Slashdot Mirror
DRM-Free Games Site GOG.com Gone
An anonymous reader writes "Just a day after adding a new game and a handful of promotions, GOG.com, a seller of classic games in a DRM-free format, has closed shop, leaving only a sparse placeholder page and a mention on Twitter that 'sometimes it's really hard being DRM-free... hard to keep things the way they are and keep management and publishers happy.' The site mentions that games purchased in the past will become accessible for downloading within the week, but there is no word on how long this will continue to be possible."
The announcement on the site's front page says, in part, "This doesn't mean the idea behind GOG.com is gone forever. We're closing down the service and putting this era behind us as new challenges await."
They closed down right in the middle of a sale. A lot of people are unable to get what they purchased.
I don't think this is the end of it.
Perhaps they got hit with a massive lawsuit or someone is considering buying them out?
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
Publishers don't get it. I purchased more games from GoG in a year than I have in the last 10 through any other channel. Specifically BECAUSE they were DRM-free. ;-/
Not because of the no DRM thing, but because all they sold was old games. Those are going to have to be budget priced, of course, and are just not as popular. They probably had trouble making much money since they didn't make a whole lot each sale (at least half, maybe more, of the price goes to the publisher) and there just weren't the numbers. this is particularity true since Impulse and Steam, the big download services, do old games too. You can find a lot of old title on them, and they add more all the time. More people will shop from them, since they already have an account.
It's starting to look like the platform's shutdown is just a marketing stunt. Good Old Games spokesman Tom Ohle told us that "as the site says, this doesn't mean GOG is dead. We will have more to share in the next couple of days." A NeoGAF poster dug up a Polish business forum, in which CD Projekt co-founder Micha Kiciski purportedly mentions a conference dated for this Wednesday, adding, "we'll post information about this soon on GOG.com (please do not panic after reading the information contained there.)" We'll keep an eye out for more info.
Joystiq
in the age of internet and digital downloads, the middleman, publisher, is the problem. not needed anymore, yet they still introduce problems into the production to consumer sequence, right in the middle. actually, in some sectors, they totally control entire sequence.
they need to be removed.
Read radical news here
I bought the Fallout games from them, real sad that they're gone now (or at least, appear to be gone).
The value they added wasn't just removing DRM, but in also making the old games compatible with new operating systems. It's a pain in the ass for me to get some of my older games to work, and I'm more than willing to pay $5 to let someone else do it for me.
Maybe check out Spring RTS?
http://springrts.com/
I guess it depends on what the stunt is. They have been pretty careful not to say that they're closing up shop or going out of business, and the emphasis on "in its current form" seemed pretty clear to me.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
Posted 3 hours ago:
The official statement from GOG.com's management about the whole situation will be announced soon. We'll have more details about this tomorrow.
Sigh. Sure hope this isn't just a gimmick. Like many here, I still have or had quite a number of planned purchases.
Steam is a pain compared to the way GOG works/worked/used to work (?).
I'll write in the present tense, as GOG's future doesn't seem to be set in stone yet.
You get one file (granted, Psychonaut has actually three). You can download the file from a fast server .I never could get a fast, and I'm being deliberately NICE here, so > 100KB/s) download from steam, no matter what ports I opened. You can make as many backups as you want of the setup file. Installation is straight forward, and you get some bonus material with many of the games (like soundtracks, concept arts, ...).
If you install some third party mods, GOG won't start telling you your copy is not valid and start re-downloading the original files neither, which, for example,means that you can slap Freespace2 Openontop of your FS2 install without any difficulties.
Compared to Steam, which asks me to validate my games online if I don't play for a while and then force me to download 1GB of updates even if I just wanted to play, I'll take GOG games everyday.
Yes, the games are old'ish, but that is definitely not a problem if you are more into gameplay than eyecandy (although, as an example, a modded Freespace2 is a good looking Spacecombat simulator/game even by today's standards)
I really hope it's just a very stupid publicity stunt and GOG comes back.
"DRM is like the Ford Pinto: it's a smooth ride, right up the point at which it explodes and ruins your day."-C.Doctorow
There's no "stunt" to this. It says right in their notice that the site is ending in its "current form" and that it will eventually return. Which contrasts with Joystiq's sensationalist headline that GOG "shuts down" (also Slashdot's).
What CD Projekt actually said in the forum was that posting the notice on the current site (which IS closed and isn't just going to be reactivated) was part of a process to raise awareness of the new site that will take its place, which is pretty plain from the notice that they posted, had anyone bothered to actually read it.
Marketing yes, stunt no. This isn't Death (and Return) of Superman. They said right up front what was going to happen. Just because people glossed over the text and rushed to print a headline, well, that kind of makes the editors at Joystiq (and Slashdot) out to look like tools. Don't try to shift blame to CD Projekt for this.
Having purchased games from both GOG and Steam, I'd pick GOG over Steam any day. I'd argue that Steam made it more complicated, if only because they force you to install and use a client. And then it forces me to download the game again if I choose to uninstall it from my HD. GOG was a simple download and install, always. I never had to download the game again after uninstalling it, I could just burn it to DVD as is, or move it to another HD.
That's a blatant lie.
They offered old games that worked on modern systems without tinkering. Can't get that on Piratebay. You sure can get dubious "cracks" and viruses though!
The main function a publisher provides for videogames is money. Games are expensive to develop. Game studios cannot always assume that financial risk. Remember that if you self develop you have to pay everyone's salaries, all the costs, while it is being developed. If it flops, you are SOL. So publishers are companies that put up the money. That is their primary function. You sell them a game idea they like, they put up the costs of developing it.
Along those lines, they function as the business side of things. A bunch of programmers might not make for the best business team. The most classic example is Duke Nukem Forever. 3DRealm had lots of money from the original Duke title so they could self publish, if they wanted to, and elected to do so. However that meant nobody was minding after them to release it. So they faffed about and delayed things and so on. Eventually it became a joke, a lot of wasted money, and ultimately their demise. In a situation with a separate publisher they could have said "No, the game is looking good as it is. You go in to crunch mode, and we ship in 9 months." Might not have been The Best Game Evar(tm) had that happened but it would have been a game, not a perpetually half-finished project.
Publishers also do marketing and distribution. If you think that is easy or unnecessary then that only exposes your ignorance of the situation. Stores are still where most sales happen (ask Stardock, they publish, develop, and sell online, they'll tell you stores still outsell online 3-4:1). Publishers make sure people know the game is coming out, negotiate with stores for shelf space and release dates, and so on.
In fact, because of the distribution, even some self funded shops use publishers. Valve funds their own development, but uses a publisher for physical distribution (Activision I think).
Also none of this is relevant to the older games being talked about. Even if you think they shouldn't have been paid for by a publisher, they were, meaning the publisher owns the rights and sets the rules.
This is called "prejudice". In most circles it's considered a negative thing.
Why? You clearly have access to the Internet. Product activation is completely invisible and automatic. As for DRM, well, I realise some people hate it on religious grounds, but it's really not that bad.
Sure, one day in the hypothetical future Valve's servers could disappear, leaving you unable to play your games any more. This is no different from non-DRM-encumbered games you own on physical media, which could stop working at any time due to loss of or damage to the CDs.
Denying yourself jam today and tomorrow because of the hypothetical possibility that you might only be able to get it today is just silly.
(Personally, I've actually bought copies on Steam of older games I also own on physical media. It's only a few bucks, and the convenience of being able to install the game at the click of a button -- instead of having to dig around for the disk and then hope it still works -- is well worth the money. Strange, really: this suppsoedly evil DRM platform means I can play games I own more easily than the DRM-free versions!)
It was probably sour anyway.
I agree, but a lot of people will choose Steam over other platforms because they've already got steam. But I'll look for whatever option has the least DRM.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Last time I checked they didn't sell Ubuntu apps. I've never bough anything from them. Looks like I never will. Oh well.
I have a bunch of their games running on Ubuntu through Wine, or using Linux executables with Gog.com data (e.g. Duke 3D).
The official statement from the owners of GOG.com (CD Projekt) is:
"Attention! We scheduled a press conference on 22nd of September, early evening. Information about this event should be soon available at GOG.com (please, don't spread panic after reading what will be posted there:). Please keep in mind, that it's going to be an on-line conference and it's going to be a very first time for us to try such thing:).
We basically closed all our schedules and we are going to send information about this event on Monday or Tuesday.
MK
CDP"
It was suggested on a forum connected to the company, that this is some kind of mislead publicity stunt... Well we'll see on 22nd.
From someone close to the CEO, supposedly he went to a number of financial organizations and told them to ignore what was on the front page in the following days. Sounds like a sh*tty marketing stunt. http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=23418875&postcount=240
But the cool thing is, this doesn't affect their customers' ability to play games in any way.
If Steam shut down, though...
This makes me sick to my stomach. I loved GOG. I plugged them often on my own blog. They have a permanent link there. I purchased many, many games from them and don't regret it at all. GOG had integrity, great prices, no DRM, great games, great community, great throw-ins, great sales. Argh! Why! It makes me wonder if the "good guys" can make it. My faith in humanity has again been dimmed a little bit.
Selah.ca. Pause, and calmly think on that.
The stunt is in shutting down suddenly, without warning, and, apparently, in the middle of a sale. If this was planned, it's a stunt. They could have announced ahead of time, even just a day or a week ahead of time, that they'd be shutting down for a period before reopening. Hell, they could have announced ahead of time that they were shutting down permanently, and probably gotten some kind of fire-sale/goodbye-sale revenue.
Doing this suddenly produces shock and probably some panic from long-time customers, and that's why, if it was planned, it's a stunt.
I was initially really excited by the service, and hoped it would fill the void from when GameTap dumped the good client and went with the atrocious web-based infrastructure. Unfortunately, GOG had a terible bait-and-switch policy that kept me from using them (after the first bad purchase). While they specifically claimed to be porting games to modern systems, all they did in many cases was bundle the games with DOSBox and call it a day (without mentioning this in the FAQ). At one point the site FAQ read:
"4. All games are Vista and XP compatible. Thanks to our handsome programming team, the classics are now Windows Vista and Windows XP compatible. Now you can use your lightning-fast PC to unleash the full potential of those games you just couldn’t play properly on that busted old 386."
Well, this simply wasn't true. I had my original copy of Redneck Rampage, but was never happy with it under DOSBox. So, I bought the GOG version, expecting to get a real port. I was surprised to see that not only was the GOG product was just a DOSBox wrapper over the original game, it was LESS functional than the version I had with my tweaked settings.
Dude, Torchlight was on GamersGate (GG), not Good Old Games (GOG). Torchlight wasn't old enough to be considered 'old'. King's Bounty was, however. For reference, though, here's how to ID the sites (without URL):
For the nay-sayers, GfWL is already at 3.0. Just proof that 3.0 doesn't fix everything at MS.
They were profiting by selling games which rightfully belong to the public domain.
The geek's sense of entitlement can be wonderful to behold.
Syberia 2 is six years old.
Many games in the Gog.com catalog were less than ten years old, less than fifteen years old.
iD open sources aging game engines. It does not open source IP that remains commercially viable and makes their games and corporate identity unique.
It's wrong to do this kind of poor bloody marketing stunts. Very angry at GOG now, probably having a stroke soon.
I would expect a "big announcement" like GOG Beta Closed / GOG Release 1 Opened. Anticipated by the fact that their sale closed down at 11:59 AM on Sunday (from memory). I was a bit surprised because usually sales close down on Monday.
No need to patch anything as those are old games. So far, they were all already patched to the latest official version.
That's pretty much all there is to it. Start the setup, check EULA, click install. Optionally click "Start Game" instead of "Close" when the installation is done.
"DRM is like the Ford Pinto: it's a smooth ride, right up the point at which it explodes and ruins your day."-C.Doctorow
It wasn't racism, but it is prejudice.
He admits to never having used steam and yet declares he will never use it.
Used, dude, not seen.
We could equally ask why most have a prejudice against dying, never having "tried it?" Of course, people generally come to that conclusion because they've witnessed it and/or heard anecdotes about it. Fact is, direct experience and/or experimentation is often a bad way to form an opinion.
Or we could try heroin together, just to be sure, right? ;^)
What the GP expressed is called a "preference," as in, "I will never try sushi because I am afraid of the potential bacteria/contamination issues." A sushi fan can reassure the person of the hygienic nature of the food to no end, but the person has a reasoned aversion based on fact (uncooked food can carry food-borne illness) which is, in the view of a sushi fan, unreasonable.
Such a fan has a prejudice against facts, however, because he's conflating facts with opinion. In the GP's Steam case, "I don't like the idea of needing a network connection to acquire games," is enough. It is factual, as Steam requires it. "My catalog could be cut off arbitrarily with no remedy" passes muster, too, as it is a part of the user agreement.
These are facts.
It is your opinion that it is unreasonable to believe that these facts will come to any great losses, and you are likely to be correct, but that is not a fact, it is merely presumption.
Prejudice happens when it is a known fact that what the person believes is utterly untrue or distorted, and they don't realize it because they are unwilling to find out, or even believe accounts refuting their prejudice. I really doubt, after all these years of Steam being around, that anyone is stalking the net badmouthing Steam having never seen or understood it.
Give me a break. The GP has a preference for an alternate means of game purchase. Those options exist and he's willing to pay more for it, and that's the end of it. It isn't remotely prejudice, just because you disagree.
--
Toro
Sure, one day in the hypothetical future Valve's servers could disappear, leaving you unable to play your games any more. This is no different from non-DRM-encumbered games you own on physical media, which could stop working at any time due to loss of or damage to the CDs.
Wrong. there is one big difference.
It['s a thing that is becoming more and more fashionable to ignore and pretend doesn't exist. It's called responsibility.
Looking after my copies of my games bought from GOG is my responsibility. I have all the tools at hand to protect against any loss of data. If one copy is lost or damaged, I have a backup copy (which I can then use to make another copy just in case I have another accident). If something happens to that data, it's my fault and my problem.
If Steam (or whatever other service) goes away or is taken away, it's someone else's fault but my problem.
Like others have already said, this is most likely a marketing stunt for getting out of beta. Yes, they have been in beta for the last 2 years and like the message in the site says, "we've decided that GOG.com simply cannot remain in its current form". At no point do they really say that GoG is gone. They mention change and that you will be able to re-download the games you have bought. They also had a promo running and this "announcement" happened on Sunday, which would be highly unlikely if this was a real site closing situation. A real closing announcement wouldn't come suddenly out of the blue without any previous indications of internal or external problems that caused it, nor would they do it on Sunday when most of the workers (and boss staff) are not working.
Some of their games simply could not be found anywhere else. Not even on TPB. They had a version of Arx Fatalis that was integrated with the latest patch that played nice with modern graphics cards. A sort of hacked patch that tries to accomplish the same thing is available, but it is hard to find and the developers claim it is buggy and unsupported. I guess it needed to be integrated into the source code directly in order to function properly. My understanding is that they worked with some of the developers directly to get their old games working on modern hardware and OSes. They made a big mistake IMO in not having a separate category for truly custom binaries that are more than just a dosbox install with tested-as-working settings. I never knew whether they were just selling a DRM free version that could be found on TPB/Emule or whether they had actually worked with a developer to modify source code or produce a custom patch. Does anyone know of a comprehensive list of all of their games that were sold with custom binaries which can't be found anywhere else? Was Arx Fatalis the only one?
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
There's many good games I would have liked to have purchased (starting with Half Life 2). Guess I'll never know what it would have been like to play that game.
Half Life 2 is fucking awesome.
Help I'm a rock.
There was a lot of buzz about this yesterday, but in fact this is just a very stupid marketing stunt.
All they're doing is going from BETA to NORMAL activity but they make it look like they're closing shop for the extra attention and "phew" effect afterwards.
How do I know? Well, apparently there were some warnings about this not to be taken seriously by investors in other parts of the interwob.
If a train station is a place where a train stops, what's a workstation?