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[gregor7777]

The one big fear people have with DD services are that they will close down, leaving you unable to get your games. You just don't prank about that. Its crazy :lol

It was a matter of time. At some point, a "major" DD outfit was going to close up shop and we'd get to see just how far a company in financial trouble would go to cater to their former customers and how it would look for the industry.

Frankly, GoG was one of the last companies I thought would crash and burn this badly. At least, it looks really badly right now and what you posted is absolutely correct. This entire market is based on trust and that's the one thing they can least afford to fuck with.

 

[Twig]

http://www.gog.com

"Unfortunately we had to close the service due to business and technical reasons."

...

"We're closing down the service"

...

a whoops

NO NEED TO BE A DICK BUT I GUESS THAT'S JUST HOW SHIT GOES WHEN YOU ASK A QUESTION

 

[Deleted member 17706]

Hrmm... if anything the new update makes me think they are just going to re-open the site on Thursday. I don't know, though.

 

[Askia47]

It doesnt sound like a prank

 

[Artadius]

a whoops

NO NEED TO BE A DICK BUT I GUESS THAT'S JUST HOW SHIT GOES WHEN YOU ASK A QUESTION

 

[ChackanKun]

WTF? I thought they were having a good profit :|

 

[morningbus]

If they were going to just reopen the site on Thursday, why not just say that? Instead they specifically say we'll get to download the games we paid for. Not that we'll be able to buy new games, or anything else, just that we'll get access to what we've bought.

 

[Stumpokapow]

a whoops

NO NEED TO BE A DICK BUT I GUESS THAT'S JUST HOW SHIT GOES WHEN YOU ASK A QUESTION

i don't really think my response was that harsh.

 

[Twig]

WTF? I thought they were having a good profit :|

I think that profit is probably not the problem. Rather, ongoing support from the bigger publishers is waning or was going to start waning soon.

http://i742.photobucket.com/albums/xx68/Togglesworlh/Ludwig%20von%20Koopa/ludwig.gif

];

i don't really think my response was that harsh.

Nope! I was having fun with my response. Sorry!

 

[gregor7777]

go grab some coffee Twig :lol

 

[Twig]

go grab some coffee Twig :lol

I almost never drink coffee in the morning. O:

 

[morningbus]

i don't really think my response was that harsh.

That's just the way Twig is. You're better off responding in a manner he bests understands:

twig ur dumb.

don't be mad.

but u dumb, jabroni. u:

 

[Safe Bet]

This has been a bit of a blackeye for the DD realm IMO however you slice it.

It's only the beginning.

IIUC

"Virtual Goods" is an excitingly new legal area to explore.

 

[Twig]

That's just the way Twig is. You're better off responding in a manner he bests understands:

twig ur dumb.

don't be mad.

but u dumb, jabroni.

You know me so well, lover. :3

 

[Stop It]

Worst prank ever

"Haha, our DD service is dead.....no, just kidding.....hahaha"

Consumer confidence in your ability to run a service. It matters.

:lol probably the boss IS the PR guy. They gotta be a small outfit.

Put it this way, if this was a prank and the site was "re-launched" later this week, they would be out of business by the end of the month, nobody would touch the site ever again.

GOG had a HUGE level of goodwill within the community and was generally lauded for their Anti-DRM approach. If the High-ups at CDP are stupid enough to destroy that all just to take GOG out of "beta" then they deserve to go out of business.

Of course, I do not believe for a second that this is a prank for the reasons above. CDP have a great relationship with their customer base and they would not be stupid enough to do this deliberately. I await the news on Wednesday, but I am tempted to email the media dept to get some answers, I know who I could ask it on behalf of too. Hmm...

 

[ChackanKun]

I think that profit is probably not the problem. Rather, ongoing support from the bigger publishers is waning or was going to start waning soon.

Even so they had a really good catalog already, no need to shut down I think. Oh well, better remember to download all my games this Thursday :|

 

[Flying_Phoenix]

http://www.gog.com

"Unfortunately we had to close the service due to business and technical reasons."

...

"We're closing down the service"

...

Wait so they really are closing down their service completely never to return?

 

[Twig]

If it comes back (if) it will be with the stipulation that any new purchases come with DRM. Of this I have no doubt.

(That's also if this isn't all some big prank as some are suggesting - which seems unlikely to me, because, as Stop It has pointed out, CDP has a good relationship with its customers/fans.)

Even so they had a really good catalog already, no need to shut down I think. Oh well, better remember to download all my games this Thursday :|

By waning, I mean going away entirely, not just stop adding new games. As in, publishers were probably going to pull out their support and leave the service entirely.

Whether or not that's true is, of course, still up in the air at this point. We'll know more on Wednesday!

 

[kodt]

Shit, I wish they could relaunch the service for just a few days or one week so we can buy any games we missed from the existing catalog.

 

[MomoPufflet]

Shit, I wish they could relaunch the service for just a few days or one week so we can buy any games we missed from the existing catalog.

This... :/

 

[Monroeski]

wanted to get hold of some choice old games form them, dammit

Damn. I was planning on buying Beyond Good and Evil from them.

If they return with DRM, I won't be using their new service. I don't buy from Direct 2 Drive for this reason, and I don't see how adding DRM will improve sales.

Shit, I wish they could relaunch the service for just a few days or one week so we can buy any games we missed from the existing catalog.

Funny how many posts like this are in the thread.

"It's too bad they are closing down because they weren't making enough money, I wanted to spend a bunch of money there but I never did!"

 

[John]

Funny how many posts like this are in the thread.

"It's too bad they are closing down because they weren't making enough money, I wanted to spend a bunch of money there but I never did!"

well i've got to say, one problem that i had with their sales strategy was that usually games were only discounted in bundles. so if that one game i want is "60% off," i've got to spend $30 on 5 other games i don't care about too.

 

[gregor7777]

Funny how many posts like this are in the thread.

"It's too bad they are closing down because they weren't making enough money, I wanted to spend a bunch of money there but I never did!"

It's not our responsibility to hold a company up even if we're a fan of the service or the product. We all have wish lists of shit we want. I'm not investing in them by buying way before I have any need...I'd rather buy the product when I'm able to use it.

 

[Mimir]

Funny how many posts like this are in the thread.

"It's too bad they are closing down because they weren't making enough money, I wanted to spend a bunch of money there but I never did!"

There were still plenty of titles I wanted to buy from them, but I still bought around 80-90 games. I was hoping to catch up during some of their slower weeks.

 

[MmmSkyscraper]

The game doesn't have a mouse in-game, but on the menus it should have. Seems that on some resolutions (random ones) it dissapears just becasue. So you can't even select the freaking menus.

FFFUUU, I hate that shit. Not sure if that's worse than games where the visible position of the mouse has no relation to where the actual position is. Happened to me with the menus on Crysis and the shitfest GFWL stuff on Fallout 3.

 

[Minsc]

well i've got to say, one problem that i had with their sales strategy was that usually games were only discounted in bundles. so if that one game i want is "60% off," i've got to spend $30 on 5 other games i don't care about too.

That's not really true, they were generous and the vast majority of the times those kind of sales ran, if you only wanted 1 game in the bundle (maybe you already own the others or just don't want them) you still got it for like 25-30% off, the larger discount was indeed only for those purchasing the full set, but they gave you something if you just wanted a piece of the set. There was the rare sale that required you to buy both titles to get the savings, but those weren't very common.

 

[Twig]

Funny how many posts like this are in the thread.

"It's too bad they are closing down because they weren't making enough money, I wanted to spend a bunch of money there but I never did!"

I have a huge GOG.com wishlist.

I also have a huge Steam wishlist.

I also have way too many games already that I haven't even played.

I've decided to be smart about buying games instead of stupid. AND NOW YOU'RE BERATING ME? Well fine. ):

 

[charlequin]

Valve giving Portal Away for free for a week most likely won't invoke that much collective rage.

Well, my point was more that when something is sensible, communicated honestly to customers, and has no drawbacks or major problems it's a "promotion"; it's only when it involves foolishness or inappropriate behavior that it becomes a "stunt." :lol

Funny how many posts like this are in the thread.

"It's too bad they are closing down because they weren't making enough money, I wanted to spend a bunch of money there but I never did!"

Well, it's one thing if someone's literally never bought anything from GOG before ever, but I mean, I've bought like 10 games or so on there, I come back and buy more occasionally... I'm not going to just buy every game I might ever hypothetically want to play on the service all at once or anything. :lol I'm sure there's stuff they had on there that you can't buy elsewhere and which I could very conceivably have bought in the future if it remained available (Freespace 2 is an obvious immediate example.)

 

[Monroeski]

It's not our responsibility to hold a company up even if we're a fan of the service or the product. We all have wish lists of shit we want. I'm not investing in them by buying way before I have any need...I'd rather buy the product when I'm able to use it.

I don't see where I said or implied that you had a responsibility to do anything.

I just think it's funny how people come out of the woodwork claiming they wanted to buy a bunch of stuff from a given company when they never actually bought the things from said company during the months/years they were offering it before. Happens over and over.

I mean, they certainly had things that I may have wanted to pick up in the future as well. I just think it's interesting.

If they came back on today and said they were still going out of business no matter what, but their store was going to be open for 24 hours, how many people would go in and start buying a ton of crap? I'm sure I would join in, but honestly, if what they were offering was so great they wouldn't be in this position in the first place.

 

[VALIS]

What a clusterfuck. This has been a bit of a blackeye for the DD realm IMO however you slice it.

This plus being locked out of my entire Steam account for weeks this summer over a problem concerning one purchase has me awfully twitchy about DD in general right now, and I've always been one of its biggest proponents.

 

[Twig]

I don't see where I said or implied that you had a responsibility to do anything.

I just think it's funny how people come out of the woodwork claiming they wanted to buy a bunch of stuff from a given company when they never actually bought the things from said company during the months/years they were offering it before. Happens over and over.

But... we did buy things. We just didn't buy everything we wanted. Do you buy everything you want?

Gosh, I sure wish I was as rich as you! Think you could spare some change, sir?

 

[Foliorum Viridum]

Play the dos version in Doxbox.

I can't figure out DOSBox. Tried before.

 

[Twig]

I can't figure out DOSBox. Tried before.

Try a DOSBox frontend. http://www.dosbox.com/wiki/DOSBoxFrontends

I can't remember which one I used back when I found all my old DOS disks ages ago, but I think it was D-Fend. http://dfendreloaded.sourceforge.net/

No idea if it is good or not, but it worked for me back then. U: It might make things easier!

 

[MmmSkyscraper]

Dance Central looks more awesome every time I see it.

 

[Foliorum Viridum]

Try a DOSBox frontend. http://www.dosbox.com/wiki/DOSBoxFrontends

I can't remember which one I used back when I found all my old DOS disks ages ago, but I think it was D-Fend. http://dfendreloaded.sourceforge.net/

No idea if it is good or not, but it worked for me back then. U: It might make things easier!

Sounds interesting. Thanks! It was like staring at Latin before so maybe this will help me out. :lol

I'll try it tomorrow

 

[Mareg]

I can't figure out DOSBox. Tried before.

Don't want to promote anything but there are really nice frontend nowadays that streamline everything Dosbox related. Making it effortless to emulate almost any dos game.

 

[charlequin]

I just think it's funny how people come out of the woodwork claiming they wanted to buy a bunch of stuff from a given company when they never actually bought the things from said company during the months/years they were offering it before. Happens over and over.

None of the posts you quoted included anything suggesting they had never bought from the service. I don't think "boy that store which is closed now had items available for sale that I hoped to purchase eventually in addition to those other items I had already purchased" is an odd or particularly ironic position to express.

 

[Monroeski]

But... we did buy things. We just didn't buy everything we wanted. Do you buy everything you want?

Gosh, I sure wish I was as rich as you! Think you could spare some change, sir?

I never said anything of the sort. I never even implied that they DIDN'T have things that I wanted to buy, and in fact said as much in my edit of the above post.

You can't make a post about anything around here without people jumping down your throat like you personally insulted their mother.

None of the posts you quoted included anything suggesting they had never bought from the service. I don't think "boy that store which is closed now had items available for sale that I hoped to purchase eventually in addition to those other items I had already purchased" is an odd or particularly ironic position to express.

Sorry. Next time I make an off the cuff comment I'll make sure to add a three page addendum covering every possible eventuality and my bulleted thoughts on each.

FFS, it's a message board. Get over it.

 

[Minsc]

Don't want to promote anything but there are really nice frontend nowadays that streamline everything Dosbox related. Making it effortless to emulate almost any dos game.

I will then, get one of the D-Fend Reloaded pre-configured packs here (be sure to also get the main program package too), such as the platformer pack which comes with:

Freeware: Alien Carnage, Bio Menace, Electro Man, Jazz Jackrabbit: Holiday Hare, Jazz Jackrabbit: Holiday Hare 1995
Shareware: Commander Keen 1 (Marooned on Mars), Commander Keen 4 (Secret of the Oracle), Cosmo's Cosmic Adventure, Crystal Caves, Duke Nukem 1, Duke Nukem 2, Halloween Harry, Hocus Pocus, Jazz Jackrabbit, Jill of the Jungle, Math Rescue, Monster Bash, Realms of Chaos, Secret Agent, Space Chase, Word Rescue, Xargon

And then find a profile from a game that is around the same time as the one you want to setup and copy it, just editing the directory/file info, and you should be good.

Really this is the best front-end by a long shot (assuming you're running windows).

 

[kodt]

Funny how many posts like this are in the thread.

"It's too bad they are closing down because they weren't making enough money, I wanted to spend a bunch of money there but I never did!"

I try not to buy too many games at once b/c of my backlog. I had every intention of buying a few of them, but not until I actually had time to play them. That time would probably be years off, but still. Knowing that the service would shut down I would have spent the money up front.

I bought around 20 games from GOG, there was at least 15-20 more I wanted to get at some point in the future.

 

[bhlaab]

dosbox is really simple once you figure out that conf files can act as a sort of autoexec and you can also set up short cuts to run conf files.

The front ends tend to make things more complicated than they need to be anyway!

 

[Stop It]

Now, I am just going to post this, and leave this to people who know finance more than me.

http://www.bankier.pl/wiadomosc/OPT...o-informacji-poufnych-2212111.html#pvy7zfso61 <--Translated into English shows that 4 shareholders with access to "confidential" information (Board members of Optimus) sold shares in the company last week.

The date are the key here, they started the process to sell them after the 15th of September, and finished the process on the 17th. On the 17th of September Optimus announced an EGM (Emergency General Meeting) with a view to create new shares, this would significantly lessen the value of existing shares.

Anyone who knows how financial markets work will understand this, and will know why I am NOT going to comment on it. The above is public information so it's OK, but to draw anything from it would be foolish of me (Not in public anyway).

 

[Deleted member 47027]

Now, I am just going to post this, and leave this to people who know finance more than me.

http://www.bankier.pl/wiadomosc/OPT...o-informacji-poufnych-2212111.html#pvy7zfso61 <--Translated into English shows that 4 shareholders with access to "confidential" information (Board members of Optimus) sold shares in the company last week.

The date are the key here, they started the process to sell them after the 15th of September, and finished the process on the 17th. On the 17th of September Optimus announced an EGM (Emergency General Meeting) with a view to create new shares, this would significantly lessen the value of existing shares.

Anyone who knows how financial markets work will understand this, and will know why I am NOT going to comment on it. The above is public information so it's OK, but to draw anything from it would be foolish of me (Not in public anyway).

Oh MY. :O

 

[androvsky]

Now, I am just going to post this, and leave this to people who know finance more than me.

http://www.bankier.pl/wiadomosc/OPT...o-informacji-poufnych-2212111.html#pvy7zfso61 <--Translated into English shows that 4 shareholders with access to "confidential" information (Board members of Optimus) sold shares in the company last week.

The date are the key here, they started the process to sell them after the 15th of September, and finished the process on the 17th. On the 17th of September Optimus announced an EGM (Emergency General Meeting) with a view to create new shares, this would significantly lessen the value of existing shares.

Anyone who knows how financial markets work will understand this, and will know why I am NOT going to comment on it. The above is public information so it's OK, but to draw anything from it would be foolish of me (Not in public anyway).

Wow, that's... not good. I guess in this case, the shutdown was warranted so everyone knows that when the site comes back up, they damn well better hurry up and download their games while they can.

 

[Erasus]

So where they not making a profit or what?

 

[MomoPufflet]

Funny how many posts like this are in the thread.

"It's too bad they are closing down because they weren't making enough money, I wanted to spend a bunch of money there but I never did!"

Gee, so I guess wishlists and financial priorities shouldn't exist-- we should just buy everything we want immediately right?

You're also assuming they haven't already bought several games from them.

 

[cicero]

Shit, I wish they could relaunch the service for just a few days or one week so we can buy any games we missed from the existing catalog.

YES. At the least, this is what I want. Well, now that I know I will be able to download everything available to me previously too that is.

 

[SapientWolf]

Now, I am just going to post this, and leave this to people who know finance more than me.

http://www.bankier.pl/wiadomosc/OPT...o-informacji-poufnych-2212111.html#pvy7zfso61 <--Translated into English shows that 4 shareholders with access to "confidential" information (Board members of Optimus) sold shares in the company last week.

The date are the key here, they started the process to sell them after the 15th of September, and finished the process on the 17th. On the 17th of September Optimus announced an EGM (Emergency General Meeting) with a view to create new shares, this would significantly lessen the value of existing shares.

Anyone who knows how financial markets work will understand this, and will know why I am NOT going to comment on it. The above is public information so it's OK, but to draw anything from it would be foolish of me (Not in public anyway).

Isn't that insider trading? And isn't creating new shares a common strategy to prevent a hostile takeover?

 

[Instro]

Now, I am just going to post this, and leave this to people who know finance more than me.

http://www.bankier.pl/wiadomosc/OPT...o-informacji-poufnych-2212111.html#pvy7zfso61 <--Translated into English shows that 4 shareholders with access to "confidential" information (Board members of Optimus) sold shares in the company last week.

The date are the key here, they started the process to sell them after the 15th of September, and finished the process on the 17th. On the 17th of September Optimus announced an EGM (Emergency General Meeting) with a view to create new shares, this would significantly lessen the value of existing shares.

Anyone who knows how financial markets work will understand this, and will know why I am NOT going to comment on it. The above is public information so it's OK, but to draw anything from it would be foolish of me (Not in public anyway).

Well that throws the whole "this is a hoax" thing out the window. :lol

 

[Odrion]

Shit, I wish they could relaunch the service for just a few days or one week so we can buy any games we missed from the existing catalog.

THIS. AGGGGH.