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
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
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.
As long as you kept the files you downloaded, you can ways play the games. I think you might need to take a little time and think next time. Unlike Steam's DRM model GOG has no DRM and doesn't have to every phone home to a server.
Why are you so angry?
GENERATION 25: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation. Social exper
... 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.
The big issue there was that some people had just purchased and as a result hadn't had the chance to download and secondly, they'd promised the customers that they'd always be able to download the games. I'm not sure anybody really believed always, but I do think that most of us assumed that when or if they shut down that there'd be arrangements in place or some sort of warning to download your stuff.
I mean even 3d Realms when they went out of business made arrangements to handle recent orders.
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.
...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. :-)
They do more than that. They verify the games work without problems, using dosbox, under XP/Vista/7. They code and do actual porting on other titles because they have more than just dos games. They remove DRM where it exists. And they've gotten some great exclusives. They're honest (obvious by their amateurish behaviour), they have integrity, they're open and willing to communicate. Give them another shot. Their claim about porting applies to the X% of games they sell that can't run under DosBox and even some that too to fix bugs.
Selah.ca. Pause, and calmly think on that.
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.
This has got to be the most ignorant thing I've read in this thread. You do realize I'll be playing my games from GOG long after they're a "footnote in gamer history" whereas your Steam games will quit working soon after Valve goes tits-up, don't you? Playing offline will only work for so long before the Steam client demands a connection and there won't be any universal unlock forthcoming (I don't know why this myth even persists, it's ignorant in the extreme), they won't own their own assets when it happens and not a single person who could do it, supposing it's even possible, will be willing to go to prison to come through for you. GOG already came through for me, the games can be downloaded, backed up, and installed at will and only the downloading part even requires an internet connection.
Of course Valve/Steam doesn't even have to go down and out, you can lose your account and all your games on their whim. They've been nice so far but that doesn't mean it'll last forever. They're have certainly been wrongfully banned accounts in the past and the only "oops, our bad" I've heard from them involved 1000s of accounts. What happens when 5 accounts get wrongfully banned? They won't investigate and no one will care.
Enjoy Steam if you want, it may be a gilded cage but it's still a cage.