 1:100 purchased to pirated ratio.
Click to expand...
Better 1:100 than 0:100.
 
T

Twig

Banned
Volcynika said:
Their Twitter mentioned this earlier
Click to expand...
I saw that first and thought, "aww, I hope they pull through."

Then I went to the site.

Goddamnit. They were the best DD site, period.
 
H

hamchan

Member
TheUsual said:
A great opportunity to pick this up and sell these classic games. Customers would probably have to deal with Steamworks, but that's a small price to pay for access to these old games.
Click to expand...

The beauty of Steamworks is that a lot of the features are beneficial to both consumers and developers. We don't really have to "deal" with it, more like enjoy it.
 
C

charlequin

Banned
DennisK4 said:
Any idea what the publishers would be unhappy about?
Click to expand...

Braindead publisher executives who do the usual piracy-discussion "hurr durr sales plus torrent downloads equals THIRTY TIMES SALES ALONE!!!!!" math think they're leaving money on the table by actually selling copies of their back catalog rather than leaving them to rot in a vault.

Of All Trades said:
Aside from Ubisoft's current nightmare, today's DRM is far less invasive/restrictive than most of the games of the era that GoG targeted.
Click to expand...

I was basically PC-exclusive through to about 2000 and there's no point up until then that DRM became remotely as invasive as StarForce, SecuROM, or any of the other bog-standard DRM technologies used by big publishers today.

GoG torrents have been around for a while. It's certainly been a problem from day 1 of the service.
Click to expand...

If by "a problem" you mean "a thing that causes ignorant people to believe there's a problem" then yes, perhaps.

And you're assuming there was actually no work involved for the publishers, but I'd bet at least some idiots would pester their tech support trying to get a GoG-sold game working (instead of consulting GoG).
Click to expand...

Oh no, like five guys a year contact the wrong customer service! Heaven forfend.
 
F

Foliorum Viridum

Banned
I went for GOG for the first time a few days ago to see how their adventure game section was and it didn't really impress me. I hoped there would be more of a selection there than Steam offered.

That's about my only experience with it. Still sad, though. It was doing good things for other people.
 
TheUsual

TheUsual

Gold Member
Zzoram said:
These games are very, very niche. I wonder if the cost of making them work on Vista/Windows7 was more than they could earn back in sales after royalties.
Click to expand...

The scenario I'm thinking is that the service is gone for good and no one else is wanting to touch it.

I'm also thinking that someone like Valve could pick this up from CD Projekt and with the money it makes off of Steam, subsidize the sale prices. Then again, we don't know if they were losing alot of money, maybe because of being DRM free had something to do with it. I can hope.

This is all speculation.
 
O

Owzers

Member
What the..........I have 4 games i bought but didnt' download. I need to seriously stop buying games that i don't play for awhile, all those Steam jokes about building a backlog won't be so funny when people never get to play those games. I see that they say they will have a solution to redownload games, but it's hard to take a company seriously when they close the site down without a warning. The last email i got from GOG it was on 9/16 about their new deal of the week and new purchases for sale.
 
B

Boonoo

Member
bandresen said:
Conspiracy nutcase incoming:

What if Sony's recent efforts with selling games they sold you earlier again made publisher's change their mind?

I mean the God of War Collection was a big success. You know The Sly Collection is coming, you know Team Ico collection is coming. Mortal Kombat HD is rumoured.

I mean only good games were part of the service anyway, and looks like Sony is currently only doing this for good games as well.

GOG was of course about PC games, but they also had to invest time into getting it to run on the newer versions of the Windows OS. And then after that the prices were very low.
With the different collections the investment is probably much higher, but the price they charge was also higher.

I don't have numbers from either one, but this could be a plausible scenario in my mind.
Click to expand...


There isn't that same need for remakes on the PC side of things. With console games the only way you're ever going to get better performance and visuals is with a remake, but with PC games as your hardware improves so does the game (to an extent). While full on remakes (like Black Mesa) have an audience, things like the God of War collection and the Team Ico collection just aren't necessary.
 
H

HamPster PamPster

Member
fuck fuck fuck

I wish I had know a week ago that this was coming since there were games I wanted to buy. Sure I should have gotten around to it sooner. So I'm lazy IS THAT A CRIME

WHY DIDN'T YOU WARN ME GAF :(
 
M

mantidor

Member
NONONOOOOO :(

I never got around to download the incredible machine pack due to space issues, please don't tell me I lost them, at least I still have the Freespace games and The longest Journey, or at least I hope so :(

not enough ":(" can convey how I feel.
 
TheUsual

TheUsual

Gold Member
hamchan said:
The beauty of Steamworks is that a lot of the features are beneficial to both consumers and developers. We don't really have to "deal" with it, more like enjoy it.
Click to expand...

I use Steam big time (have 122 games), but some people to this day don't like Steam.
 
N

Noisepurge

Member
aw hell :/

i was just about to buy "Blood" from GOG, but then i said to myself that i will buy it next month, no hurry to get it now.
 
ipukespiders

ipukespiders

Member
bandresen said:
Conspiracy nutcase incoming:

What if Sony's recent efforts with selling games they sold you earlier again made publisher's change their mind?

I mean the God of War Collection was a big success. You know The Sly Collection is coming, you know Team Ico collection is coming. Mortal Kombat HD is rumoured.

I mean only good games were part of the service anyway, and looks like Sony is currently only doing this for good games as well.

GOG was of course about PC games, but they also had to invest time into getting it to run on the newer versions of the Windows OS. And then after that the prices were very low.
With the different collections the investment is probably much higher, but the price they charge was also higher.

I don't have numbers from either one, but this could be a plausible scenario in my mind.
Click to expand...


More Monkey Island style remakes incoming?
 
T

Twig

Banned
hamchan said:
The beauty of Steamworks is that a lot of the features are beneficial to both consumers and developers. We don't really have to "deal" with it, more like enjoy it.
Click to expand...
stop talking about steamworks

it never ends well in threads about other dd services
 
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