Slashdot Mirror
GOG.com Not Really Gone
gspr writes "On Sunday, Slashdot and many others reported that DRM-free games site GOG.com was shutting down. Now the site is back, revealing that it was all a hoax. According to the site: 'Now it's time we put an end to all the speculations once and for all. It's true that we decided that we couldn't keep GOG.com the way it was so we won't. As you probably know by now, GOG.com is entering its new era with an end of the two-years beta stage and we're launching a brand new GOG.com with new, huge releases.' So it was all an advertising stunt."
They still won't have DRM and they still won't have a download client.
Love it or hate it, this is one of the more successful marketing stunts of late.
They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it's not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance. - Terry Pratchett
Love it or hate it... Hate it! ...this is one of the more successful marketing stunts of late.
Comment of the year
I hate it when people and companies pull stuff like this. But for once I'm glad it was just a stunt, because I'd hate them to disappear. Maybe if it was a good enough stunt, they'll even get increased traffic. More importantly, maybe it'll help remind people how sad it would be if the site WAS gone.
The stunt worked, they got two front page /. articles about them. Of course, the downside is that they're now on my blacklist.
GOG has been gaining popularity and consumer visibility, ESPECIALLY in the past few months. Unless they were hit with a huge lawsuit or financial disaster, there would be no reason for them to close permanently.
Sincerely,
A not surprised (yet very relieved!) gamer
Living With a Nerd
You know, the day they went down, I had just been introduced to DXX Rebirth and was going to buy the original Descent 1 and 2 from GOG.com to get the game content. Then they pulled this stunt. I am less likely to purchase anything from them now. Because I hate stupid bullshit stunts like this. But then, they probably will make up for any lost sales by the simple fact that now a whole lot more people have heard of GOG.com than before...so I doubt they care.
It was all a demonstration of what inevitable happens to DRM media.
I only have 2 games from them, but this kind of weird drama does make me less likely to purchase anymore in the future. It just seemed super unprofessional compared to steam and impulse.
Wow! What a concept. Promote your site by doing something that may cause the majority of people who might be interested in it to delete their bookmarks and never come back.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
If this is an advertising stunt, does that make the old GOG.com a stunt double?
Essentially, they call their customers suckers after taking away access to the games they chose to pay GOG money for, then call them too sensitive for feeling pissed off by that ("We're sorry you were offended"), then say that taking money for games is no longer good enough, so everyone's just going to have to take, oh, let's say whatever we decide is good enough for you.
This certainly matches with the usual playbook of corporate non-apologies - smarmy, fake ingratiation, blame shifting their own words, all while asking for more control and resources.
Say what you want about Steam's DRM model - they don't have this level of open contempt for their customers (yet). I'd seriously reconsider any titles I had associated with these jokers if I were ever looking to publish.
Ryan Fenton
Sorry, this does not come across as a professional way to present yourself.
Could you imagine if you get a message from your doctor stating that it was vital you call them back immediately, your absolutely must discuss the next step of your therapy or risk severe illness or even death, and when you call them in a panic, you're told that your results were fine, you should get a little extra exersise, and they just wanted to make sure they got your attention?
That's a way to lose customers.
Everything I know about marketing I've learned from Mad Men.
Don Draper, Roger Sterling and Bert Cooper don't like stunt advertising gimmicks, so neither do I.
Seriously though, this kind of a stunt pisses me off, it's cheap, weak and I won't buy from them again.
Wait a second --- you mean that someone hacked into their computers and brought everything back on line against their will?
Long happy sigh of relief. As a long time and VERY loyal customer, I'm going over there and buying a couple of the games I've had my eyes on.
... this stunt was horrible and silly and an annoyance. I recently reinstalled my computer, and when I went to Gog.com to redownload Gabriel Knight I got that stupid "zomg we're closing down" message. It feels like something straight out the 1990s, when nobody expected any degree of seriousness from Internet companies - thanks for reminding us how WE SHOUDLN'T TRUST YOU in the future, that's great marketing.
I sincerely hope that they didn't get hit too hard with credit card chargebacks when they dropped the site. That may have proven to be an expensive stunt.
Man, I'm glad that they are returning, and I like the countdown on the site; the sense of anticipation reminds me of back when they were starting the closed beta back in 2008. Can't wait to see what my favourite website will look like when it reopens tomorrow :)
Whoever organised this stunt needs to be shown the door. They've managed to do permanent damage. What's more it was so badly executed you wonder if it was the incompetent work of a 3rd grader.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
"Yes my brother Gog was right. How were we to know the comet would land right in the middle of our giant warehouse. It's a cataclymic sale down here. We're up to our poor necks..You're crazy we got'em. Your nap will rise again and that's my story...Good god its Magog brothers, Atlantis Carpet Reclaimers, serving Hooker, Heater, Hellmouth, and the low desert area."
-- Firesign Theatre from "Everything You Know Is Wrong (and dogs fly spaceships!)"
I don't know, this smacks less of "hoax" than it does of "we thought we were through but we managed to pull off some kind of Hail Mary Pass and now we're downplaying how close a shave it was". Is there any evidence that this was their plan all along?
So far as I can tell, nothing they said was untrue, people just read more into it.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
For 2 months the GOG forums have been rife with posts about how their birthday event better live up to expectations, or else (else is always ominously undefined). I think many customers were getting a little annoying. Living 2-3 days thinking GOG might be gone probably grounded a lot of these folks and imo it serves them right. I've purchased a ton of stuff from GOG and will continue to do so, since they're still offering the product that I want.
I was depressed when I saw the notice not because I wouldn't be able to redownload some games I'd lost in a hard drive crash but more because there's no other company like them. GOG folding would be essentially saying, "Okay, Steam wins." Steam sucks in my mind, if that's online game sales, count me out. I already feel marginalized for enjoying PC games (even if I do have a 360), I'd be left with only indie titles sans DRM on my PC. I like my indie titles but I also like some of the big releases and the classics.
I think there might have been a couple of behind the scenes reasons for doing this and all in all, it will benefit GOG in the longrun. It probably cost them some goodwill in the short term, but if the cost is low enough that's not de defacto a show stopper.
Honestly, when I saw their previous announcement, I instantly thought "Oh, they're just revamping their site".
Clearly, you are mistaken. The only rational and sensible opinion on any matter is the one identical to mine. Therefore, no sane poster here can "disagree" in good faith. So, someone who "disagrees" can be safely presumed to be acting in bad faith and modded appropriately. (I.e., "Troll", "Flamebait", or the ever-effective "Overrated".)
Am I kidding, or am I serious? Good question.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
All the people who said they had failed was either reading a bad summary or didn't check it out for themselves.
Their temporary page had two things.
First, was, they "could not continue operating like this". Now, that can mean they're going out of business, or it can mean something else. The literal translation is, "change is happening". That change could be "this site is dead", or it could be "please wait for the new and improved GoG 2.0".
Secondly, they said "you will be able to download all your games on Wednesday". So something was happening today. If they were shutting down, it's a last-gasp download mania.
Fact is, they didn't say "GoG.com is now closed for business, we thank all our customers for the past 2 years". It's also sort of unprofessional, because it screws everyone who bought a game just before they shut down, but haven't downloaded it yet (which is a dick move).
Seriously. The site was down. The general consensus was that it was a stunt, a dumb stunt, but would back up soon. Et volia!
Nobody was *seriously* inconvenienced, and if you were, it is because you didn't save your purchased games, and you didn't get to play them for a few days, boo hoo.
What a wonderful way to foster credibility
Apparently they'll be selling Baldur's Gate when they relaunch. Given that, I don't think I'd care if they had choked a puppy. I would still forgive them.
Hey mods! Just because you don't agree with the post, it doesn't make it a troll.
You must be new here.
I can't stay mad at you!
Here's hoping for a massive sale to make up for all the hurt feelings.
...is the negative reactions now.
"Huff! Puff! Well, *I* won't be buying form them again after *this* treatment! Harumph!" Seriously, people, do you have any idea how you sound? Like a curmudgeonly old fool. Oh, you are SO offended! And you know *someone* out there is thinking of suing because their fragile little selves were damaged.
My reaction was "Oh, shoot, I was going to go and get Syberia next week." and then "Oh, cool, I can still get Syberia." Any reaction more serious that that is a complete failure of your perspective matrix.
As for Syberia, hey, I played the updated Monkey Island and now have an urge to go play some of the point and click puzzlers I missed. Weclome back, GOG. :-)
In their original announcement they said they'd be back up with a solution for existing customers to still be able to download their previously purchased games. That should have been enough to satisfy everybody who's complaining about this as some kind of offense to their customers.
What this did was make everybody who's considered purchasing from GOG but has been putting it off (including me) think "Oh CRAP- I wish I'd bought from them while I had the chance, before they ran out of funding." Now there's a chance to do that. I think it was a clever marketing ploy; a lot of people care about the existence of some kind of outlet for non-DRM games but haven't been doing a lot to vote with their dollars, and this gave people a nudge to go ahead and do that.
I stopped using GoG pretty much right away based on their deceptive advertising practices (claiming to port games to modern OSs when all the did was wrap games in DOSBox.) This marketing stunt is just more of the same sort of manipulative deceitful stuff that kept me from being a customer. Whatever their launch plans and service are, I won't ever see it.
What they did has the entire internet talking about it, so it is brilliant. Their current clientele is very small compared to what they need, so it was likely worth the risk of losing some people. Gog.com has extremely high Professionalism since that is what marketing is all about. Using a radical approach to attract people is fine, and they said people would be able to access their games again on Thursday.
I have no problem with what they did, because I do not trust any company. I am at the age where I just do not care or get worked up about what they do. I bought 1 game from them, downloaded it and backed it up so if they ever went out of business I would be in great shape.
The pictures of food in menus and on boxes always look better than the actual product. Disclaimers are now placed on everything stating that the product may differ in some way...etc. We live in a deceitful marketing society where nothing is like it seems.
If all the haters actually understood what GOG is, as individuals, as a company, and as a service, compared to Steam, say, you'd grok what they do and just learn to accept the admittedly amateurish publicity stunt and just be glad they're not gone.
Who else is doing what GOG does? Where else are you going to get DRM-free, XP/Vista/7 compatible, inexpensive, absolutely great classic titles legitimately and with such good service?
If you want them to be professional and compete with Steam, they're doomed. Steam has "slick" covered. But if GOG tries to find its own niche, they have a fighting chance. GOG has to be different to do what they do.
Honestly, I don't like much like the stunt, either, but I am glad it was a stunt and not the more expected bankruptcy.
I'll take honest amateurism over shiny, slicked down professionalism any day of the week.
Selah.ca. Pause, and calmly think on that.
I wonder how many charge backs they got from their stunt and from what I saw, it looks like they came damn close to getting hit with a Federal Charge of Credit Fraud. Hell Someone may still push charges, which is certainly going to cost them lots of money to fight. Then you have the potential that their marketing stunt costs them their merchant account, meaning they can't accept credit cards, which would put them out of business. I'm sorry but that marketing droid needs to be disassembled and recycled immediately as it's prone to high risk actions without sufficient reward. Bad Droid.
Mod me up/Mod me down: I wont frown as I've no crown
Stop acting like GOG screwed you over for no reason; they HAD to shut down the website for a little bit so they could update the interface! How is that so hard to understand? Why would you ever be upset at them going out of beta? I bought things from them before and just because they closed down the day you wanted to buy something you hate them? Just wait until they come back, no big deal!
"Our country is not nearly so overrun with the bigoted as it is overrun with the broadminded." -Archbishop Fulton Sheen
I've been a gog.com customer since their early access beta in September 2008. While I am certainly annoyed by this blatant publicity stunt, I'm far more relieved to know that gog.com is still in business.
This stunt aside, the folks at gog.com are very cool. Not only do they release affordable and fantastic games - most of which I'd never heard of; but they are clearly doing this as a labour of love.
I host an annual LAN Party for the Computing students where I work. I contacted gog.com before going on a shopping spree there to see if they had any objections to me using a single paid copy of each of their games for the one-day event on the entire lab full of machines. Of course, there was no technical problem with this, I just wanted to check that they had no objections with this.
Far from objecting, they very quickly and enthusiastically gave me the OK and asked that I take pictures of the event to share with them. They were completely professional and reasonable to deal with.
So, for about $100 I was able to legally fill a lab full of machines with great games, some of which were new to the students. What a deal.
(I should also mention that Valve has been equally generous with Steam licenses, though they typically work for 24 hours only, which doesn't give me much prep time. Valve the company has also been much more difficult to communicate with.)
Anyway, back to the thread at hand: Welcome back GOG.com. You got me fair and square. Now DON'T EVER DO ANYTHING LIKE THIS AGAIN.
Now please excuse me while I rush off to buy the copies of Syberia and Another World that I'd been meaning to pick up...
The ATA spec clearly says this, if you listen to a backwards recording of it narrated by James Earl Jones.
you had me at #!
and I certainly won't start now. I'll stick with Steam, Valve doesn't have to stoop to such underhanded practices to gain popularity or even commercial viability. Never mind the fact that Steam will be around long after GOG is nothing but a footnote in gamer history.
No instead they just didn't allow people to download the games they had purchased just so they could get some publicity.
They sell cheap older games, right? Exactly the sort of thing I would buy on impulse to play on my laptop on the 6 hour layover at an airport.
Now I didn't buy anything from them and wasn't traveling in the last few days. But I did do exactly that on steam last month, and boy would I have been pissed if steam had decided to not let me download the game on my laptop because I foolishly waited until the day after I bought it to do so.
So they locked people out from getting games they had paid for? Isn't the whole reason to go with them over DRM to avoid such foolishness?
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1792512&cid=33632372
Nah, actually I'm so long here I have tons of karma to burn while playing "cyber-dutch-boy with finger in levee".
Well, it's time for GOG2.0 and ... Slashdotted. Damn!
For what it's worth, I thought this was a pretty clever advertising move, and am not at all offended by it. Servers go down all the time for no reason. This one had a reason -- marketing. So what?
The worst part, as far as I'm concerned, is how they made such a huge deal over this when, judging by the videos, it's really not a major improvement. GOG already had all the features we need, and it worked really well. Adding social networking and a Facebook "Like" button doesn't really add much value.
...replying to an AC. I ought to know better. Anyway, it has nothing to do with convenience. It's about business and the philosophy behind how one ought to be run.
I own and run a small business. If I randomly lied to my customers for PR stunts, they'd think that's pretty dickish. So do I. Businesses need to build relationships with customers and the management staff have to decide what kind of relationships they want to build. Lots of companies like to build "you give us money for our products and/or services and we'll screw you every chance we get" relationships and manage to do quite well that way.
GOG.com just announced you can't believe them. That's not the kind of company I like doing business with. When I tell my customers something, I mean it. I prefer doing business with companies that follow the same creed whether it's convenient or not.
Yeah, they've generated more traffic than they could have imagined a week ago. Grats boys. Live it up. Good job.
Still an obnoxious, immature prank.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
What's wrong with you? A security guy couldn't figure out on your own what the hints really meant? And now you're out for revenge? Are you a gamer or a griefer? Cannot stand a bit of harmless fun? Not the mark of a professional. Go work for the TSA.
I think people are overreacting to this...
Come on, every single day I read stories about how the games industry is not fun any more, how EA and others are "souless corporations" that grind everyone, I read people complaining about lack of creativity, about DRM... And when we have a good old-fashioned, stunt, from a very nice and solid project, people start screaming and pointing fingers...
Granted, GOG are not developers, but I think that what they are doing is class A stuff: providing us with DRM-FREE versions of rock-solid games from ages gone, for cheap-steal prices, and with the cooperation of publishers, that's an amazing work!
Every single day I read a commend about how Steam is evil and it's "DRM" will "swallow our souls", but when someone actually rolls up their sleeves and puts together a very solid collection of old games, that you can download as much as you like, install as much as you like, and basically "keep forever", people only seem to notice them when they do a harmless stunt, and everyone comes bashing them.
And yes, the stunt was harmless. Yes, the site was gone. But you are supposed to have the games on your hard drive because you downloaded them already when you bought them!! And all the games I have from GOG sitting on my hard-drive didn't stop working magically. If GOG really got out of bussiness, I would be very sad, but I would still be able to play, reinstall, enjoy all my bought games. And I know some people were mid shopping, but come on, isn't it a bit of an overreaction, screaming "zomg, we can't trust them!!!"? I bet that most of the people that said it have their nice sweet facebook pages, and are probably not as vocal about all the issues that fb have, but hey, maybe I'm just being a troll... just say'in...
Anyways, I've been with GOG ever since I first heard about them (I believe it was a Slashdot story), and I'm a very very happy customer. I believe it's a very valid project and it was probably very hard to put together (I can imagine how many negative answers they got from publishers in the beginning). We should support companies like this, and that's what I intend to keep doing.
Rock on, GOG! You are awesome!
"A sysadmin is a cross between a detective, a police officer, a gardener, a doctor and a fireman"